Bart Sibrel

Bart Winfield Sibrel

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon

As listed by www.crank.net A site dedicatad to listing "cranks, crankpots, kooks and loons on the net"

Bart Sibrel is the new kid on the block when it comes to the business of making money by claiming the moon landings were fake. Sibrel is the producer of "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Moon." You can buy his DVD or video for $29.99 from Amazon.com. But you would be well advised to read this page first!

Sibrel has no qualifications or experience that makes his opinions count for anything. He's an 'investigative journalist' (his description, not mine) who makes a living out of making videos, and stalking the Apollo astronauts. Sibrel claims on his site that the Apollo astronauts refuse to give interviews to anybody, thereby proving they have something to hide. Sibrel says "Neil Armstrong, the first man to supposedly walk on the moon, refuses to give interviews to anyone on the subject. 'Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.' Collins also refuses to be interviewed. Aldrin, who granted an interview, threatened to sue us if we showed it to anyone." The truth is the Apollo astronauts usually refuse to give interviews to conspiracy theorists. Most of the Apollo astronauts know who Bart Sibrel is and how he makes his living, and most avoid him whenever possible. This is why Sibrel has had to resort to "ambush" and other deceptive tactics such as posing as a crew from Discovery Channel in order to get on-camera comments from astronauts. Armstrong is likely the reason Sibrel was fired from his job as a cameraman for a Nashville, Tenn., television station. Sibrel was arrested for trespassing on Armstrong's property after Armstrong refused to grant him an interview. Would you grant more interviews to an idiot that kept calling you a liar and kept coming out with nonsensical and false accusations based on nothing more than a twisted and fertile imagination and without a single supporting fact to back it up? I think not!

Sibrel claims on his web site (that only exists to promote his video) that his video contains "never-seen" secret NASA Apollo videotape showing a clip of the Apollo 11 crew faking some footage in the Apollo module. After seeing the film those of you of a certain age may come to the conclusion that you have seen it before, when it was broadcast live on national TV 30+ years ago! You may also feel that you have been swindled out of your cash. A description of what the footage is really about is given in the first article below.

He also claims that it contains "Rare, uncirculated photographs" and "Recently uncovered mislabeled, unedited, behind-the-scenes video footage". If you want to find out whether or not those statements are true, then you will just have to part with your cash (which is the general idea) or take my word for it that Sibrel's video contains NOTHING that is not in the public domain and has been for the last 30+ years. His "exclusive" film footage is available (unedited) from various sources. Sibrel has simply cobbled together some general release NASA video clips and gives his unqualified - and amazingly bizarre - interpretation of them. His claims are in fact so ludicrous they are actually quite amusing, well they would be if you hadn't been conned out of $29.99

His site A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon lists , and I quote......."The Top Ten Reasons Why No Man Has Ever Set Foot on the Moon ". I have no intention of explaining why all these claims are crazy, they are way to daft for me to be bothered with it. Anyway, it's already been done on a number of sites, here is one that's very good www.clavius Let me just tell you that the first reason given on his list is that Nixon was in power at the time! (Do you really need to read the others?)

Here is an example from Bart Sibrel's DVD and video. This one comes up fairly frequently, which is which is why I have selected it.

SIBREL: "After the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin gave a press conference. When asked whether they remembered seeing any stars from the surface of the moon, Collins, who was supposedly in the command module the whole time, gave a wrong answer to a question he should not have been answering. .......I'm saying Collins blew it right then and there and I honestly cannot understand why there is even further discussion on the whole topic....."

Sounds convincing doesn't it! Truth is though this statement is so inaccurate it amounts to a lie.

Here is the relevant part of the transcript:

SIBREL: I have two brief questions that I would like to ask, if I may. When you were carrying out that incredible Moon walk, did you find that the surface was equally firm everywhere or were there harder and softer spots that you could detect? And secondly, when you looked up at the sky, could you actually see the stars in the solar corona in spite of the glare?

ALDRIN: The first part of your question, the surface did vary in its thickness of penetration somewhere in flat regions. [...]

ARMSTRONG: We were never able to see stars from the lunar surface or on the daylight side of the Moon by eye without looking through the optics [i.e., the lunar module's navigation telescope]. I don't recall during the period of time that we were photographing the solar corona what stars we could see.

COLLINS: I don't remember seeing any.

(The First Lunar Landing As Told By The Astronauts: Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins in a Post-flight Press Conference, NASA EP-73, 1989 pt. VI)

As you can see, Sibrel DID ask about seeing stars, BUT it was 'stars in the solar corona' WHICH ONLY OCCURRED WHILE THEY WERE ON THEIR WAY TO THE MOON, NOT ON THE MOON. That is why Collins also answered the question. Solar corona photography had been taken from the command module during the translunar coast, in which all three astronauts participated. (Apollo 11 Preliminary Science Report NASA SP-214, 1969, p. 39).

It's by using tricks like this that Sibrel, and others, try to support their claim for a hoax and thereby hope to sell a few more of their ridiculous books, videos and DVD's.

I strongly suggest that if you should still be considering buying Sibrel's 'proof' (come now, surely not?) that you first read the two following articles.

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This conspiracy is a conspiracy Jim McDade 4/1/2001. Extract from the Birmingham News.

Bart Sibrel is a really friendly and likeable guy. Good traits for a salesman. Sibrel's technical production skills are also excellent. His conspiracy DVD looks and sounds great. Too bad that it is full of falsehoods, innuendo, strident accusations, half-truths, flawed logic and premature conclusions. It has all of the hallmarks of tasty conspiracy theory material. It even ties itself to the most popular conspiracy of all time by playing the notorious Zapruder film of the JFK assassination. The documentary included somber violin music, heart-rending scenes of starving children in Africa, clips of napalmed Vietnamese villagers, wounded American soldiers in Vietnam and police beating protesters with nightsticks. Bart masterfully cranks up the viewers emotions and distrust of government leadership early in the show so that the viewer is primed for the "stunning" new evidence at the end.

As far as Bart's much ballyhooed "never-seen", secret NASA Apollo videotape was neither "never-seen" nor secret. It was all taped footage from the Apollo 11 CM Westinghouse three-color camera telecasts that were broadcast live on NBC, CBS, ABC, the BBC and every other decent network on the planet back in July of 1969. Many ordinary citizens have documentary videos that show the same broadcasts. The times and dates of those broadcasts have long been a matter of public record and the documentation can be viewed in the NASA Apollo 11 Post Launch Mission Operation Report (Number M-932-69-11. The video was so blurry and fuzzy that Houston had to prompt the characteristically un-talkative Apollo 11 commander, Neil Armstrong to describe what he was pointing the camera at so that NASA could correlate what he was shooting with what he was describing on later tape playbacks.

Color TV cameras small enough to fit inside tiny spacecraft cabins were brand new and balky technology back in 1969. Global communications networks could not even synchronize the audio and video signals coming back to Houston from receiving antennas in Australia and Goldstone, California. The only thing new and weird revealed in Sibrel's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MOON is his bizarre personal interpretation that the video views of earth were shot through a small hole (template) to give the impression that Apollo 11 was not in low earth orbit. Sibrel insists that none of the Apollo spacecraft ever left low earth orbit because of the "radiation barrier" called the Van Allen Belts. This radiation barrier is greatly exaggerated by all of the "moon hoax" proponents. Sibrel's misinterpretation of the archival Apollo 11 video results from a combination of Bart's longing to see something awry and his lack of understanding about the Apollo cabin and TV camera configuration.

Sibrel attempts to describe to the viewers of his documentary what is going on inside the darkened Command Module while the crew was attempting to give the TV viewers back the best possible view of earth with the primitive handheld color TV camera carried aboard Apollo 11. The problem with his explanation is basically that he does not know what he is talking about. Sibrel may know a lot about current video editing and production technology, but he does not have expertise about Apollo. In order to provide 1969 TV viewers back on earth with the best possible view of our planet from space, it was necessary to eliminate the glaring reflected light and direct sunlight that was streaming into the spacecraft and interfering with the shot. The official Apollo 11 mission documentation from 1969 contains astronaut Michael Collins' own discussion of these lighting problems and the difficulties he experienced with the window shades in the Apollo spacecraft. Unfortunately for Bart Sibrel, he is obviously unaware of astronaut Mike Collins documented statements. The astronauts shuttered most of the capsule windows with special shades that blocked most of the glaring direct and reflected sunlight coming off of the bright, shiny Lunar Module which was docked in close proximity to the location of the windows.

The earth was then clearly visible out of the other "unblocked" cabin window when the shades were closed. What one actually witnesses in the video are not cutouts or templates passing between the earth and the TV camera, it is the communications headset wiring, arms and body of astronaut Michael Collins as he reaches over to remove the shade blocking one of the spacecraft windows. As soon as the shade is removed, the video shows the cabin immediately illuminating with glaring reflected sunlight. We also see that Collins is the one opening the window shade and that another member of the crew is obviously handling the camera from the vicinity of the foot area of the crew couches. Sibrel expressed the mistaken impression that the hand-held Westinghouse TV camera was hard-mounted to the face of the cabin window. Sibrel, as well as his devoted followers are the victims of misinterpretation and apparent misinformation.

Bart is far from what you would call a space expert (although he does have good TV editing and video production skills). He does not appear to possess an understanding of the basic layout and configuration of the Apollo Command Module or the procedures followed by NASA during the Apollo telecasts. 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.

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Moon Stalker By Gersh Kuntzman September 16 2002

THE GUY WITH THE astronaut fetish is a Nashville man named Bart Sibrel, a self-described investigative journalist who believes that the Eagle never landed, the Sea of Tranquility must be in the South Pacific and the only giant leap Neil Armstrong ever made was a big belly flop in his neighbor's pool.

In short, he believes that men never walked on the moon. He thinks the whole thing was faked by NASA so that the Soviets would think we were technologically superior. Oh, yeah, and the Bible is his weapon of choice for tormenting former Apollo astronauts.

Last week in Beverly Hills, Sibrel set his sights on the second man to walk on the moon, Edwin Aldrin (you probably know him as "Buzz" Aldrin because how can you be an astronaut with a nerdy, non-Space-Age name like Edwin Aldrin?). Emerging from a fancy hotel on Rodeo Drive, Aldrin, who at age 72 still looks like he could outlast Lance Bass in a centrifuge, was approached by the Bible-toting Sibrel, who started pointedly accusing Aldrin of making money for something he didn't do: walking on the moon

Aldrin tried to walk away, but the 37-year-old Sibrel followed him onto the street, demanding that Aldrin place his hand on the Bible. "Swear that you walked on the moon!" Sibrel cried. For a second, a glint crossed Aldrin's eyes as it seemed he was actually considering swearing on Sibrel's actual Bible to something that he actually did do. But, alas, the hotel doorman came over and broke things up. And then Aldrin put two-and-two together: He had been lured to the hotel as part of a ruse by Sibrel, who had arranged for a fake Japanese film crew to interview Aldrin for a fake kids show about space. At that point, Aldrin finally lost his cool. When Sibrel and his Bible came at him again, Aldrin unleashed a moon shot of his own-right to Sibrel's jaw. (It couldn't have been that much of a punch, though, because less than a second after it landed, Sibrel was already asking his cameraman, "Was that on camera?").

Now, I must admit to you that I was not standing on Rodeo Drive as this action unfolded. Nor am I painting the word picture based on a detailed report from the Beverly Hills Police. No, they were too busy hanging out at the Le Pain Quotidien to fill me in. Rather, I witnessed this textbook case of astronaut-taunting thanks to a videotape that Sibrel provided to the local authorities, the better to convince police that he, not Aldrin, was the victim of an assault.

At this point in the story, it behooves me to ask: Short of taking No-Doz to avoid missing even a minute of a "Battlestar Galactica" marathon on UPN, is there anything that quite qualifies a guy for loserdom than setting up fake interviews with fake Japanese producers and then chasing an ex-astronaut onto the street with a Bible?

Make that ex-astronauts. According to Aldrin's lawyer, Robert O'Brien, Sibrel has been stalking many former Apollo astronauts. Neil Armstrong cursed him out once. Al Bean had to throw him out of his house. Even Al Worden, whom I like to consider "The Forgotten Moonwalker," got the Bible treatment. Pull out the list of men who have walked on the moon and Sibrel has stalked them all, said O' Brien. He even had a prior run-in with Aldrin. "He said things I can't repeat," said Aldrin's wife, Lois. "He was not a nice man, and it really upset Buzz a lot." Hey, you want to upset Neil Armstrong, be my guest. That guy has a serious attitude problem. But don't mess with Buzz Aldrin (whose mother's maiden name was Marion Moon-a coincidence? I wish).

You may remember Sibrel from last year's groundbreaking Fox TV special, "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?" a telecast of such stunning idiocy that even the network (and, remember, we're talking about Fox here) distanced itself from the broadcast with a disclaimer admitting that "the theories expressed [in the show] are not the only possible interpretation." That's a nice way of saying, "It's hard for us to distinguish this show from an episode of MADTV."

Sibrel is in such a deep orbit that even other conspiracy theorists complain that he's giving conspiracy theorists a bad name........

........Of course, you'll have to pay good money to see Sibrel's "evidence." NASA, on the other hand, offers its evidence for free.........

..........This is the part of my story where I would typically call in a psychologist, who would say that in our stressful, complex world, conspiracy theories offer a neat-and-tidy explanation for things that may not be so clear. The psychologist would also talk about how conspiracy theories tend to circulate, especially now, thanks to the Internet because people of like minds tend to seek each other out, the better to feel that it's "us" versus "them."

But I didn't bother to call a psychologist because the actual truth about the moon conspiracy theories is that it's built entirely of manure.

September 16 2002

Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv

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Get it into your heads people that selling books, videos and DVD's claiming to have proof that it was a hoax, when they have no such proof, is a scam! They are taking your money under false pretenses. See the following web site.

Scam Help

Scam Help

(part of NetHelp.org)

The mission of Scam Help is to help people avoid Internet scams, hoaxes, frauds, and other tricks.

Rule #1 - Never Reply to Email Spam Most unsolicited email or spam is a scam. Spammers randomly generate email addresses, and hope you will reply (to get off their list), but replying just verifies your email address is real, so they can spam you extra hard. Just like most phone solicitors, email spammers' products and services are usually not worth buying or do not really exist...................

Rule #2 - Never Buy on the Internet without Researching First

Go to Google.com and type in the company name or product and the word scam or hoax to search for information before even considering buying. While companies with Websites tend to be much more legitimate than those with just email addresses, still, always do research first before giving personal information or sending money.

Examples of a Common Scam and a Hoax and how to research with Google.com search links:

Nigeria Scam - Email from Africa "promising" share of millions

(If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true)

Moon Hoax - Buy video or book "proving" America never went to the moon

($19.95 per sucker adds up to big science hoax money)

(May other scams listed)

ScamHelp is part of NetHelp.org

Last updated 10/10/03

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