Fact Check: Debunking Major Conspiracy Theories on Moon Landing and Climate

If you take a look around, the world seems [ __ ] Every time you open your phone, it's more bad news, outrage

farming, polarization, mistrust in the institutions that we're supposed to trust. And it feels like we're living in

a time where nobody agrees on what's real anymore. And now with generative AI, we don't even know if what we're

seeing happened at all. Conspiracy theories run rampant across the internet. from vaccines containing

microchips, 5G spreading illnesses, the Illuminati controls world events, the new world order, celebrities and

politicians secretly being reptilian people. The list goes on. I mean, I'm sure that some of them are based in a

dabble of truth, but some of them are absolutely not. And four of them, which are arguably the biggest and most

popular conspiracy theories of all time, are still being pedled by celebrities and billionaires like Kim Kardashian,

who I'm going to get to in a minute. And the scary part isn't that people believe these conspiracies. It's that your brain

was built to believe them, too. So, in this video, we are going to talk about those force specifically and why people

still believe them in the big year of 2026 because it reveals something much deeper about how humans think, trust,

and attempt to explain the world around us and how we know with absolutely zero shred of a doubt that these are not

conspiracy theories and they are actually real. And by the end of this video, you'll understand not just why

they're wrong, but why they spread so easily. And we are going to start with the most famous conspiracy theory of all

time, that we never actually landed on the moon. >> That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind. >> Because millions of people all over the world still believe that NASA and the US

government faked the moon landing. This was at the peak of the space race. The US and Soviet Union were in a massive

competition for global dominance. And landing on the moon wasn't just science. It was a political victory. And people

believe that the US would have done anything to win that race, even if it meant faking it. That is the entire

foundation that this conspiracy is built on. And those who believe it will typically refer to one of five points to

prove their theory. Even when we are going back to the moon, like right now, if you're seeing this video when it

first comes out, which thank you by the way, the Artemis 2 crew should be on the way as we speak to do a flyby ahead of

Artemis 3's moon landing next year. But even when we land back on the moon in 2027, I'm sure people will still say

that the original was faked. And it's not because these people are dumb or less intelligent. In fact, they could

actually be incredibly smart or curious people. It's because conspiracy theories are built to perfectly take advantage of

the human brain. In 2023, in a clinical psychology study that analyzed over 158,000 participants across the US, UK,

and Poland, they found that overall believing in conspiracy theories comes down to the most basic human nature of

wanting to feel safe in your environment and that the community or tribe you identify with is superior to others. And

a great way to make people feel superior is by making them believe that they are in on something that the others are not,

which makes them no longer just a random person, but someone with an active role in the story. A way to feel like they

have some sort of control or agency in a world that is seemingly designed to make us feel the opposite. And I do think

it's important to not judge people for succumbing to what might be the most basic human instinct. But saying that,

we can steer them in the right direction. >> Do you think that we didn't walk on the

moon? >> I don't think we did. I think it was fake.

[music] I've seen a few videos on Buzz Aldrin talking about how it didn't happen. He

says it all the time now in interviews. >> People always start with the first question. Why are there no stars in the

pictures? I mean, we're on the moon. Shouldn't the sky be filled with them? There's no atmosphere to distort the

image and no clouds to block the view. And despite all of the CGI or the other practical effects they used to fake

these pictures, NASA could not have faked the glorious lunar sky. So, they opted to not include any stars at all.

Well, no. Similarly to how we don't see stars during the daytime here on Earth, it was daytime on the moon when the

astronauts were there. So even though they could absolutely see other stars, they were standing in direct sunlight

and the cameras were set for bright exposure. So the stars were there, the camera just couldn't capture them. Then

people will point to the flag and say something along the lines of, "Well, there is no wind on the moon, so why is

the flag waving?" And they are absolutely right. There is no wind on the moon, but the flag wasn't waving. If

you look closely, NASA inserted a telescopic pole along the top of the flag to hold it outright, giving the

illusion of the flag flying properly. Again, looking to display American dominance. The wrinkles you see on the

flag are not from blowing in the wind, but are from the flag being packed into a tiny storage pouch on the 4-day

journey to the moon. And if you've ever improperly folded clothes and stuff them in a drawer, you've definitely seen the

same effect. Then you have the shadows. Because the shadows aren't parallel. It must prove the light was coming from

multiple sources, aka studio lights. But shadows on uneven ground don't behave like shadows on a flat movie set. The

moon is full of dips, slopes, and craters. And perspective alone can make shadows appear to angle differently,

even under a single light source, which was the sun. And then comes the most dramatic argument. The Van Allen

radiation belts would have killed them. Earth's radiation belts are filled with charged particles and traveling through

them would surely have given the astronauts radiation poisoning. And the easiest way to explain this one is

actually firew walking. People are able to walk across fire without getting burnt because they are traveling quickly

enough to prevent thermal energy from going into their feet and burning [music] them. And Apollo astronauts

traveled through the belts quickly. Their trajectory avoided the most intense regions. and the total radiation

dose they received would have been comparable to an X-ray. But if all of that could be true, the most glaring

question, if we were really able to go to the moon, [laughter] then why haven't we gone

back? Well, we have actually six more times. A total of 12 humans have walked on the lunar surface, and today NASA is

actively preparing to return via the Aremis program to establish humanity's long-term presence on the moon. building

the lunar gateway station for future deep space missions and lunar nuclear reactors. And I mean, well, one day

people may still argue about whether or not the first moon landing was real. I think in the next few years there will

be absolutely no doubt that humans are technologically advanced enough to be on the moon. So maybe this video will find

its way to Kim K's desk. But at the end of the day, I don't even think that she believes the moon landing was faked. I

think she was just looking for publicity. So, moonlanding deniers, [music]

you have been officially debunked. But this next conspiracy isn't about the past. It's actually about the future.

And it might be the biggest threat that we face in our lifetimes. >> The Earth has reached its first

catastrophic [music] tipping point for humancaused climate change. According to a new report by

scientists in Europe, >> probably the most controversial out of all of these conspiracies,

climate change. And in a 2021 survey, 10% of Americans said they don't think climate change is happening at all. 25%

said they believe the climate is changing, but that it is not due to human activity. And another 10% said

they were unsure. Now, climate change denial has personally never made much sense to me. Because if we can agree

that pumping our lungs full of smoke will have detrimental effects on the health of our lungs, then it's easy

enough to buy into the idea that pumping our planet full of gas will also have a negative effect. And I do think that

there is a helplessness aspect to this one because why worry about something that is seemingly so out of our control,

but I'll touch on that in a second. It is true that Earth's temperatures have always fluctuated. We have gone through

periods of intense cooling or intense warming and the planet can survive and even thrive in both phases. It is life

that will suffer. And while some species can evolve and adapt, a lot of them don't survive these transitions. And for

the last 10,000 years, since the last ice age, Earth's climate has been relatively stable, which scientists say

not only helped, but was actually crucial to the development of human civilization. But that stability is now

falling. The Earth is warming up at the fastest rates we've seen in the last 2,000 years and is about 1.2° hotter

than it was in pre-industrial times. The last 10 years have been the warmest on record with 2024 being the hottest

recorded year of all time. So, while yes, the Earth's climate has always fluctuated, other key climate indicators

like ocean temperatures, sea levels, and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are rising at record rates, while sea ice

and glaciers are melting equally as fast. 25% of people are willing to admit that this is true, but they have a hard

time believing that humans are capable of causing it. But by measuring things from ice cores to tree rings to rock

samples, we can track the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. And they are the highest they've been on our planet

for the past 2 million years. While other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide are the highest they've

been in 800,000 years. That is directly tied to the burning of coal, [ __ ] coal, oil. That is directly tied to the

burning of coal, oil, and gas. But hold on. If the world is warming at a record speed, then how have we had such extreme

winter weather in the past 10 years? As the planet heats up, melting Arctic ice can disrupt ocean currents and the

jetream, causing regional cooling in different areas. Warmer air also holds more moisture. Storms become more

intense, bringing heavier rain, stronger hurricanes, and even more powerful blizzards when temperatures are still

below freezing. And I think the final point when it comes to climate change, whether people want to admit it or not,

is that sometimes it can feel like a losing battle, one that people like you and I can't really do anything about.

And sometimes when we're in a situation that seems dire and so far out of our own control, it's easier to deny that

it's happening and go about our lives as if nothing was wrong. And look, I really don't feel like being any sort of

preacher here. But what I will say is that humanity has overcome so many hurdles throughout our existence and

have continued to defy expectations and persevere when things got bad. So I believe or would like to believe that

climate change is just one more problem that our species will find a way to solve. But it starts when we can all

come together and admit that it's happening. So climate change deniers, you have been debunked. We are starting

to see a pattern here. Moonlanding conspiracy says they lied about the past. Climate denial says they are lying

about the future, but this next one takes it a step further. It is not just mistrust in NASA or world governments.

It is a mistrust in reality itself. >> There's at least one truth we thought was indisputable.

>> And the earth is flat. >> Flat. [music] >> The earth is flat.

>> My reality, my senses tell me that the earth is flat and stationary. >> The flat earth is conspiracy thinking in

its purest form. It really has nothing to do with evidence and more so to do with identity. People who want to feel

like they can see something that no one else can. But the truth is we have known the earth is round since 500 B.CE. first

proposed by Pythagoras over 2,000 years ago. The ancient Greeks were able to come to this conclusion because of how

ships disappear when they sail over the horizon. Earth casts a round shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse and

different constellations are visible at different latitudes. Even though they couldn't prove it yet, all of the

evidence that they collected demonstrated that our planet was in fact a round one, and it is the easiest one

to debunk on this list. Satellites show us that the Earth is round. Astronauts have told us that the Earth is round.

Gravity works by pulling everything towards the center, meaning any large object in space will adopt a spherical

shape. time zones, seasons, shadows. None of these things would make sense if the Earth was flat. We have literal

photos of the Earth showing us that it is round. The moon looks like this in the northern hemisphere and like this

from the southern, which would only be possible if people in Australia were upside down in relation to people, let's

say, here in Canada. We can see other planets as well and confirm that they are round. And you can even do it

yourself by buying a telescope. And while flat earth rejects the shape of our planet, this next one rejects

something much bigger. The idea that life changes. And for some people, that feels a little personal.

>> Science doesn't require faith. It requires evidence. >> Well, it seems to me that that's just

what's missing from the whole idea of evolution. >> What's missing?

>> Evidence. Evidence is missing. >> One of the biggest misconceptions in all of science is that evolution is a theory

and not a fact. The idea of evolution was first put forward by Charles Darwin in his book on the origin of species

that came out in 1859, 20 years after he originally formulated his theory. In 1831, Darwin was offered a chance to be

an unpaid naturalist on the HMS Beagle for the entirety of its 5-year around the world journey. For half a decade,

Darwin sailed around the globe globe surveying the coast of South America, Australia, and most famously the

Galapagos Islands, where he took advantage of countless opportunities to observe plant and animal life and to

collect both living and fossilized specimens for later study. Once he got back to England in 1836, Darwin began

reflecting on his observations and experiences and over the course of the next 2 years developed the outline for

his theory of evolution by natural selection where individuals possessing traits that help them survive and

reproduce pass those traits on more often. And over the course of many generations, these small changes

accumulate, causing populations to adapt and new species to emerge. For 20 years, he kept his theory to himself, saying

that it felt like confessing a murder, fearing what would happen by going against the church and the dominant

religious beliefs of the time. And he only did when another naturalist, Alfred Russell Wallace, independently came up

with the same idea, pushing Darwin to release his findings first. And today, you will still hear people say that

evolution is just a theory. But evolution means that populations change over time. And we know this to be a

fact. Bacteria can evolve antibiotic resistance. Viruses can mutate. And species adapt to new environments from

the National Academy of Sciences. Evolution is one of the most robust and widely accepted facts in science. So why

do we hear people call it a theory? It's the same as us knowing that gravity is a fact and can be explained by the theory

of gravity. Germs are also a fact and they can be explained by germ theory. Evolution is a fact and the theory of

evolution explains how it works. And we know that it's a fact because genetics reveal shared DNA across species showing

that all life on Earth share a common universal ancestor. The fossil record preserves a chronological sequence of

life, showing how ancient organisms differ from modern ones and how intermediate forms existed. We have a

remarkably detailed step-bystep fossil record documenting the transition of whales from four-legged land mammals to

fully aquatic creatures over a roughly 10 million-year period. Evolution can be observed directly in populations that

reproduce fast. For example, researchers have watched yeast populations evolve new traits in the lab over thousands of

generations. There is an entire branch of science called biogeography that studies how geographical distribution

matches what evolution predicts. The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated chain of islands on planet Earth. And we

find species of birds, insects, and plants that are found nowhere else in the world, but are distant cousins to

mainland species. So while people might say that evolution is just a guess, multiple branches of science from

fossils, DNA, anatomy, biogeography, direct observation, and speciation all lead us to the same conclusion that life

changes over time through natural processes. And that is what all of these conspiracies have in common. They aren't

really about the moon or the climate or the shape of the earth or even Darwin. It's about something a little bit

deeper. And it can be kind of hard to believe, but conspiracies do offer people comfort. They offer stories in an

often very complicated world. They give us bad guys instead of randomness, certainty instead of chaos, and

belonging instead of fear. Because the truth is, the human brain isn't designed for the [music] truth. It's designed to

search for meaning. And in a world that can feel very unstable, a conspiracy can feel like an answer. But it also shows

us that we get to choose the world that we believe in.