Drake Maye’s moon landing skepticism has already traveled far beyond the Patriots’ locker room.
The New England quarterback went viral earlier this month during an appearance on Boston’s WEEI radio station after saying he was “a little bit skeptical” and not “200 percent” sure humans actually landed on the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. Maye said he took a conspiracy-theories class at the University of North Carolina, and he pointed to that course when explaining why he wasn’t ready to fully buy into the Apollo story.
During an “Ask Maye Anything” segment, he told a fan, “I don’t know about the moon, you know," Maye said while answering a question from a fan about the moon landings during an "Ask Maye Anything" segment. "I think I can see back in the day of why we would put on the mask if we went there, but I’m not really sure 200 percent if we went there or not.
I wouldn’t say I’m leaning one way or the other. I just know I’m a little bit skeptical.”
Maye and the Patriots are set to face the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, Nov. 1 at Hard Rock Stadium.
The comment drew a fast response from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who pushed back publicly on social media by writing, "I quite literally have the receipts."
Maye also described some of the material from that UNC class, which was titled “Uncertain Truths: Conspiracy Theories, Aliens, and Secret Societies in America.”
“They studied Hitler being alive and ‘are birds real?’ " he said. "Some of the classic ones that you hear about.”
Maye is hardly the first pro athlete to question whether Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and the rest of Apollo 11 really walked on the moon. Steph Curry, A.J. Brown, Dallas Goedert, Jalen Rose, Jared Lorenzen and William Hayes have all been among the NBA and NFL names to raise doubts about the moon landing.
Curry once brought up the Apollo 11 landing in July 1969 during a 2018 podcast, though he later said he was joking and even accepted an offer from NASA to learn more about the mission.
The moon landing conspiracy debate has also followed Buzz Aldrin for years. In 2002, Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, was lured to a Beverly Hills hotel under the false impression that he was going to be interviewed for a Japanese children’s television show about being an astronaut and traveling in space.
Instead, he was confronted by moon landing conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel and a film crew, who tried to get Aldrin to swear on a Bible that the moon landings were faked. Aldrin, then 72, responded by punching Sibrel.
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