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This bit of humor referencing the displacement of Native Americans by European settlers and the U.S. government's abrogation of numerous treaties permanently reserving tracts of lands to various tribes was included in a 1987 Western Folklore article about Native American Views of the Space Program and has been a frequent entry in Internet joke lists since 1995: Example: It's a clever turning the tables joke, with the Navajo outsmarting government interlopers on their land by nearly sneaking a subversive message onto a moon mission and, in some versions, extracting a payment from the NASA men to provide them with a translation of the cryptic quote that only they can understand. The mentions of scientific projects and government agencies (e.g., Apollo, NASA) and a bit of truthful background (Apollo astronauts did train at various sites in Arizona, including a Navajo reservation) has led numerous readers to inquire of us whether this anecdote is a true story. Although this item might possibly have earlier antecedents as yet unknown to us, it appears to have originated with a joke Johnny Carson included in his Tonight Show monologue on the evening of July 22, 1969, two days after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the surface of the moon.
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