From the Field

How Stanley Kubrick and Rod Serling’s Mutual Hatred Got Us to the Moon

July 27th, 2009

Michael Jackson might have made the dance move famous, but the Apollo 11 flight crew turned moonwalking into a nationally unifying event back in July of 1969. The historic television broadcast brought families, friends, and fringe theorists together to watch in awe-struck wonder as a man bounced around the surface of the moon. Fake or not, it was one of America’s finest moments.

“Fake? You can’t be serious,” I hear you say, and you’re right: I’m not. But I wouldn’t mention it if there wasn’t a segment of our society that still believes, some forty years later, that the lunar mission was an elaborately staged charade. In honor of last week’s moon landing milestone, let’s take a look back at the real reason our country unquestionably made it to the moon:

Stanley Kubrick and Rod Serling were sworn enemies.

Conspiracists have often speculated that the landing footage produced and pushed to millions of homes across the nation was shot by director extraordinaire Stanley Kubrick and scripted by sci-fi master Rod Serling, and though their theory cuts close to the truth, neither they nor anyone else seemed to know of the secret rift between two of America’s greatest storytellers. Intelligence officials were sure they would be able to convince the native New Yorkers to help their country topple the cold-blooded Russians in the race to space. If the request came directly from The Man, how could these men deny the call to defend their country by faking an incredibly historic event?

The Recruitment of Rod Serling

Mr. Serling was approached at an early stage to help shape a plausible space launch and lunar walk. He was an easy sell: he had proudly served in World War II, earning both a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, and he fashioned the perfect script in less than a month (like a true hero). With the script complete, officials now turned to the task of finding someone to bring the idea to life. Stanley Kubrick kept coming up in conversations—he had a science fiction film in the works and had the finest sense of camera optics in the entire film industry—but would he play along? No one mentioned the choice to Serling, and it’s a good thing no one did: Rod Serling was known to carry a cyanide capsule in a small tube with a label that simply read, “In case of Kubrick.”

The Recruitment of Stanley Kubrick

Mr. Kubrick had just finished sound stage construction for 2001: A Space Odyssey when intelligence operatives visited the set to discuss using the newly-built stage and the filmmaker’s skills to manufacture a moon landing. Over the course of conversation, one of the men praised Serling’s script for the event in an effort to entice Kubrick to come aboard. Enraged by the mere mention of the man’s name, Kubrick reportedly kicked over several sets of hot studio lights and started a fire that nearly destroyed the bedroom from his film’s final scene. Surrounded by flames, Kubrick claimed he’d “burn it all to the ground” if the government attempted to strongarm him into working on the project. Top officials had already determined that Kubrick was the only man capable of recreating a believable broadcast; left with no other option, they nixed the idea out of fear of exposure and ultimately diverted funds to finish a little-known NASA program that would attempt to actually put a man on the moon.

Six months later Apollo 11 was launched into space and we achieved our collective dreams without resorting to camera tricks.

Bonus Video: Conspiracy Theorist Punch-Out!

Now that you know how close we were to faking the history-making space flight, no one should attempt to discredit the incredibly hard work and risk that the brave men of Apollo 11 undertook. Buzz Aldrin can be particularly sensitive about the subject.

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