Bart Sibrel
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Bart Winfield Sibrel is a conspiratorialist who claims the Apollo moon landings were faked. He outlines his points in two films, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon and Astronauts Gone Wild, both are marketed through his website.
Sibrel's claims are strongly questioned by the scientific community and few of his theories and allegations are deemed credible by those with expertise in the field.
Most astronauts have refused to grant him interviews and Sibrel has used ambush tactics to try and get footage of them commenting on the film.
Sibrel was arrested for trespassing on Neil Armstrong's property. In 2002, he lured Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to a Beverly Hills hotel with the ruse that he was to interview Aldrin for a Japanese children's show on space. Sibrel insisted that Aldrin place his hand on a Bible and swear that he walked on the moon. The interview became contentious and at the end, Aldrin punched Sibrel in the jaw. Sibrel's reaction was "Did you get that on camera?" Sibrel used the tape to try to convince the police that Sibrel rather than Aldrin was the victim of an assault. No charges were brought by the District Attorney. Aldrin's lawyer, Robert O'Brien, claims Sibrel has been stalking many former Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, Alan Bean, and Al Worden. Lois Aldrin, referring to an earlier encounter, added, "He said things I can't repeat. He was not a nice man, and it really upset Buzz a lot."
Jim McDade, in the Birmingham News, characterized the film as "full of falsehoods, innuendo, strident accusations, half-truths, flawed logic and premature conclusions", avers that 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", and adds "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."
Sibrel also participated in Fox TV's special, "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?".
See also
External links
- A popular website dedicated to debunking Sibrel (http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html)
- a critique (http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Bart%20Sibrel.htm)
- Mr. Sibrel's Web site (http://www.moonmovie.com)
- video of the result of his confrontation with Aldrin (http://moonmovie.com/video/agw2.mov)
- Listed at Crank.net (http://www.crank.net)