Conspiracy about Buzz Aldrin discovering ‘evil’ in Antarctica resurfaces online

AAP FACTCHECK – A false claim about astronaut Buzz Aldrin tweeting an ominous warning about the presence of ‘evil’ in Antarctica before suffering a heart attack has re-emerged.

Dr Aldrin suffered altitude sickness, not a heart attack, during his 2016 trip to the South Pole, and the eerie Tweet attributed to him is a fake.

The claim about Dr Aldrin, the second human to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong, is in a video of a panel discussion shared in a Facebook post.

In the video, a man who says he has a close relationship with Mr Armstrong’s mother, says Dr Aldrin “went down to Antarctica, had a heart attack…and came back and then there was stuff on the internet”.

When he asked what happened, he said the astronaut reportedly answered: “We found out things we shouldn’t” (32 seconds).

“If Buzz saw something, I don’t know what it was but it was enough to give the man a heart attack – so if there are beings down there, I would think these beings never planned on us … they’ve been under ice for millions of years. I don’t think they were expecting us,” the man said.

A second man on the panel added: “There was this very cryptic tweet that came out during [Buzz’s] stay down there – he said, ‘we have seen the faces of evil and we’re all in danger’, and this is right before he had his heart attack” (1:00).

Claims about Dr Aldrin’s alleged Tweet emerged in an article published by SuperStation95, a defunct conspiracy website, on December 7, 2016.

That article featured a screenshot of the Tweet, but that image was debunked by Snopes in December 2016.

Unlike an authentic Tweet, the screenshot showed no Tweet date or engagement statistics showing replies, retweets or likes, Snopes said.

AAP FactCheck was unable to find any other screenshots or archived versions of the purported Aldrin Tweet.

While it’s true Dr Aldrin was medically evacuated from Antarctica in December 2016, he did not suffer a heart attack or report the existence of an ‘evil’ pyramid.

The BBC initially reported he had fallen ill and had fluid on his lungs, and CNN reported a week later on his release from a hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand.

There were no reports of him suffering a heart attack.

Dr Aldrin said the medical emergency was altitude sickness with some congestion in his lungs, brought about by low oxygen levels in a statement on his official website.

Altitude sickness can occur when a person has rapidly travelled to a higher elevation without giving the body enough time to adjust to the lower amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Trouble breathing and a racing heart are among the most common symptoms.

Dr Aldrin said he was at America’s Amundsen-Scott Science Station at the South Pole when he started to feel short of breath, and staff decided to check his vitals.

“They noticed congestion in my lungs and that my oxygen levels were low which indicated symptoms of altitude sickness,” he said in his statement.

“This prompted them to get me out on the next flight to McMurdo (station, on the Antarctic coast).”

Dr Aldrin recounted some of those details and added more in an interview with the NBC’s Today show.

“I got out of breath,” the astronaut said (1 minute).

“That’s nothing new except it’s a little more concentrated. It’s cold, you got a lot of heavy stuff, and not much air to breathe up there.”

NBC Today reported that Dr Aldrin was at an elevation of 9000 feet (2743.2m) when he started to show signs of altitude sickness.

After his evacuation, he spent a week recovering in hospital in NZ.

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