Episode 5: Remote Control

In 1961, President Kennedy announced …

that the United States would go to the moon. Eight years later, the Apollo 11 astronauts set foot upon its surface. Millions of Americans watched live on their televisions as it happened, but somehow the pinnacle of man’s achievement became a wellspring of conspiracy theories. In this first episode of a two-part series on the moon landing, Jill Lepore traces the explosion of conspiratorial thinking that began with Apollo 11’s lift off — a path winding from awe of science, to the unshakeable faith that everything is a conspiracy. The more extraordinary scientific research and technology got, the more difficult it became to keep sight of the line between fact and fiction, and between the believable and the unbelievable. 

Photo: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Key Sources

• Listen to audio clips and transcripts of Day 1 of the Apollo 11 Flight mission by reading this journal entry.

• Read Kevin Young’s book Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News.

• Read Norman Mailer’s Of A Fire On The Moon.

• Watch the trippy 1968 BBC broadcast, The News-Benders.

• Watch Rod Serling’s In Search of Ancient Astronauts.

• Read the original Apollo 11 conspiracy, “We Never Went to the Moon” by Bill Kaysing and Randy Reed.

• Mae Brussell’s tapes are courtesy of www.maebrussell.com.