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Unpopular opinion: My barber in Cleveland told me he stopped watching moon landing coverage in 1969 because his TV signal cut out
I was sitting in the chair at a shop on West 25th getting a fade when the guy cutting my hair, probably 74 or 75, brought up the moon landing out of nowhere. He said he was 19 and watched the whole thing at his parents' house, but the picture kept going to static right when Armstrong stepped off the ladder. He spent the next 50 odd years wondering if he actually missed the real moment or if the whole broadcast was staged for TV. I laughed at first, but then he started naming specific things, like how the flag moved and how he never saw a blast crater under the lander in any photo. I walked out of there with a decent haircut and a weird feeling in my gut. I'm not saying I buy the full hoax idea, but hearing someone who was alive for it describe the static and the doubt made me realize how much of this debate comes down to what people saw on a fuzzy screen. Has anyone here ever had a random conversation like that with a stranger that made you second guess something you always took for granted?
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jessicajohnson18d ago
My uncle worked at a TV repair shop in Akron back then and he always said the same thing about that broadcast looking like trash because the signal was relayed through like three different stations. He told me the static problems were real and had nothing to do with the moon, people just had bad antennas and old sets. That barber probably did miss the actual moment and spent years filling in the blanks with doubt.
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