The Problem With the Old Conspiracy Theory in a New Movie

If you’re like most people, you’re having trouble keeping track of the nation’s growing stockpile of conspiracy theories. It’s becoming harder and harder to separate the birthers from the truthers from the grassy knollers and all the rest.
But there’s one conspiracy theory that, regrettably, is about to get a lot of solo attention thanks to the release of the film Operation Avalanche, a brisk yarn about a team of CIA agents who fake the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. That conspiracy theory is an old one—no sooner had we landed than the loonies emerged—but it’s still a major problem.

Created by a group of Canadian filmmakers led by director Matt Johnson, Operation Avalanche is one of those meta-tales that is also about filmmakers. In this case, though, that’s only a ruse; what they really are is CIA agents brought into NASA in 1967 to look for a Soviet mole who has infiltrated the space program. They adopt the documentary filmmaker personae so that they can move freely through NASA without raising the unknown spy’s suspicions. When they stumble on the secret knowledge that there’s no real hope of getting to the moon by the deadline set by President Kennedy, the conspiracy machine rumbles into motion, as the filmmaker-spies try to convince the CIA to let them fake the landings on a sound stage in Texas and pass it off as the real deal.
“It wouldn’t be hard at all,” says one of the plotters. ̶...

Source: TIME: Top Science and Health Stories - September 16, 2016 Category: Science Authors: Jeffrey Kluger Tags: Uncategorized Conspiracy Theories moon movies NASA Operation Avalanche Opinion Science space Source Type: news