#1144: Bart Sibrel

Bart Sibrel is a victim. At one point he was punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin. That happened after Sibrel harassed confronted Aldrin with his views on the moon landing. Sibrel, of course, thinks those moon landings never happened (it hasn’t gone unnoticed in Sibrel’s circles that Aldrin was a freemason either), and has devoted his career to showing that this is so by judiciously selective use of evidence, using James O’Keefe tactics to make astronomers look bad, quote-mining, motivated reasoning and in general engaging in various elaborate, tortured conspiracy theories.

He has produced two “documentaries” on the topic, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon  (2001) and Astronauts Gone Wild (2004), and there is a pretty comprehensive review of Sibrel’s “evidence” in eight parts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And yes, it is pretty much obvious to anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the technology and documentation that Sibrel’s understanding of the things he talks about or cites as evidence is, shall we say, cursory. Oh, and the footage used in A Funny Thing that Sibrel claims was accidentally sent to him from NASA (and interpreted to be evidence that the Apollo 11 astronauts were staging shots of the Earth to make it appear that the spacecraft was on its way to the moon) is in fact widely available and shows the astronauts practicing for an upcoming live telecast. Details, details.

Diagnosis: Vocal, aggressive, and deeply delusional.