Yet just a few years later, some people claimed the "giant leap for mankind" had been faked.Conspiracy theories that the moon landing was actually a hoax that the U.S. government had staged to win the space race with the Soviets began to gain traction in the mid-1970s.Although these claims were false and easily debunked, they have persisted to this day.Most of the deniers' "proof" is based on perceived anomalies in the images transmitted back to Earth from the moon's lunar surface.