Discover
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon is a 2001 film written, produced and directed by Nashville-based filmmaker Bart Sibrel. Sibrel is a critic of the Apollo program and proponent of the conspiracy theory that the six Apollo Moon landing missions between 1969 and 1972 were elaborate hoaxes perpetrated by the United States government, including NASA.
Sibrel presents assertions of an alleged hoax, including: supposed photographic anomalies; disasters such as the destruction of Apollo 1 in which crew members Roger B. Chaffee, Gus Grissom and Edward Higgins White died; technical difficulties experienced in the 1950s and 1960s; and the problems of traversing the Van Allen radiation belts. Sibrel proposes that the most condemning evidence is a piece of footage that was inadvertently sent to him by NASA when requesting photographs and video of the Apollo 11 mission. Sibrel believes that the footage shows Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins attempting to create the illusion that they were 130,000 miles (210,000 km) from Earth (or roughly halfway to the Moon) when, he claims, they were only in a low Earth orbit. Sibrel views this clip as "smoking gun" proof that the Moon landings were staged.
The film's name was taken from the title of the book A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon by Bob Ward, a 1969 book of humorous anecdotes by people involved in the space program. The film is narrated by British stage actress Anne Tonelson. Bart Sibrel himself makes no appearance in the film. However, he does appear prominently in the similarly toned 2001 Fox television network special, Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?
Original Release
01/18/2001
US Release
01/18/2001
Links
Cast
| Name | Character |
|---|
| Anne Tonelson | Narrator |
| Buzz Aldrin | Self - Apollo 11 LMP |
| Neil Armstrong | Self - Apollo 11 CDR |
| Michael Collins | Self - Apollo 11 |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | Self |
| Jacqueline Kennedy | Self - First Lady of the United States of America |
| John F. Kennedy | Self - President of the United States of America |
| John B. Medaris | Self |
| Patrick Moore | Self |
| Richard Nixon | Self - President of the United States of America |
Directors
Writers
Cast
| Name | Character |
|---|
| Anne Tonelson | Narrator |
| Buzz Aldrin | Self - Apollo 11 LMP |
| Neil Armstrong | Self - Apollo 11 CDR |
| Michael Collins | Self - Apollo 11 |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | Self |
| Jacqueline Kennedy | Self - First Lady of the United States of America |
| John F. Kennedy | Self - President of the United States of America |
| John B. Medaris | Self |
| Patrick Moore | Self |
| Richard Nixon | Self - President of the United States of America |
| Lee Harvey Oswald | Self |
| Wernher von Braun | Self |
Producers
| Name | Role |
|---|
| Bart Sibrel | Producer |
