A remotely controlled camera captured Apollo 17 leaving the moon, not some doomed astronaut

Are we meant to believe that some lonely soul was committed enough to NASA’s Apollo program to stay behind on the moon just so the space agency could have footage of a lunar takeoff? 

A recent Instagram post suggests as much. 

"NASA moon landing WHO filmed this," reads text above a video clip of Apollo 17 leaving the moon.

"If you believe NASA really went to the moon, then who stayed behind and filmed them leaving?" a man says in the video. "Who filmed this? It must’ve been someone pretty dedicated because they’re still on the moon." 

Featured Fact-check

Viral image

stated on April 23, 2019 in a Facebook post

Neil Armstrong’s space boots don’t match a photo of his footprint on the moon, suggesting the moon landing was a hoax.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The footage is authentic, but no one stayed behind to film it. It shows the last time humans were on the moon, Dec. 14, 1972. On that date, the lunar module Challenger was filmed using a small, portable television camera attached to a pan-and-tilt unit that could be controlled from Earth via a high-gain antenna on the lunar rover, the National AIr and Space Museum explains on its website.

Claims that this video is evidence that the moon landing was fake are False.