THE internet is abuzz with the question of whether legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin ever spotted an alien spacecraft.

The report gained steam when British publications said it appeared Aldrin, the second man on the moon, and three others, had passed lie detector tests under “strict lab conditions” giving accounts of these sightings.

According to The Sun, Aldrin, Al Worden, Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper all took part in the study conducted by the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology in Albany, Ohio.

But it appears there might be more to the story. Or less.

In the initial reports, first sourced from the Daily Star, Aldrin, 88, is said to have claimed he saw a spaceship on his way to the moon, adding: “There was something out there that was close enough to be observed ... sort of L-shaped.”

Subsequent “lie-detector” tests subsequently showed he was telling the truth, the Daily Star claimed.

But questions have emerged about the veracity of the company which allegedly undertook the tests, with no further information on their website to back up the claims nor that Aldrin ever took part in a test at all.

Reports Aldrin also answered questions about an alleged encounter with alien life last week on a Reddit Q&A with fans was revealed to be in fact three years ago.

In the reddit post from three years ago, Mr Aldrin is asked directly: “Do you believe in aliens and what are the sightings you saw aboard Apollo 11?”

He answered:

“On Apollo 11 in route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us. There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world - it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft.

“So in the close vicinity, moving away, were 4 panels. And i feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels. Which one? I don’t know. So technically, the definition could be ‘unidentified’.

“We well understood exactly what that was. And when we returned, we debriefed and explained exactly what we had observed. And I felt that this had been distributed to the outside world, the outside audience, and apparently it wasn’t, and so many years later, I had the time in an interview to disclose these observations, on another country’s television network. And the UFO people in the United States were very very angry with me, that I had not given them the information. It was not an alien. Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence. That’s what Carl Sagan said.

“There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost CERTAIN that there is life somewhere in space. It was not that remarkable, that special, that unusual, that life here on earth evolved gradually, slowly, to where we are today.

“But the distances involved in where some evidence of life may be, they may be hundreds of light years away.”

News.com.au has approached Buzz Aldrin for comment.

On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first person to set foot on the moon.

Upon landing, he is famously quoted as saying: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Aldrin was on the same mission, Apollo 11, as Neil Armstrong and soon followed in his footsteps — making him the second man on the moon.

In total, Armstrong and Aldrin were on the lunar surface for only 21 hours, 36 minutes and 21 seconds.

This article first appeared in The Sun and is republished with permission.