He had set foot on the Moon right after Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) on July 20, 1969. Instead of receiving him with flowers and garlands upon his return to the Earth, the US Customs officials asked him to fill up a form before leaving the airport! Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr) recently shared this experience on Twitter. Of course, he received a grand welcome later, but he was treated like a common passenger at the airport, immediately after his trip to the Moon.

As it is known, Armstrong and Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) Pilot Buzz Aldrin had become the first people to land on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The next day, they spent two and a half hours outside the Lunar Module Eagle spacecraft, while Michael Collins (October 31, 1930 – April 28, 2021) remained in lunar orbit in the Apollo Command Module Columbia. When Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, he famously said: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then US President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong with the Congressional Space Medal of Honour in 1978, and Armstrong and his former crewmates received a Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

Sharing his experience of returning to the Earth from the Moon on July 28, 2021, Aldrin wrote on Twitter: “Imagine spending 8 days in space, including 22 hours on the Moon and returning home to Earth only to have to go through customs!” He also shared the customs form on the Social Media. The form shows that he had come from the Moon. The date, too, is mentioned clearly… July 24, 1969.

There are three names in the form: Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins. The form was first posted on the official website of US Customs and Border Protection in 2009. According to NASA, it is a fact that the three astronauts had to fill the form at the airport. All had a good laugh about this incident at that time.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das