It may be the last unsolved mystery of the 1969 moon landing.

Did a New Jersey company manufacture the flag that Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, a Montclair native, planted on the moon?

Fifty years later, it appears no one really knows whether Annin Flagmakers was the supplier of the flag immortalized in the iconic images beamed back to Earth.

While numerous stories have credited the 172-year-old company, including a book on the moon landing that cited a former Annin executive, NASA has no record of the Apollo 11 flag’s manufacturer, agency spokesperson Katherine M. Brown said.

According to a NASA contractor report from the early 1990s, bindings and labels were removed from the flag in order for it to be attached to the aluminum staff, making it impossible to identify the manufacturer.

In response, Bob Caggiano, Annin’s vice president of sales, said he remains “95 percent confident” in anecdotal accounts in support of the company’s claim.

“I would say the company’s position is that we made that flag,” said Caggiano, an Annin employee since 1976 who grew up in Montclair about a quarter-mile from Aldrin’s childhood home.

Bob Caggiano, vice president of sales at Annin Flagmakers, at the company's headquarters in Roseland, N.J., July 1, 2019 (Rob Jennings / NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)Rob Jennings / NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Brown, in an email, acknowledged that while a couple of companies have claimed credit for the 1969 flag, as well as flags used on the five subsequent crewed moon landings concluding in 1972, that no documentation has been located by NASA.

“Much as Annin and other manufacturers may claim the flags as their own we can’t confirm or deny any claims regarding the flags,” she wrote.

Annin’s unproven claim on the 1969 flag was elevated by a 2008 article in Air and Space magazine, which is produced by the National Air and Space Museum. The story states that the company made the flag and sold it to NASA for $5.50.

However, as related by Brown via NASA’s chief historian, it appears that the moon flags were acquired in bulk and rather hurriedly, since the decision to plant a U.S. flag was made only three months before the launch of Apollo 11.

The purchases for flags used on the six lunar missions were made in what seems like a remarkably informal fashion. NASA executives simply sent several workers out at lunch time one day to buy flags at multiple stores in the Houston area, she wrote.

“This mix of flags was then used as a pool for the Apollo missions," she wrote.

Wouldn’t the receipts identify the stores, and by extension the suppliers?

Brown explained that several searches of the NASA archives over the years failed to locate any records. She added that the receipts were not the sort of procurement record that would have been required for preservation.

Yet even the chief historian’s account may not be definitive.

Jack Kinzler was a NASA engineer credited with the idea of putting the flag on the moon, and he designed a flagstaff that solved the problem of keeping it extended in the moon’s airless atmosphere.

In 2013, one year before Kinzler died at age 94, NASA posted an interview to its YouTube channel in which he stated that the flag came from a federal government warehouse.

Kinzler’s version, though, runs counter to what a former Annin president reportedly told an author for a 1985 book on the moon landing, as noted in the NASA contractor report. The former company president stated that all of the flags bought in advance of the 1969 launch were purchased at Sears, and that Annin at that time was the retailer’s supplier.

It certainly is plausible that Annin supplied the 1969 moon flag, despite the lack of documentation.

Annin Flagmakers’ website notes several historical events involving its flags, from the inauguration of President Lincoln in 1861 to the dedication of the “Field of Remembrance” in New York City on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

It is silent on the subject of the moon flag, beyond asserting that Apollo 11 carried 186 miniature flags produced by the company - also unconfirmed by NASA.

A 2013 book on Annin’s history, published by the company, stated it “shared NASA’s desire not to commercialize the moon landing," and asserted in its advertising only that Apollo 11 carried its flags.

Caggiano said that a retired NASA employee contacted a former company official, about a decade ago, and stated that while he had been “sworn to secrecy” during his career he could now verify that the 1969 moon flag was indeed from Annin.

“People say, where have your flags been? We always say, the moon,” Caggiano said.

Despite the murky origin of the 1969 flag, there is more of a consensus about how things turned out for it.

While high-resolution images from a NASA spacecraft in recent years have shown “shadows” where flags from subsequent moon landings were planted, suggesting they still stand, the Apollo 11 flag apparently met a speedy demise.

In his autobiography, Aldrin described watching the flag fall over during liftoff from the moon, and it is presumed to have disintegrated.

Founded in 1847, Annin Flagmakers employs about 500, including Caggiano and 41 others working from a second-floor suite off Eisenhower Parkway. The company was long based in Verona before moving to Roseland in 1985.

The company was based in Verona fifty years ago.

Caggiano said he met Aldrin for the first time in May 2013, at a Wounded Warrior Project fundraising dinner in New York City, and that that Aldrin was surprised to learn of their shared hometown heritage.

Two months later, Caggiano went to the Montclair Public Library, where Aldrin was signing copies of his book, “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration."

Caggiano said he gave Aldrin a boxed, U.S. flag, and told him that the gift was to replace the flag left behind on the moon.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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