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Recordings of Armstrong's transmission do not provide evidence for the indefinite article "a" before "man", though NASA and Armstrong insisted for years that static obscured it. Armstrong stated he would never make such a mistake, but after repeated listenings to recordings, he eventually conceded he must have dropped the "a".[133] He later said he "would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually have been".[139] There have since been claims and counter-claims about whether acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing "a";[133][140] Peter Shann Ford, an Australian computer programmer, conducted a digital audio analysis and claims that Armstrong did say "a man", but the "a" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time.[133][141][142] Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis.[143] Armstrong found Ford's analysis "persuasive."[144][145] Linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman wrote of their skepticism of Ford's claims on the blog Language Log.[146] A 2016 peer-reviewed study again concluded Armstrong had included the article.[147] NASA's transcript continues to show the "a" in parentheses.[148]
When Armstrong made his proclamation, Voice of America was rebroadcast live by the BBC and many other stations worldwide. An estimated 530 million people viewed the event,[149] 20 percent out of a world population of approximately 3.6 billion.[150][151]
Q: Did you misspeak?
A: There isn't any way of knowing.
Q: Several sources say you did.
A: I mean, there isn't any way of my knowing. When I listen to the tape, I can't hear the 'a', but that doesn't mean it wasn't there, because that was the fastest VOX ever built. There was no mike-switch — it was a voice-operated key or VOX. In a helmet you find you lose a lot of syllables. Sometimes a short syllable like 'a' might not be transmitted. However, when I listen to it, I can't hear it. But the 'a' is implied, so I'm happy if they just put it in parentheses.
Omni, June 1982, p. 126