Image of 'couple watching Apollo 8 takeoff' is doctored

Published on January 6, 2025 at 08:26
Updated on January 6, 2025 at 08:32
3 min read
By Timon JOHNSON, AFP Hong Kong

NASA's Apollo 8 mission in 1968 became the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon and back but an image repeatedly portrayed on social media as showing a couple watching its launch is digitally manipulated. It combines two unrelated pictures: one was published by a Japanese news agency in a report about the country's mission to Venus in 2010 while the other was previously shared in a Russian website post about a couple viewing a painting.

"Couple viewing the Apollo 8 spacecraft launch, 1968," read a Facebook post shared on December 23, 2024.

The post included an image appearing to show a man touching a woman's buttocks while both appear to watch a rocket lift off from a distance.

NASA launched Apollo 8 into space on December 21, 1968, the first manned flight to the Moon and back. The crew did not land on the Moon's surface but the mission provided the US space agency with crucial data needed for its first lunar landing a year later (archived link).

Screenshot of the Facebook post that shared the doctored image, taken on December 30, 2024

The image has been circulating online alongside similar false claims on X, Facebook and Reddit since at least 2017.

US-based fact-checking organisations Snopes and PolitiFact previously reported the image was a composite of two unrelated pictures (archived links here and here).

Manipulated image

Combined reverse image and keyword searches on Google found the picture showing the rocket launch was published by Canadian television channel CTV News (archived link).

"Japan's H-2A rocket carrying Akatsuki, Japan's first Venus probe lifts off at the Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southwestern Japan Friday, May 21, 2010," read the caption to the picture which was credited to The Associated Press and Japanese media organisation Kyodo News.

The rocket blasted off on May 21, 2010 and successfully launched a Venus probe and a kite-shaped "space yacht" designed to float through the cosmos using only the power of the sun (archived link).

The photo was also published in Kyodo News Photo Service's photo library with the caption: "Japan rocket carrying Venus probe blasts off" (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the manipulated image (left) and the picture published by CTV News (right):

Further reverse image searches found the second picture in a post on the Facebook page of Photar.ru uploaded on April 14, 2016.

Photar.ru describes itself as a platform that publishes articles about photographers both from Russia and abroad (archived link).

"Tretyakov Gallery. Photo: Andrey Stroganov," the Russian-language caption to the picture read. It shows a man and a woman looking at a painting.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in the false posts (left) and the one shared by Photar.ru (right):

Another post on VK, a Russian social media platform, also shared the same photo and credited it to Stroganov (archived link).

January 6, 2025Corrected link to X post in fifth paragraph

January 6, 2025 Corrected link to X post in fifth paragraph

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