It’s a bizarre post title, I confess – but it’s a fair question, with a genuine answer. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the surface of the moon, The Beatles were a British band who took the 1960s by storm. Armstrong is shy and dislikes publicity… no one could quite accuse The Beatles of that. So is it possible they have something in common?

It is. The answer is conspiracy theories, namely backmasking.

If you’re not familiar, backmasking is a music-recording technique, whereby records are played backwards and spoken words can be heard. It is most famous for supposed “Satanic brain washing”, as apparently many rock bands’ records, when backmasked, play pro-Satanic lyrics. It’s mostly hogwash, but in the 1960s – particularly with their album Revolver - The Beatles used it deliberately.

This innocent fancy recording technique, however, later came into play with one of the more ludicrous conspiracy theories. The idea goes that Beatles’ bass player Paul McCartney died in a car crash, and The Beatles replaced him with a lookalike. They decided to break the news to fans “gently” by backmasking news of his death – obscurely of course – in later records, and with other means. You can find out more here.

One of the most popular parts of the “Paul is dead” theory is the belief that when backmasked, John Lennon can be heard saying “I buried Paul” during Strawberry Fields Foever (Lennon however points out he was merely saying “cranberry sauce” – slightly less ominous).

So, conspiracy theorists’ using backmasking to “prove” their point? Of course, this is where Apollo, and Neil Armstrong, come in.

Given the fact that the 1960s was the decade of backmasking, it was perhaps only a matter of time before someone backmasked Armstrong’s famous “one small step” speech. While the majority of people who hear the – frankly unintelligble – finished version, it would seem some conspiracy theorists have jumped upon it. For example, while most innocently believe the backmask says “man will space walk”, some insist it says “man never space walk”.

Have a listen and see what you think:

There’s no debunking to be done here, of course. It is simply another example of supposed “subliminal messaging” that actually means nothing, is misheard or misinterpreted – but it does show something else.

Conspiracy theorists’ are, whether they know it or not, expert in psychological persuasion. This is a prime example of it. Do you really believe you would have heard “man will space walk / man never space walk” from the video had you not been told beforehand what you were supposed to be hearing? Of course not, it would have just seemed like nonsense, proven in that no one can even agree what the backmasking is “saying” (just take a look at the YouTube comments!).

Yet by placing the idea in your mind and then “proving” it, the conspiracy theorist has succeeded. You will usually see these types of tricks at the beginning or top of a website / book / whatever promoting the hoax theory, because it then places you in a mindset to believe whatever they come up with next – after all, you’ve had your “proof” (that they planted in your mind to begin with). It’s smart, but it’s nevertheless effective.

So what do Armstrong and The Beatles really have in common? Nothing much, except the knowledge that Armstrong did walk on the moon, and Paul McCartney is still alive… despite what “backmasking” may say.