The NZ Herald seems to think so (opens new window), republishing a Daily Mail article this week about a lie detector test that Buzz Aldrin apparently took recently to prove that he believes he saw an alien craft on his way to the moon in 1969.

The test was run by the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health (opens new window), and analysed Aldrin's voice - which is according to experts is a more accurate measure of whether someone's lying than a standard polygraph. They tested four astronauts who have reported seeing strange things while they've been in space or testing new hardware:

• Buzz Aldrin
• Al Worden
• Edgar Mitchell
• Gordon Cooper

The testing has shown that none of them were lying when they talked about their E.T. experiences. Except that two of those astronauts are dead, and it's unlikely that the other two had anything to do with this effort.

Although the other astronauts have been known to talk about aliens, Buzz Aldrin has never claimed anything of the sort. Here's an audio clip of Buzz talking about his experience, which is quite possibly the sample that the institute used.

The reality of this conversation, often taken out of context, is that Buzz Aldrin saw something glinting which wasn't part of the craft he was in. NASA concluded that it was sunlight reflecting off of one of the panels that had been earlier jettisoned by the craft, but when taken out of context UFO enthusiasts like the claim that Buzz saw aliens.

It appears that in this case, the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health (opens new window) is a crackpot organisation that promotes all manner of nonsense. They are claiming to have written a piece of software that can analyse someone's voice and turn it into a holographic image of the status of their health, personality and other traits. The institute appears to be one person, Sharry Edwards, who is the world's self-proclaimed leader in human bioacoustics. Her about page on the website starts with:

"Meet The Modern Keeper of The Holy Grail"

There's a lot of nonsense on their website:

"As a bridge between ancient ideas of sound healing and the futuristic, Star Trek, protocols that the institute provides, it is now possible to reverse diseases and traumas previously thought to be incurable, to reveal the secrets of our true nature, to enhance our lives, to predict what may be our fate through the frequencies of our voice."

How this ended up being news is baffling to me. I'm guessing the original article, likely from the Daily Star (with great lines such as "could soon replace those used by the FBI and police"), just regurgitated a press release from the company trying to sell their bogus voice analysis service, without bothering to check the details.