page_title: Apollo 20 hoax
section_title: Factual basis
hierarchical_section_title: Apollo 20 hoax / Factual basis
caption_attribution_description: English: Oblique view of Guyot Crater
context_page_description: The Apollo 20 hoax is a hoax perpetrated by a series of YouTube videos which purported that an American and Russian crewed lunar mission discovered evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization on the far side of the Moon.
context_section_description: Like many hoaxes, this story is a mixture of facts and fiction. The starting point for it are photos that NASA astronauts took in 1971 while in lunar orbit during the Apollo 15 mission, the fourth mission that landed men on the Moon. The photos show what look like a cigar-shaped object resting in a lunar crater. The hoaxer apparently used these photos to create the image of a pock-marked alien spacecraft on the Moon. The NASA photos are real. However, NASA never claimed they include images of alien spacecraft. The object in question is apparently nothing more than a natural part of the lunar terrain. Apollo 16 photos of the same crater taken a year later show no evidence of artificial structures.
  In truth, Apollo 20 was a mission that never flew. It was one of the three lunar missions NASA cancelled after Congress reduced its funding, including Apollo missions 18 and 19. The last crewed lunar mission was Apollo 17, launched in 1972. The next crewed mission that used an Apollo spacecraft was Skylab 2, launched on 25 May 1973, followed by Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 (Skylab 1 was an uncrewed mission that launched the Skylab space station into Earth orbit). The Skylab missions were followed by the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, coordinated by the United States and the former Soviet Union in 1975.
  Some of the stages for the Saturn V rockets intended for NASA's three cancelled lunar missions had already been constructed before their cancellation. According to the hoaxer's story, these were all used for the lunar landings of Apollo missions 18, 19, and 20. In reality, NASA used one of these to launch Skylab into orbit in 1973. The others are on display at three American space centers: the John F. Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida; the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas; and the United States Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
caption: The wall of Guyot Crater runs diagonally through the center of this photo taken by Apollo 16 astronauts in April 1972 while in lunar orbit. Some UFO enthusiasts believe the crater wall shows evidence of an alien spacecraft.
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