“I Landed On Moon First”, claims Stewartstown Farmer

Was a Stewartstown farmer on this?

A Stewartstown pig-farmer has stunned the astronomical world by claiming that he was the first man to set foot on the moon and not the recently deceased Neil Armstrong. Mr Felix Philpot, originally from Coagh, went even further and cast doubts as to whether the Americans were on it at all. Philpot, who rents pigs to poor homeowners who can’t afford to own a normal pet like a cat, made the startling claim in Maguire’s butchers in the middle of the town.

“All this talk about Apollo this and Buzz Adrin that has sickened me to the balls. I made it to the moon in 1967 before the Yanks or Russians could consider it. Myself and the brother Tomas were messing around in the shed with the lawn mower when the thought hit me. Why not point the mower upwards, build an aluminium cage around it, get a few of those experimental jet-propelled rockets I’d bought the previous year from China and see how far she goes.”

Philpot claims he made ‘a dozen spud dinners and wrapped them in tinfoil, 5 or 6 packets of Rich Tea, a gallon of tea in flasks, a toilet roll and the paper’ before setting off on his journey alone as Tomas watched from below.

“It was a bit of a handlin at the start with the radiation belt almost blinding me 25’000 miles up but once she settled and the oil was massaging the engine, it was shoe to the burd til I landed on the moon that night. I kept er lit as they say”

Felix described the moon as a ‘lonely, desolate and scary’ place but recalls seeing some wildlife on it, casting doubt on Armstrong’s claims.

“There’s no way Neil could have missed the serious amount of Corncrakes flying about. The ground was sandy, not powdery as he said. I’d wonder where they there at all.”

Tomas, when contacted, cast doubts on Felix’s achievement.

“Will ye wise the head for feck sake. He went up about 100 feet and landed in the big sandpit at Tullyhogue. Our boy’s a total head-case. A nut-job. Just ask about”.

Philpot claims he left a reminder up there for future generations to recognise his achievement. “I was dying to go to the toilet and the lunar module was half a mile away, so I let rip in the middle of the Sea of Tranquility. The boyo is still probably sitting there.” The mystery remains.