Reason why NASA video has sparked conspiracy theory that Artemis II mission is being faked with green screens

A video recording of the NASA crew’s live interview has circulated online, with some people saying this is the proof needed to reveal that the whole Artemis II mission is being faked.

It’s the 1970s again, and theories that the space agency is teaming up with the government to pretend we are going to the Moon.

Why go to space when you can send a team into a zero-gravity room with a greenscreen to pretend like they’re exploring outside of Earth?

For clout – obviously.

When Apollo 17 landed on the Moon in 72, the very same thing was being speculated then, and it seems like some things never change in that regard as social media debates the legitimacy of Artemis II’s record breaking flyby journey.

It began when the crew gave a live interview to CNN to talk about their mission to fly past the dark side of the Moon.

At that moment, a plush toy named 'Rise', floated around the capsule to show everyone just what it’s like to travel with no gravity.

However, a video of the clip has shown a woman pointing out that behind the plushie in some instances, the letters ‘OW’ and ‘TAN’ appear – as if a green screen was glitching in and out of the scene due to the green middle of the toy.

The Artemis II crew, which includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, seemed unaware of this happening at the time.

But social media users were quick to point it out.

🚨 A viral video of an Artemis 2 interview has been doing the rounds on X showing an apparent "blue screen" chromakey text glitch. However it is NOT present in the original.

See original left below and "Viral" video inset right 👇

Source (from 4:20) https://t.co/5UpCy3ygxY pic.twitter.com/VTruSPHVGJ

— Max DeLargo (@banthebbc) April 5, 2026

One person wrote: “duh... even my dog knows it's fake...”

Another claimed: “Fake as hell they really thought they can continue fooling people with all this current Technology that debunks everything in realtime…”

But others weren’t so convinced as one user said: “Green screen? It’s the stuffed animal called RISE that if you see clearly has GREEN for the continents For God’s sake with these people!”

Another said: “I watched this live, there is no way it’s fake. All the clips I see trying to expose is it literally edited.”

So, why were the letters visible on the viral video?

According to the Daily Mail, the broadcast was filmed using Chroma Key, which Adobe says is generally used on blue or green screen sets to overlay things or people onto different backgrounds.

Like words, for example.

As live interviews, and also CNN, typically include writing at the bottom of the screen, to describe the interview.

So, the overlay used to cover the words could have refreshed at a different time than the rest of the video.

So, when being filmed by a third-party smartphone on a television screen, there could have been a gap when the text was visible.

But who knows?

UNILAD reached out to NASA for comment.