The Apollo Credence

Some of the treasures of the early days of television were lost over the years when some network technician needed a new blank tape, so he (always a 'he') erased some priceless video of a papal visit or a Pablo Casals cello solo or Soupy Sales getting hit with a pie in the face. There are countless episodes concerning lost episodes like this.

Many people believed the moon shot actually
took place, but believed this historic summit
meeting to be an elaborate Disney animation hoax.

But surely, the people at NASA, men and women smart enough to stand on earth, look up at the moon, and say, "I know how we can get a rocket ship and a crew up there to plant an American flag and play golf!" would never be so shortsighted as to get rid of video tapes recorded directly from a camera on the moon, showing the entire moon walk as seen by the Mission Control staff, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bopping about the surface, and the famous phone call from with then-President Richard Nixon, just a year before he met with Elvis, would they?

I'll save you the suspense in this heat. They would.

A guy named Gary George was interning at NASA in that Leisure Suit Summer of 1976, and at a government auction, he bought 1,150 used reels of videotape from NASA for $217.77.

Some of them he sold, some of them he gave away, but the ones labelled "APOLLO 11 EVA | July 20, 1969 REEL 1 [--3]" and "VR2000 525 Hi Band 15 ips" - some 2 hours and 24 minutes of history - seemed to be worth hanging on to.

As the years went by, NASA came to regret dumping those tapes for pennies on the dollar, realizing that even though they have not been edited or enhanced in any way, they had to agree with the people at Sotheby's auction house that these tapes are the "earliest, sharpest, and most accurate surviving video images of man's first steps on the moon."

Cassandra Hatton, vice president and senior specialist in Sotheby's Books & Manuscripts Department said, "Fifty years ago today, we achieved the world's greatest human accomplishment, and what we universally recall about that event is best documented on these tapes. We are truly over the moon about today's outstanding result."

Yes, she actually said they were "over the moon."

Sotheby's unloaded those tapes from the original $217 bundle for $1.82 million.

This whole story gives hope to all of us dumpster divers, thrift store habitués, and auction attendees. All I have to do is find an original Soupy Sales pie plate, and I'll be in tall cotton.