Yes, legendary astronaut Buzz Allen saw something outside his ship while en route to the moon in 1969, but it wasn't an alien, despite claims from a British tabloid and a flaky "scientific" organization.
On Sunday, the Daily Star posted an "exclusive" story, claiming that legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin recently "passed a lie detector test" that somehow confirmed that he encountered an alien during Apollo 11.
But in an e-mail to USA TODAY, NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz said what Aldrin likely saw were four panels that had separated from the spacecraft in flight.
"The panels would have had the same momentum as the rest of the spacecraft and would have followed them along (generally) toward the moon," she said.
It could also have been the rocket they had separated from. "It was not an alien," Aldrin said in a Reddit post in 2015.
Schierholz said the word "unidentified" in UFO can also be problematic, as it doesn't have to mean of alien origin: "While engineers and scientists can be reasonably confident what was seen was one of the panels, to an engineer/scientist, it is still technically 'unidentified' — hence the use of the terminology."
The Daily Star claimed the results of the test proved the astronauts were “completely convinced” the signs of alien life they claimed to have witnessed during historic missions were genuine.
The "test," reportedly performed by the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health, a tiny non-profit organization in Ohio, used decades-old recordings of Aldrin and his fellow astronauts, not interviews with the astronauts themselves.
According to the Daily Star, the Institute's "top secret" test was supposedly able to find some hidden truth in the tone of Aldrin's voice that overruled his conscious claims that he didn't see an alien.
BioAcoustic’s Sharry Edwards said tests reveal Aldrin is sure he saw the UFO even though his logical mind “cannot explain it," the Star said.
