Astronaut accused of punching man

[Kotoseiya Yuichi]

Original Yahoo News page

Astronaut accused of punching man

Tue Sep 10, 2:46 PM ET

BEVERLY HILLS (Reuters) - A man who publicly confronted astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin over whether he actually went to the Moon says the Apollo 11 hero almost sent him into space with a punch to the jaw.

Bart Sibrel, an independent filmmaker from Nashville, Tennessee, said he was trying to conduct an ambush interview with Aldrin outside a hotel in Beverly Hills on Monday when the astronaut punched him and ran away.

"I approached him and asked him again to swear on a Bible that he went to the moon, and told him he was a thief for taking money to give an interview for something he didn't do," Sibrel told Reuters on Tuesday.

The incident was videotaped for Sibrel's second film, which claims to prove that the Apollo 11 astronauts faked footage of their July 1969 trip to the Moon to fool the Soviet Union into thinking the United States had won the 1960s space race.

Sibrel, 37, said he reported the assault to police and was seeking an assault charge against the 72-year-old astronaut.

A spokesman for Aldrin could not be reached for comment. Beverly Hills police confirmed that they are investigating the incident.

The encounter with Aldrin was Sibrel's third since he said he discovered footage in NASA ( news - web sites)'s archives showing that the Apollo 11 astronauts had placed a transparency of the Earth in front of their space capsule window and videotaped it to simulate a journey to the Moon.

Aldrin was the second man to take a walk on the Moon, a feat recorded on grainy black-and-white film footage and transmitted around the world on July 20, 1969.

But Sibrel contends in his first film, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon," that Apollo 11 never left Earth's orbit and that no one has ever walked on the Moon. He also produced a Fox TV show last year entitled "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?"

[Manekineko]

Go, Buzz!

If you want sound arguments which prove Buzz *did* walk on the Moon, go toBad Astronomy web page...

[Kotoseiya Yuichi]

Original BBC news page

Ex-astronaut escapes assault charge

Californian authorities have decided against prosecuting former astronaut Buzz Aldrin after he punched a documentary maker who claimed his moon missions were faked.

Mr Aldrin, famous for his participation in the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, hit Bart Sibrel after he approached the former astronaut outside a hotel in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles and demanded he swear on a Bible that the landing was not staged.

Mr Aldrin responded by punching Mr Sibrel, but said he merely struck out to defend himself and his stepdaughter, who was with him at the time.

Beverly Hills police investigated the incident, which occurred 9 September, but said that the charges were dropped after witnesses came forward to say that Mr Sibrel had aggressively poked Mr Aldrin with the Bible before he was punched.

'False pretences'

Witnesses also told police that Mr Sibrel had lured Mr Aldrin to the hotel under false pretences in order to interview him.

Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Ratinoff told Reuters news agency that a videotape shot by a cameraman hired by Mr Sibrel had shown the film-maker follow Mr Aldrin, calling him a "thief, liar and coward".

Mr Sibrel handed over the tape to police investigators, but as Mr Sibrel sustained no visible injury and did not seek medical attention, and Mr Aldrin had no previous criminal record, no charges were filed.

Mr Sibrel says his new documentary proves the Apollo 11 landings were faked by the Nasa space agency in order to fool the then-Soviet Union into thinking the US had beaten them in the space race.

The two countries had been embroiled in a desperate race to reach the moon, with the US initially trailing after the Soviets became the first to send a man into space and orbit the earth.

Moon walk

Mr Aldrin, the second man after Neil Armstrong to set foot on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission, is one of America's most famous space pioneers.

A former US Air Force pilot who flew in the Korean war, Mr Aldrin joined Nasa space agency in 1963.

Since his retirement from Nasa, Mr Aldrin has dedicated much of his time to publicising space travel for civilians.