Customer Reviews

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon [VHS]

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(58)

 

 

This film is highly deceptive. After several minutes of emotional religious setup reeking of brimstone, it presents a few slipshod and comical attempts at discussing astrophysics and rocket science, neither of which its writer/director Bart Sibrel seems to know anything about. The film tries to argue that Apollo was suspiciously successful after the initial Mercury project failures. But that's easy to do when you completely ignore -- as Mr. Sibrel has -- the Gemini project in which all those problems were faced and solved, including the supposedly impassable Van Allen belts. (Here's a hint: Dr. Van Allen, for whom the belts are named, specifically repudiates this filmmaker's radiation arguments.) The film argues that the Soviets had a 5-to-1 advantage in space, but that was true only in about 1960. After Gemini (circa 1968) it was 3-to-1 in America's favor. That is just one of the film's many misleading statements.

Only toward the very end do you get to see any of the "smoking gun" footage from Apollo 11. Mr. Sibrel says the astronauts faked their distant en-route telecasts by shooting lots of video from Earth orbit using camera tricks. This raw footage was allegedly edited on the ground into only a few seconds or minutes of "polished" footage that the world saw. From an hour of "backstage" film the director says NASA mistakenly sent him, Mr. Sibrel shows only a snippet here and there, most of it without the audio that clearly explains what the astronauts were really doing -- testing television equipment they hadn't had time to learn to use. Instead the narrator repeats Mr. Sibrel's accusations of fraud. In fact, there's probably more time devoted to the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination (which is shown in eerie slow-motion with a dramatic gunshot sound effect at the grisly climax) than to the film's supposedly exclusive evidence.

The secret this film keeps most closely is that anyone can get Bart Sibrel's raw footage. It's not hidden away in some vault. You can buy it from Spacecraft Films uncut in a high-quality DVD format preserving all the conversations he elected to omit, as well as the shots that clearly contradict Mr. Sibrel's theory. You can, for example, see that the video was shot through the square side window of the spacecraft, not through the supposedly round hatch window. (The hatch had a round inside bezel, but a trapezoidal outside bezel -- a fact Mr. Sibrel could easily have researched but apparently chose not to.) You can see shots that include both the window frame and the distant Earth, clearly proving that the image of Earth was NOT an illusion created by the stagecraft trickery he suggests. Most enlightening, you can hear the astronauts discuss with Mission Control how they're only testing the camera, not collecting footage for fakery.

The only bit of evidence Mr. Sibrel can offer to support his interpretation is the title plate of the reel he was sent, saying that the footage is "not for general public distribution". That doesn't mean "Keep it a secret." There are many examples of genuine declassified NASA material from that period, and the stern warnings about what will happen if you release it inappropriately are in clear contrast to the gentle suggestion from the NASA Public Affairs office regarding this footage.

But so certain is the director that his raw footage is top secret backstage photography, he didn't realize that many of his "backstage" shots actually come from the 30-minute live telecast that was seen by millions, which is also included on his reel and instantly recognized by people well enough versed in Apollo history. That is, his reel contains both test footage that wasn't broadcast to the world at the time, and also a record of the live telecast for which those legitimate backstage sessions were practice. Sibrel doesn't know the difference, and so he indiscriminately uses shots from both sources, claiming it's all backstage stuff that was never seen. Many of the gaffes he says reveal the hoax in the "raw" footage were actually seen live by the entire civilized world, not trimmed away as outtakes by NASA editors.

Like other films of this type, the director's premise is established only by manipulation, misdirection, and selective quotation -- carefully controlling what the viewer sees and hears so as to preclude coming to any other conclusion. Save yourself some money. For the same price as Mr. Sibrel's film you can get all the Apollo 11 raw footage and judge for yourself without his "help".

Bart Sibrel's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon" claims to prove that man never walked on the moon. But the "proof" consists of far-fetched photographic interpretations (including footage of Apollo 11 "staging" its mission), unsupported claims, and rhetorical questions easily answered by common sense and a little research.

We see a staged spacecraft landing on the videobox; the same scene is shown in the video. But since he doesn't mention that these images come from the 1976 fictional movie "Capricorn One," Sibrel obviously wants us to wrongly believe that they are from an Apollo mission.

Sibrel discusses the earth's Van Allen radiation belts, and claims that astronauts traveling through them could not survive. He says this is why the Soviets never sent men to the moon. Truth is, scientists don't really know how dangerous the belts are. But they took the gamble that the men would survive the 90-minute trip through them--which they did. (If the Soviets "knew" no man could survive the belts, why didn't they trumpet this fact when the Americans were claiming to beat them to the moon? Instead, they congratulated NASA.)

The reason the Soviets didn't go is that their moon rocket never worked. We're told that the Soviets' 1969 space technology was ahead of the US, which is baloney; by 1969 the US had docked two spacecraft six times--a maneuver critical for a moon landing--while the Soviets had not done it once.

If the moon landings were faked, how'd they keep the thousands of NASA employees quiet? Sibrel claims "only a few people saw the entire picture," but never gives any names or proof.

Some of Sibrel's reasoning makes your head spin. Sibrel concludes the reason no photos of Neil Armstrong on the moon exist is because he "feared liability" if the moon hoax were revealed. Then why did he sign the moon plaque?

The flag appears to flutter on the moon; how can it if there's no air? Sibrel believes that "massive air conditioners" blew across the soundstage to cool the actors inside the spacesuits, which made the flag flutter. But how could someone feel a breeze inside a spacesuit? (Apparently the fact that the flag, suspended by a rigid wire along its top to keep it unfurled, is shaking, not fluttering, from the astronauts' adjusting the flagpole just seems too simple.)

Sibrel notes that objects lit by one light source produce parallel shadows, and shows a moon photo where two shadows are not parallel. He deduces that there was a secondary light source, which proves they weren't on the moon, since the sun was the moon's only light source. But shadows only run parallel on a flat surface. The moon's surface is not flat, which accounts for the divergent shadows. You can even see this in Sibrel's own demonstration photo, which shows two shadows parallel on a street--but which diverge when they hit the curb!

Sibrel reveals his "lost footage," which supposedly shows Apollo 11 being staged. We see the earth from the spacecraft, which is now halfway to the moon. The earth moves as the camera moves. We also see the earth's penumbra (the line separating day from night). But Sibrel tells us another story. He claims that Apollo is still in earth orbit, and that the astronauts faked the penumbra by placing a piece of cardboard on the window to make the earth look smaller than it really is.

How stupid does Sibrel think we are? If they were in orbit, the continents would be bigger. And when the earth moves, the penumbra moves along with it, which wouldn't happen if the cardboard were attached to the window. (In response to an inquiry before I bought the movie, Sibrel assured me that we see them attaching the cardboard. But we don't.)

We meet a mysterious "third party" who allegedly coached the astronauts with their script: a sinister-looking fellow smoking a cigarette. But he's never identified, and we never hear nor see him saying anything.

Sibrel claims to catch Michael Collins contradicting himself at a press conference, where he says he didn't see any stars; in his later book, he says he did. But Collins is discussing a solar experiment in which the sun's glare blocked out the stars, which is why he couldn't see them.

Other answers:

1. Why is there no moon dust on the landing pads? Dust was blown down and away during landing. Wouldn't it billow up and back? Billowing is caused by the friction of dust particles against air molecules, and there is no air on the moon.

2. Why, if you double the speed of the moon movies, do the astronauts look like they're running on earth? They DON'T look like they're running on earth.

3. Why is there no blast crater underneath the LM? Just before landing, they throttled back to almost no thrust at all. But why does Norman Rockwell's moon landing painting show a blast crater? Artistic license.

Sibrel wants the astronauts to stop lying and come clean. This includes men like Apollo 12's Alan Bean, who now does paintings of astronauts on the moon. And Apollo 15's James Irwin and Apollo 16's Charles Duke, who were both so moved by their moon walks that they became evangelical Christians. Or Apollo 14's Ed Mitchell, whose experience motivated him to found an ESP institute. Funny how these men had their lives changed so profoundly by something that didn't happen.

A possible redeeming use for this truly idiotic video would be to demonstrate tricks con-artists use in constructing faulty arguments, including begging the question (assuming something is true when it has not been proven so) and the argument ad hominem (appealing to emotion so as to lead away from the truth). I hope that there are enough intelligent parents and teachers out there who can explain to their kids why the FOX moon hoax special and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon" are exercises in deception, absurd arguments, and misleading claims masquerading as facts.

About a year ago, my son told me about a program he had seen on fox (deliberately not capitalized) about how NASA had faked the moon landings. Since both of us are engineers, we had a great laugh about that and couldn't believe that with the great wealth of scientific and engineering data available, anyone could be swindled by such an obvious attempt to make money. Recently, my son bought this DVD, used at second hand store, and we watched it. As I watched this show, two thoughts kept running through my mind. First, was that the writers and producers of this show know nothing about, engineering and science or if they did, they were out to deliberately cheat people out of their money. Even now, after months of pondering these two ideas, I still can't say which one is true, maybe both are. That being said, I'll provide you with a few comments about things I noticed, based on my over 50 years as a machine design engineer including several years working on the Saturn V launch vehicle, designing fluids lines. One last thing, there is no opposing point of view from either NASA or the scientific/engineering community on this DVD, only one-sided, non-scientific spouting.

The first thing that struck me was how could a conspiracy of this magnitude, with 400,000 people and hundreds of companies working on the project, be maintained for over 30 years, without someone coming forward and saying that the landings were faked. There has not even been a deathbed confession. The supporters of this conspiracy theory believe or at least want the viewer to believe that only a select few were involved in creating the faked landings; however, thousands of engineers and scientists received data on vehicle performance, such as pressure, temperature, flow rates, acceleration and many other parameters that also had to be faked. I know; I was there. There are only two possible ways that this could happen. First, NASA had an alternative of group of engineers and scientist that provided fake data to all parties involved, but I don't how they could fool the thousands who actually designed and built the hardware and software. Of course I don't know how this data could survive over thirty years of scrutiny. The second possibility is that those thousands of people were in on the hoax too, but if that were the case, there now are a huge number of people involved.

The other thing that struck is their photograph analysis, or lack of rigorous photographic analysis. While I am not a professional photographer or a professional photographic analyst, I am quite proficient at engineering graphics and spatial analysis, which are both needed to develop drawings that are ultimately used to fabricate products that I developed. At least two views are needed, say the top and side, so that any part can be manufactured. In other words, you can't make a three-dimensional part from a single two-dimensional drawing. When it comes photography the same principles apply. Therefore, one can only infer the direction of the shadows from a single photograph and the writers' arguments about multiple lighting sources fail. Also, if there were more than one light source, wouldn't there be multiple shadows. It happens all the time at home. Try it yourself.

My final thought is in regards to the moon rocks, which are not covered in any detail in the DVD. I find it extremely interesting that not one geologist of the many thousands that have examined these rocks who come from all over the world has come forward to say the moon rocks were fakes. Furthermore, many moon rocks have been given to scientists in countries that are not friendly to the United States and again no statements about fake moon rocks.

Save your money and a buy a book or a movie that is written by people who understand, science and engineering.

Oh my God!! What has happened to education in America?? It's amazing how many people will believe anything put in front of them without any thought on their part at all. Let's look at some of the points of proof:

"Flag flapping in the wind" - The astronaut had his hand on the flag pole the entire time 'and' was moving around the whole time, probably using the pole to help steady himself. That would tend to shake a flimsy flag attached to a flimsy flag pole.

"Some shadows are pitch dark, but in others you can see an astronaut" - You get the same effect on Earth. Take a picture of your sunny back yard with a person in a small shadow, you probably won't see the person. Move in closer and take a close-up of the same person, from within the shadow... and you'll be able to see the person.

"Shadows at different angles" - Ever heard of a fisheye lens? They use them all the time. Those lenses make any object on the edge of the picture seem to be at different angles, even if you take a picture of parallel lines.

And is it any coincidence that the related web site has the directors video resume on it? Looks more and more like a self serving show based on anything that is scandalous to bring in the viewers.

Give these people your money if you want, but remember P.T. Barman's' words: "There's a sucker born every minute".

I have uncovered previously unseen, government documents that prove Bart Sibrel is actually a secret agent from the planet Andromeda IV! Just kidding, of course, but if you seriously thought that I wasn't kidding, then you are probably part of the target audience for this delusional Sibrel documentary.

Certifiable credulity is an essential prerequisite condition for viewing this video without bursting into laughter. Don't waste your money on this one. I have met Bart personally. He needs to spend more time with his child instead of trapsing around the globe peddling his ludicrous fantasy.

After the Mythbusters debunked this man's claims and after the LRO actually imaged the Apollo landing sites, down to the footsteps of the astronauts, one can only wonder why this man is taken seriously by anyone.

I can't believe they would compare an image of a moon landing sun with that of an image taken by Space Ship One. Space Ship One was clearly a hoax. Everyone with half a brain knows that. It is impossible for any man-made object to go higher than 20,000 ft on account of the invisible force field. No aircraft fly above this altitude. If they claim to, it is because altimeters do not function properly and give false readings about 5,000 ft because of the intense gamma radiation above 3,000 ft. Space Ship One never happened.

We have had many conspiracy documentaries with their manufactured "evidence":-the "In Search Of Noahs Ark" film(which was filmed in Utah),the "Elvis Is Alive" TV film which even host Bill Bixby disputed on-air,the Nostradamus special that produced "evidence" telling us why the world was going to end in 1999 and others.
But the daddy of them all are the "Moon Landing hoax" films with their paranoid nonsense.
It is interesting that out of 400,000 people that worked on the moon landings,they cannot come up with one witness to dispute it.
And they cannot explain who did the effects,where they got a soundstage big enough to film it,why they took cars on some missions,how they managed to "fool" all the world's scientists and geologists with hundreds of pounds of moon rock that was brought back and how come instruments left on the moon sent back signals to Earth until 1979?
And they did this six times without anyone finding out.
Above all the silly conspiracy comments by the paranoid,they cannot answer one simple question-if it was a hoax then why would they do it six times?

This DVD is typical conspiracy theorist trash. It puts forth theories and fails to deliver evidence. This is a con-man that tempts the viewer with claims of exclusive footage, when in reality, it's footage that is available directly from the source...and in the public realm. I still don't understand the attempt to tie the moon landing to the JFK assassination...I guess he has trouble keeping his conspiracy theories in order.
I feel dumber for having watched this DVD. My only consolation is that the DVD was borrowed from my local library...I didn't spend a penny...I suggest you do the same...if you must see it.

WOW, did NASA really fake the Moon Landings, when over 400,000 people were directly involved with the project? Did our own Astronauts, heroes to the USA and the World, lie to us all this time? . . . Keep reading !

At first, I was shocked and intrigued by the idea that NASA might have conspired to fake the Apollo Moon Landings. I grew up during the Space Race and the Astronauts were my childhood heroes. Naturally, the information documented and presented by Bart Sibrel was disturbing to me. At first, it was interesting, but then I decided to research the "source", Bart Sibrel himself.

What I found was more shocking and disturbing than the possibility of massive fraud by NASA ...

What did I learn about Mr. Sibrel and his "credentials" and "expertise" ?

(1) Bart Sibrel is a TAXI-CAB DRIVER in Nashville, TN . . . Certainly, not a "Rocket Scientist" !

(2) He attacked a person over a PARKING SPACE . . . Google it for proof.

(3) He STALKED Apollo 11 Astronaut BUZZ ALDRIN, who finally punched Sibrel in Self-Defense . . . It's on YouTube!

There are numerous accounts regarding Bart Sibrel's past behavior on the internet, just Google up his name and see for yourselves!

FRANKLY, in closing, I would not believe BART SIBREL if he told me that the Sun was shining, without looking to be sure . . .

BART SIBREL has no "professional experience" in the U.S. Manned Space Program apparently has some type of problem . . . I am shocked that so many people have believed this wild tale of conspiracy at "face value", without ever considering the source !

This video is as credible as the source that created it . . . It was a thoroughly transparent and disgusting attempt to distort the truth of American History.
I would not recommend it to my worst enemy to watch and would have given it ZERO stars, if I had that option!