Did NASA Delete Moon Landing Tapes? Here’s What Really Happened

It has been revealed that tapes containing the original, high-quality transmission of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing were wiped after being quietly shelved in an unmarked storage area by NASA.

The truth behind NASA’s “erased” Apollo 11 moon landing tapes has finally surfaced and it has been revealed that tapes containing the original, high-quality transmission of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing were wiped after being quietly shelved in an unmarked storage area by NASA. The disclosure ignited a storm of speculation, with critics alleging everything from hidden extraterrestrial encounters to claims that the entire mission was staged.

But according to space educator Tim Dodd — widely known as the “Everyday Astronaut” on YouTube — the story is rooted not in deception, but in outdated technology and bureaucratic oversight.

Dodd clarified that the missing tapes were merely backup magnetic recordings containing raw transmissions from space. At the time, NASA did not consider them mission-critical. All vital telemetry, audio, and video signals had already been successfully transmitted to Houston and broadcast live to millions across the globe.

The problem? Tape shortages.

During the 1970s and 1980s, NASA reused older magnetic tapes due to limited supplies. In that routine recycling process, the Apollo 11 backup reels were accidentally taped over — a decision made long before anyone imagined modern digital restoration.

Speaking on the Danny Jones Podcast, Dodd explained that NASA engineers simply didn’t foresee a future where technology could dramatically enhance the original footage.

'They didn't imagine a world where we could take and re-scan and up you know up-res the hell out of that footage as well because it would have been a lot cleaner in that raw format.'

The original moon signal traveled from Apollo 11 to Earth-based receiving stations — including one in California’s Mojave Desert — before being split into two separate feeds.

One stream went directly to Mission Control in Houston, where telemetry, spacecraft diagnostics, astronaut audio, and video were recorded in real time. However, the footage had to be converted from a specialized “slow-scan” lunar format into standard NTSC television format using a method called kinescope — essentially filming a monitor screen with a camera.

That downgraded version was what millions watched live in 1969.

The second feed, meanwhile, was recorded directly onto massive magnetic tapes — roughly a foot wide — serving as a raw backup in case the primary link failed.

But the crisis never came.

'They had the broadcast. It's not like the broadcast went cold and they lost signal,' Dodd explained during the February 9 interview. 'They're like, "It would be great if we had that still, you know, hold on to those tapes. Make sure we have those backups. We had this 45-minute blackout because our dish went down or something." They didn't have that,' he continued.

In short, NASA never needed the backup tapes — and decades later, they were gone.

Despite the loss, NASA still retains thousands of hours of evidence confirming the moon landing: telemetry data, audio archives, and lower-resolution video recordings from Houston. Even more compelling, the agency maintains stunningly clear 70-millimeter film shot directly by Apollo astronauts on the lunar surface — a film format still used in IMAX productions nearly six decades later.

Dodd dismissed claims of deliberate erasure as 'misconstrued,' arguing that the tape incident reflects outdated archival practices rather than conspiracy.

Still, skeptics often raise a more uncomfortable question: If America reached the moon, why did it stop going?

Dodd acknowledged that this is a tougher argument to address — but the answer, he said, comes down to cost.

'I understand the frustration of, you know, we did this thing 54 years ago, and we lost that ability to do it. But we also spent $300 billion in today's money to get us there,' he said.

The staggering expense of building and launching Saturn V rockets ultimately proved unsustainable. Despite having hardware and crews ready for additional missions, the program was shelved.

'We had three other rockets and hardware built and the crew to do so, and we just said, "Eh, not worth it." Like that's what I'm frustrated with.'