When Neil Armstrong stepped out to become the first man on the moon, not a soul on earth could have guessed he would land in the middle of a cosmic controversy.

That's one small step for man pardon by a leap for mankind.

The problem, the first part of his historic sentence that's one small step for man is grammatically incorrect.

It should have been one small step for a man and that missing a has been setting off grammarians ever since.

Lift it off the final lift off of Atlantis.

Through all the years NASA has insisted that he did say the A and modern microphones would have picked it up.

Instead, the word was lost on scratchy old equipment, operating nearly a quarter million miles away.

And Armstrong, though he rarely gave interviews throughout his life, agreed with NASA.

Thank you so much.

Many scientists have tried, realize the recordings and break down the sound waves with inconclusive results.

But now researchers from Michigan State and Ohio State believe they have evidence that Armstrong's utterance may have been shaped less by space than by something very down to earth.

The famous astronaut was an Ohio boy, and these researchers studied hundreds of recordings of natives saying the words for and A And they found almost 200 times the words were pushed together, making a sounds like frog.

So listen again.

It's one small step for land like the moon trip itself.

The theory.

Maybe a long shot.

But it could also prove the final word on the words of the man on the moon.

Tom Foreman, CNN Washington.