A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon
Directed by Bart Winfield Sibrel
Produced by Bart Winfield Sibrel
Written by Bart Winfield Sibrel
Narrated by Anne Tonelson
Edited by Bart Winfield Sibrel
Distributed by AFTH, LLC
Release dates
January 18, 2001
Running time
47 minutes
Country United States
Language English

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.[1]

Sibrel presents assertions of an alleged hoax, including: Supposed photographic anomalies, disasters such as the destruction of Apollo 1 in which crew members Roger Chaffee, Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Edward 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[citation needed] 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 Lois C. Philmus, a 1966 book of humorous anecdotes by people involved in the space program.[citation needed] 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?[2]


Bart Sibrel believes that there were numerous insurmountable scientific and technical problems which made it improbable that men could land on the Moon and return to Earth safely. Further, he believes that certain supposed anomalies and inconsistencies in NASA's records of the landings point to a hoax, and that the Space Race was actually a race to develop armaments. He claims that NASA perpetrated a fraud because of the perception that if the United States could land men on the Moon before the Soviet Union, it would be a major victory in the Cold War, since the Soviets had been the first to achieve a successful space launch (Sputnik 1 in 1957), the first manned space flight (Vostok 1 in 1961), and the first spacewalk (Voskhod 2 in 1965).

The 47-minute film primarily focuses on the Van Allen radiation belt, areas of intense radiation circling the Earth, as a major reason that Sibrel believes it was impossible for a manned spacecraft to land on the Moon.


Jim McDade, writing in The Birmingham News, characterized A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon as "full of falsehoods, innuendo, strident accusations, half-truths, flawed logic and premature conclusions."[3] According to McDade, the "only thing new and weird" in the film is that the claim that video views of Earth were actually filmed through a small hole to give the impression that Apollo 11 was not in low earth orbit. "Bart has misinterpreted things that are immediately obvious to anyone who has extensively read Apollo history and documentation or anyone who has ever been inside an Apollo Command Module or accurate mockup," says McDade.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Richardson, Valerie (July 20, 2009). "Skeptic spreads word of NASA 'folly'". The Washington Times (News World Communications). p. 2 of 3. Archived from the original on July 26, 2009. Retrieved May 28, 2013. 
  2. ^ John Moffett (Director, Producer, Writer); Bruce M. Nash (Executive Producer, Writer) (2001). Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (Documentary). Hollywood, CA: Nash Entertainment, Inc. OCLC 52473513. 
  3. ^ McDade, Jim (April 1, 2001). "Lunar Lunacy Shooting Down Theories that Apollo Moon Landing was Hoax Conspiracy". The Birmingham News. Retrieved May 17, 2007.  Extract of article courtesy of Keith Mayes. Full article available for purchase from the NewsLibrary.com newspaper archive.

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