Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the surface of the moon, once said that the first step on the moon was "One small step for man, one giant step for mankind." The question is, did that step ever actually happen?

The moon landing is one of the most monumental events in American and world history. In the midst of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States were having an arms race, or a Space Race. From the beginning, the race was favoring the Soviet Union, considering the fact that in 1957, they had already released Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 - launching a dog into space. America finally caught up when they released Explorer 1 in January of 1958, containing equipment which aided them in the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt. And thus, the Space Race was underway. For more information on the timeline of the Space Race, click here.

As John F. Kennedy addressed Congress in May of 1961, he said that America would get to the moon before the end of the decade. This is where the real conspiracy starts.

Fast forward a few years to 1969 as the decade is steadily coming to an end. We were supposed to be in space by the end of said decade as we wanted a leg up on our competition. I don't know what you're thinking, but if a hoax were to happen, that would have been the perfect opportunity. On July 20th, with approximately five months of the decade left to spare, America placed men on the moon. Let's dive into some of the "sketchy" information released about the moon landing.

The Technology of the Time

The moon landing was obviously carried out by NASA, and they would have had some of the best technology in the world to carry out this mission. However, it is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that they broadcasted live streaming from the moon without complication in the 1960's. Many theorists believe that it was filmed on a set that mimicked the look of the moon.

If the moon landing was real and streamed live from the moon in the 60's, imagine what it would be like today. Oh wait, I can't, because we haven't been back since the end of the Apollo missions.

This leads me to my next point. Why haven't we been back? Yes, there are many excuses explaining that we don't have the funding, that there is a lot of space debris, and many others. But not only have we not been back to the moon, which is 238,000 miles away, we have not been past the 386 mile mark. With that being said, you think that it would be more of a priority. C'mon, it's freaking space.

The Shadows

On the moon, there would be one light source: the sun. When the sun hits an elevated object, a shadow should be cast based off of the angle that the sun is hitting and the proportion of the specific object. However, as the photo above shows, there are multiple shadows and some of them are cast at different angles. What does this suggest? That there was more than one light source, possibly from a studio set.

The Way the Astronauts Move

There are a few instances where the astronauts seem to be jumping on trampolines, tripping and being pulled up by wires, and having their feet leave the ground a half-second before it seems appropriate. Many conspiracy theorists believe that this all happened on set, and that the producers slowed down the footage in order to simulate the moon having one-sixth of the Earth's gravity.

For more in-depth information, click here to watch a video on simulations of the Apollo missions when it comes to the astronauts being pulled by cables.

The Object in the Mask

This is a very famous picture from the mission, and there has been a lot of talk over the object reflected in the mask. It has no base and seems to be suspended in the air. Many believe, as the picture shows, that it is a stage light from the studio set.

Bill Clinton Drops a Hint

In 2004, former president Bill Clinton released his autobiography. In his book, he was asked by a carpenter, a few months after the Apollo missions, if he believed that we had gone to the moon. Clinton responded at the time that he did, but the carpenter responded, saying that he didn't believe any of it because of what TV producers could do. After his presidency, Clinton said in his book that he wonders if the man was ahead of his time.

The Death of Thomas Baron

In 1965, Baron started working for the NAA at Kennedy Space Center. The next year, he created a report for NASA listing the failures and irregularities he had witnessed in North American during the construction of the Command Module. He met with a committee and they determined that some of his findings had merit, while others did not.

He then leaked his report to the media and began constructing a 500 page, in-depth report on the same topic, which later led to him being fired. The documents contained numerous safety violations that he had witnessed, and on February 21st, 1967, Apollo 1 set fire. He spoke to the Congressional committee that was concerned with the fire, and also testified that the U.S. would never make it to the moon with these violations.

A few days after he testified and just before his report was to be released, his wife, stepdaughter, and himself were in a car that was struck by a train, and his 500 page report was never found. Quite the timing, I must say.

Stanley Kubrick and The Shining

A year before the moon landing, Stanley Kubrick filmed 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the graphics of space were incredible. Some conspiracy theorists believe that he, along with the help of NASA, filmed the fake moon landing. Kubrick was interviewed three days before his death in 1999 and said this:

"I perpetrated a huge fraud on the American public, which I am now about to detail, involving the United States government and NASA, that the moon landings were faked, that the moon landings ALL were faked , and that I was the person who filmed it."

Other Inconsistencies

A "moon rock" that was gifted to Holland by the U.S. was later determined to just be a piece of petrified wood.

The crosshairs on a few photos from the moon landing mission seem to be behind the objects instead of in front of them, and they do not align with image boundaries. This suggests tampering - possibly two photographs in one, or adjustment of the photo in general.

The Theories

Within the doubt of the moon landing, there are a few different conspiracies. Many believe that the moon landing was a complete hoax and that we never set foot on the moon. Some people think we took off and just flew around the earth for a few days. Others are unsure if we actually made it to the moon, but are sure that the landing was staged on a set. Many others think that we did make it to the moon, but there was still a recording broadcasted just in case we found anything that might be alarming. And of course, there are many more.

So what do you think, did we land on the moon?