Summary Of Shooting Stanley Kubrick By T. Patrick Murray

On July 16th, 1969 world renowned astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin began their eight day voyage to the moon that would eventually become one of mankind’s greatest achievements. However, this tremendous milestone in history has raised ever growing doubt among conspiracy theorists claiming that the live broadcast provided by NASA showing Apollo 11’s lunar module landing on the moon was in fact faked. The conspiracy theory states that the landing actually occurred in an undisclosed Hollywood studio set by the United States, with the help of famed director Stanley Kubrick, in an attempt to beat the Soviets in the space race. Disproving the belief that the moon landing was faked by the government can be done by examining the physical evidence
that was brought back from the Apollo 11 mission, later video footage that had surfaced, and pictures taken of the moon from multiple lunar modules and satellites. There is an abundance of hoaxes and conspiracies that inhabit the minds of people from all societies; conspiracy theories have been used throughout history by those who are ignorant to how the world works. The purpose for conceiving these ideas were to attempt to explain something that was mysterious in nature, but not all explanations formed were true. Whether the concepts were factual or not, they spread fairly quickly among different groups through different means and have spread for decades, centuries, and some continue to spread till this day.
The first pieces of evidence, proving the moon landing occurred, are the physical objects that were brought back to Earth from the multiple Apollo missions. “Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface” (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). One of the samples was called lunar breccia, these rocks were a combination of volcanic rocks and lunar soil that had solidified together due to impact hardening from meteorites. According to the study guide “The Lunar Petrographic Educational Thin Section Set” written by Charles Meyer, the associate lunar curator for NASA, samples of lunar breccia were brought back to NASA’s manned spacecraft center where they were carefully studied and examined; several rocks were dated by scientists to be over three billion years old. Conspiracy theorists often discredit the authenticity of the samples by arguing that the government could have created the rocks themselves or used rocks found on Earth; this theory just cannot be possible due to the unique and complex structure of the lunar rocks which were described by lunar geochemist Randy L. Korotev in his article “How Do We Know That It's a Rock From the Moon?” where he states, “Lunar igneous rocks have crystallization ages, determined by techniques involving radioisotopes, that are older than any known Earth rocks.” From these materials scientists have been able to discover important information about the moon’s environmental make-up, these discoveries often to lead to further questions regarding our solar system’s composition and origin. Video footage found online can often be overlooked or misconstrued by conspiracy theorists.
Many of these theorists do not take time to research what source the footage came from or analyze the elements occurring in the footage, while others blatantly believe any forms of “proof” they come across simply because it supports their position in an argument. Theorists support their claim that the Hollywood director, Stanley Kubrick, orchestrated the moon landings for the United States government by referencing video clips that had been in circulation on the web since August, 2015. These clips depicted what seemed to be Kubrick’s confession to faking the moon landing, these video clips actually come from the film, “Shooting Stanley Kubrick” by T. Patrick Murray. While the short clips have a serious tone that may be convincing to those simply browsing the internet, these clips are all fictional representations of what Kubrick’s confession could have looked like. When visiting the film’s official website it clearly states, “In May 1999 an unknown filmmaker secured an interview with the reclusive genius Stanley Kubrick” (Shooting Stanley Kubrick, 2015) this can be disproven due to the fact that Kubrick had died two months prior. When individuals come across videos with the word “confession” in the title they are quick to jump to the conclusion that it is real because their cognitive bias convinces them that confessing correlates with truth. Another piece of evidence is video footage
of the Apollo 16 lunar rover trekking over the lunar landscape and kicking up dust particles in a manner that could not be recreated on Earth. This can be explained in the article, “Proof We Landed On The Moon Is In The Dust” by Amy Shira Teitel, a spaceflight historian, where she refers to two scientists named Hsiang-Wen Hsu and Mihály Horányi, who both studied the direction in which the dust on the moon was kicked up from the rear wheels, from the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. These two scientists found that the formation of a “rooster tail” could be observed following the lunar rover, it formed due to the lunar environment, the moon’s low gravity, and lack of appreciable atmosphere. On the moon the gravitational pull is not strong enough to drag the dust immediately back down to the ground like the gravity on Earth would, because of this the dust flies further away and is launched with a spinning trajectory caused from the wheels movement; the “rooster tail” adds more evidence proving there was an actual moon environment being observed because there is no method to functionally replicate weaker gravity. These developments in video footage disprove this conspiracy theory and also attribute to the fact that the moon’s atmosphere cannot be recreated by man. Another form of evidence involves the pictures taken by the lunar modules themselves and modern photographs of the moon’s surface.
One highly criticised image captured was a picture of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the United State’s flag into the moon’s surface and what appeared to be ripples moving through the flag as if there was wind. Many theorists claim that since the vacuum of space does not allow an atmosphere to form on the moon there cannot be a gentle breeze present, therefore the picture is proof the moon landing happened on Earth. NASA counters this belief by stating this effect was caused due to different factors such as the horizontal cross bar the flag was rigged to and the vibrations made from the two astronauts pushing the flag into the ground. Theorists also argue that because there are no stars clearly visible in any of the pictures, the landing had to have been faked because the common belief on Earth is that without an atmosphere the sky should be filed with them; NASA states this phenomena occurs because the sunlight that hits the pale surface of the moon is very bright and it drowns out the light emitted from the stars, this also can be seen on Earth in cities where the numerous lights reflect off the streets making the stars above almost non existent. Pictures taken of the lunar module’s landing site raise suspicion among skeptics because they believe, if we did land on the moon, the exhaust released by the spacecraft should have created
a blast crater; NASA disproves this idea by explaining that earlier prototypes of the landing module never created any major craters upon landing, not even on Earth, and that the scattering of dust from the exhaust is caused by the movement of air and since the moon has no air there is no noticeable movement of dust. Another image brought up repeatedly is of Buzz Aldrin, in the picture he can be seen climbing down the lunar module in a shadow, but appearing to be brightly illuminated, theorists use this picture to argue that there were multiple light sources being used by different studio lights. This claim has been debunked courtesy of NVIDIA, an American technology company that designs graphics processing units, the company wanted to test their new software so the image underwent a technique called voxel global illumination, to determine whether a new object has been added to a picture; the developers of this technique discovered that Neil Armstrong’s space suit reflected light from the sun toward Buzz Aldrin’s direction, and after factoring this discovery into their virtual rendering the final image had almost no differences to the original picture. Conspiracy theorists repeatedly bring up the moon’s non-existent atmosphere in many of their claims without realizing it can also prove the moon landing happened. NASA published images in 2009, visually showing the landing sites of multiple Apollo missions which were taken by NASA’s lunar reconnaissance orbiter, the modern satellite that orbits the moon; the images captured clearly illustrate the lander craft from the missions, the scientific equipment that was left behind, and tracks made by astronauts as they explored and performed experiments on the moon. Now since there is no atmosphere on the moon there would be no wind or weather to degrade the objects and markings left behind, this explains why even after decades their presence remains seemingly untouched. Photographs are great pieces of evidence, but only if the facts are established and explained through information that is supported by credible sources. The proof provided should exonerate any uncertainties individuals may have regarding whether human beings were actually able to successfully land on the moon. The elements of the moon’s environment must be researched thoroughly and cannot be compared to anomalies that happen in Earth’s environment because the terrains and atmospheres are too different. People must use critical thinking in order to properly analyze and assess the information that is presented to them by outside parties, or any information in general, in order to finalize the correct conclusions otherwise they will continue the cycle of accepting and spreading misinformation. These explanations counter many of the arguments conspiracy theorists have supported and point out the lack of scientific reasoning behind those arguments.