The Golf Balls on the Moon
On live television from the Moon, America's first astronaut in space took out a golf club and hit two balls into the lunar dust.
What was reported
At the end of Apollo 14's second moonwalk, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, revealed he had smuggled up the head of a six-iron and two golf balls. He fixed the club head to a tool handle and, hampered by his stiff spacesuit, swung one-handed.
His first shots went wide, but he connected with the second ball and joked that it went 'miles and miles and miles'.
Explanations offered
In 2021, an imaging specialist studied the mission photographs and worked out that the balls travelled about 22 and 37 metres. Both are still lying on the Moon, along with the javelin his crewmate Edgar Mitchell threw.
- When
- 6 February 1971
- Where
- Fra Mauro, the Moon (Apollo 14 landing site)
- Witnesses
- The crew of Apollo 14, and television viewers
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.