Drake Maye Opened The Moon Landing Conspiracy Can Of Worms And I'm Here To Help

CBS Sports- If you've ever wondered what Drake Maye's favorite conspiracy theory is, well, we now know the answer. The Patriots quarterback isn't completely sure that the United States actually landed on the moon back in 1969. 

During a Monday interview on WEEI in Boston , the show closed out with a segment called "Ask Maye Anything," and that's when a fan asked the Patriots QB whether there were any "wild" conspiracy theories he "kind of secretly believed in."

At first, it didn't seem like Maye was going to answer the question. 

"Wow. How about that?" Maye said. "Let me try not to get too controversial. Let me think."

But then, after thinking it over, the 24-year-old said that he's always been slightly skeptical of the moon landing. 

"I don't know about the moon," Maye said. "I can see back in the day of why we would put on the mask if we went there, but I'm not really sure 200% if we went there or not. I wouldn't say I'm leaning one way or the other. I just know I'm a little bit skeptical."

To be clear, Maye isn't saying that he absolutely believes that we never went to the moon; he's just saying he's not so sure. One of the show's hosts seemed thrilled that Maye brought up the moon landing, as he certainly had a few conspiracy theories about it that he wanted to share. 

"I think it was Stanley Kubrick who did the entire thing. He has put clues in all of his movies that he was the guy who directed the moon landing," the co-host said. "I absolutely believe we didn't land on the moon."

If you're not familiar with the Kubrick conspiracy theory, some people believe he helped film the "moon landing" on a studio sound stage. 

Maye didn't necessarily seem to agree with the Kubrick stuff, but he definitely seemed to be undecided about whether we actually went to the moon. 

"Well, I'm not 100% sure," the Patriots QB said.

I'm not sure it's possible for me to love Drake Maye any more than I already do, but somehow this kid keeps finding ways.

Fresh off beating Josh Allen and the Bills in Buffalo, promptly after I told the world of haters to settle the fuck down- 

our franchise quarterback went on WEEI Monday and casually revealed that he's not entirely convinced we landed on the moon.

And before Rear Ad and everybody starts screaming about how stupid he is, or how he needs to stick to football, I would like to point out that he didn't say the moon landing was fake. He didn't say Neil Armstrong was an actor and he didn't say Stanley Kubrick directed the whole thing on a soundstage in Burbank. He simply said that he is skeptical.

Which, as somebody who has been called a conspiracy theorist more times than I can count, is something I can appreciate.

I have a very simple philosophy in life- I don't believe everything I'm told just because somebody in a position of authority tells me it's true. Especially when that somebody is the United States government, which has a pretty fucking spectacular track record of lying to its own citizens.

How's the famous saying go? 

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see." - Edgar Allan Poe

After all, MKUltra was/is real. The Tuskegee syphilis study was sadly real. The Gulf of Tonkin story used to justify escalating the Vietnam War was a hell of a lot more complicated than the American public was initially told. Our government has done some absolutely insane shit over the years, to its own fucking people, lied about it, covered it up, and in some cases admitted to it decades later. So please forgive me if I don't automatically accept every single thing I'm told without asking a few follow-up questions.

Does that mean I believe everything I see on the internet? Of course not. Most of the internet is even more completely full of shit. But somewhere along the way, asking questions and thinking critically became synonymous with being a crazy person. You're either supposed to accept the official explanation for everything or get lumped in with the people who believe the Earth is flat and the Denver airport is headquarters for the Illuminati. (It's not. It's just them mocking us in plain sight. Try to keep up)

Because there has to be some middle ground here. Which brings me back to the moon. And let me be perfectly clear before you nimrods try to stick words in my mouth- I'm not saying we didn't land on the moon in 1969.

But I'm also not NOT saying that.

I'm simply saying there are some things about the whole operation that, when you first hear them, make you scratch your head a little bit. And I'd like some answers. Is that a crime?

Apparently it is. And since Drake Maye has now publicly opened this can of worms, I think we owe it to him to investigate further.

In fact, I've done a little research on behalf of the Patriots beat writers, who now have an excellent opportunity to ask our franchise quarterback some questions that are substantially more interesting than whether the offense needs to do a better job converting on third and six. 

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Consider this your official moon landing conspiracy cheat sheet- 

1- How the hell is that American flag waving around when there's no wind on the moon?

This is like moon landing conspiracy theorist 101 shit right here. It is without a doubt the most famous question the moon landing skeptics bring up. We've all seen the footage. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin plant Old Glory on the lunar surface, and the thing looks like it's blowing around.

Only there's one little problem. There's no fucking atmosphere on the moon. NASA has an explanation of course. They say there was a horizontal rod holding the flag up and that the movement came from the astronauts physically handling it. Which, scientifically speaking, makes sense.

But that's not the point here. The point is that if somebody shows you a video of a flag appearing to flutter in a place where there's supposedly no wind, I think you're allowed to ask what the hell is going on.

2- Where are all the stars?

Seriously, look at the moon landing photographs. They’re standing on the moon, surrounded by outer space. There should be stars everywhere, right? Yet practically every iconic photograph from the Apollo missions shows a completely black sky. Not one fucking star.

NASA says that's because the cameras were exposed for the brightly lit lunar surface, so the stars weren't bright enough to register in the photographs. Again, a perfectly reasonable explanation.

But you have to admit, it looks a little suspicious to the untrained eye. You can take a picture in the middle of nowhere in Montana and capture a sky full of stars, but we traveled 240,000 miles into space and apparently couldn't get a single one in the background? Fair question.

3- How did we pull this off in 1969, and why haven't humans been back since 1972?

This one has always fascinated me.

In 1969, the average American household had a television with three channels, people were listening to music on eight-track tapes, and a computer powerful enough to do anything remotely impressive took up an entire building.

Yet somehow we managed to put three guys inside a giant metal rocket, fire them a quarter of a million miles into space, land two of them on the moon, have them walk around collecting rocks, launch them back off the surface, reconnect with their buddy orbiting overhead, and bring everybody home alive. An absolutely unbelievable accomplishment. And we did it SIX TIMES.

Then, in 1972, we basically said, "All right, that's enough moon for everybody," and haven't sent a human being back since.

Now we have iPhones, artificial intelligence, reusable rockets, and technology that would have seemed like witchcraft to the people working at NASA in 1969. And we're still working on getting astronauts back there. The actual explanations involve money, politics, priorities, and the enormous difficulty of human spaceflight.

Giphy Images.

But from the outside looking in, you can understand why somebody might find that a little strange.. 

No? Ok. I'll just go fuck myself then.

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4- What about the Van Allen radiation belts?

This is where the hardcore moon landing conspiracy guys really start cooking.

Surrounding Earth are two enormous regions of trapped radiation known as the Van Allen belts. Apollo astronauts had to pass through them on their way to the moon.

Skeptics ask how they managed to survive all that radiation in a spacecraft built in the 1960s. NASA says "the trajectories were designed to minimize exposure," the spacecraft provided shielding, and the astronauts passed through the more dangerous regions quickly enough to keep their radiation doses within acceptable levels.

I'm not a nuclear physicist. I used to be a DJ for a living and now run bars and write blogs on the internet. All I'm saying is that if you tell me there's a giant radioactive obstacle course surrounding Earth and we managed to cruise through it in 1969, I'm probably going to have a couple follow-up questions.

5- Why do some of the shadows in the photographs look like they're going in different directions?

This one is another classic.

Moon landing skeptics love pulling up photographs where shadows appear to point in different directions, arguing that it looks like multiple studio lights were being used.

NASA and photography experts explain that perspective, uneven terrain, and reflected sunlight can create that appearance. But I would absolutely love to see Drake Maye standing in front of a giant screen at Gillette Stadium reviewing moon landing photographs like he's breaking down the Bills' Cover 2 defense.

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6- What the hell was up with the moon buggy? 

I'm not sure if you've ever taken a seriously look at this thing. But how the fuck did they fit this thing on the craft that touched down on the moon's surface? 

Also, why does it look like it was built out of Reynolds Wrap?

7- Who was holding the camera? 

Honest question. Who was holding the camera and panning the shot of the astronauts touching down, and then again when they were taking back off? 

8- How did they manage to broadcast LIVE TV from the moon? 

Remember, this was 1969. FM radio was a new high tech thing at the time. How the fuck did they get a television transmission bounced from the moon, to a sattelite, down to Earth? Again, I'm not saying it wasn't possible. I'm just wondering how they managed to figure out something so complex that there had never been a precedent for. 

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9- And finally, what was Stanley Kubrick up to?

This might be my favorite theory of all because it's completely insane, but also spectacularly entertaining. The theory goes that the United States government secretly hired legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick to direct fake moon landing footage because of his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, which came out in 1968.

Some people even believe Kubrick spent the rest of his career sneaking clues about his involvement into his movies, particularly The Shining.

There isn't credible evidence that Kubrick staged the moon landing, obviously. But I will admit, the idea of the United States government deciding that the best way to defeat the Soviet Union in the space race was to hire a Hollywood director is objectively hilarious. And what makes the whole thing even funnier is that the United States absolutely had a massive political incentive to win the space race. We were in the middle of the Cold War, competing against the Soviet Union for global supremacy, and Kennedy had publicly promised to put a man on the moon before the decade was over.

So when people ask why the government would ever fake something like that, the motivation isn't exactly difficult to imagine.

That doesn't mean they did it. It just means I understand the question.

(This documentary is long but its entertaining as hell. These people in it are out of their fucking minds)

Now, before the NASA people and amateur astronomers start losing their minds, yes, I'm aware there's an enormous amount of evidence supporting the moon landings. Moon rocks, equipment photographed on the lunar surface, laser reflectors, independent tracking of the missions, the whole deal. Not to mention the fact that the Soviet Union would have had every incentive in the world to expose an American hoax.

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I'm also aware that plenty of the questions above have perfectly legitimate scientific answers. And that's fine!

I'm not here to debate astrophysics with somebody who has a PhD from MIT. I'm here to defend a man's right to ask some questions without everybody acting like he needs to be institutionalized. And perhaps the funniest part of this entire story is that Drake Maye apparently took an actual college course at North Carolina about conspiracy theories, aliens, and secret societies.

He told WEEI they covered everything from Hitler potentially surviving World War II to the theory that birds are secretly government surveillance devices.

Talk about padding your schedule with a cream puff class. Fuck I'm jealous

Before signing off, the former North Carolina quarterback actually revealed an interesting fact about himself: He studied conspiracy theories in college!

"I took a conspiracy class in college, actually, at North Carolina, which was pretty cool," Maye said. 

We have a quarterback who finished second in the NFL MVP voting last year, can make throws 99.9% of the population couldn't dream of making, and apparently spent a semester in college studying whether pigeons are federal employees. Seriously how can you not love this kid?

For the record, the Birds Aren't Real movement started as satire. Although at this point, considering how insane the world has become, I wouldn't be surprised if there's somebody out there who has devoted his entire life to trying to prove that the pigeon outside his apartment works for the CIA. And God bless him, because in China, they aren't.

So, to the Patriots beat writers, I am begging you- please take this cheat sheet and ask Drake some of these questions the next time you get a chance. I want to know where he stands on the flag, the missing stars., the Van Allen belts, and whether he's watched The Shining and what he thinks about Kubrick.

We have months to talk about the offensive line and third-down efficiency. We may never get another opportunity to have our franchise quarterback publicly dissect the Apollo 11 mission.

And to Drake, keep asking questions amigo. Don't let anybody make you feel stupid for being curious about something. Just please, for the love of God, keep throwing touchdowns so that these fucking losers and haters can keep their miserable mouths shut.

p.s. - it would appear Pres is in the same camp. happy to have him