CAPRICORN ONE RUN AMOK:

Lunar-tics (JACK HITT, February 9, 2003, NY Times Magazine)

[Bart] Sibrel is part of a new generation of conspiracy mega-theorists. They don't toy with the small stuff. Ever since the passing of that sweet, simpler time -- when the Trilateral Commission ordered the hit on John Kennedy and the Queen of England managed the drug cartels -- the narratives of big suspicion have been distorted by the same force that has reshaped our partisan politics, action movies and morning TV talk shows: outrage inflation. To be noticed now, a theory must be of a scope only Stephen Hawking could measure, and it must be promulgated by an amiable spokesman who can deftly juggle often absurd contradictions. Sibrel is not your father's conspiracy theorist -- some grumpy autodidact with a self-published book raging at the gates of the establishment. Sibrel came of age in the post-Watergate era. He has absorbed the real lesson of the last two decades: push for belief in ever bolder and more unlikely ideas. Plus, he knows how to make decent television.

Sibrel's first documentary, ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon,'' is a 47-minute feature contending that what people saw on their television screens that famous July night in 1969 was in fact filmed on a back lot. (Sibrel says he believes that it was probably directed by Stanley Kubrick and shot at Area 51 in Nevada.) [...]

Statistics are vague, but somewhere between 6 and 10 percent of Americans say they don't believe astronauts ever landed on the moon. That percentage is growing, in part because conspiracy theorists now have easy access to media tools -- jump cuts, dissolves, special effects, studio-quality voice-over, zippy credits -- that bolster their theories with something they've never had before: the elegant formatting of television truth.

You'd like to see someone this dedicated devote his energy to the number one conspiracy of our times: the notorious Julia/Eric Roberts hoax. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2003 6:18 AM