Photo Courtesy of Hank Wilson

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Misty-eyed moon nostalgia makes Tucson security officer Hank Wilson smirk.

He doesn't believe Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon in 1969 and doubts other Apollo missions accomplished the feat.

"It looked phony to me," said Wilson. "It was a pathetic setup of a sound stage."

Wilson, 54, lives on the south side with his wife, Brenda — who shares her husband's belief in a moon-landing hoax. Wilson says NASA faked the landing to upstage the Soviets in the space race.

Only the astronauts and a small control team knew the landing was a fake. Even mission control thought the journey was legit, he said. The live radio communication among the astronauts was genuine but came from orbit, he said.

Wilson thinks Armstrong and Aldrin starred in a staged scene in the Nevada desert, then launched into orbit while the rest of the world thought they were en route to the moon before splashing down and living a 40-year-hoax.

Even Richard Nixon wasn't aware it was faked, Wilson said, and the conspirators were paid to stay silent by NASA's budget. Wilson said he doesn't know why the Soviets didn't suspect the fraud or try to expose it.

Most of the subsequent Apollo missions, he said, were also probably fake, with the exception of Apollo 13, which he believes was a botched, honest attempt to reach the moon.

The only other conspiracies he believes are that Elvis Presley faked his death (Wilson believes the King has since passed away) and that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.

Wilson said there are two reasons he has believed the moon landing was faked ever since he first saw the broadcast at age 14:

One, the photography: The images are too clear and the lighting isn't rugged enough, with bending shadows at multiple angles.

Second, and most convincing to Wilson, is that some of the dust kicked up settled too quickly to the ground, he says.

Wilson said that if NASA returns to the moon in 2020, "there is gonna be a giveaway as to what really went on in 1969. People are gonna begin to say, 'Wait a minute. How did we do it back then when we didn't have the technology we have today?' "

Wilson said he's never been called crazy for his belief.

"Most of the time I get the same responses of interest — that 'I wondered about myself at the time' " Wilson said. "But I think 75 percent of the people I meet disagree with me, 20 percent seriously think about it and 5 percent totally do agree with me."

Wilson said although he's a doubter, he'll be open-minded enough to take a look at new pictures of the landing site if they emerge from the current unmanned lunar-orbit mission.

As for Aldrin and Armstrong, Wilson said he holds no contempt for them.

"I do not want to refer to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as liars — they were brave men that contributed vastly to the exploration of space during an era in history they are so well-known for," he said.

"Where the moon landing, so-called, is concerned, I'd prefer to consider the possibility that perhaps these gifted and highly educated scientists may have been placed in an unexpected situation that presented only one option to them: Play ball and get along."