History Main / MoonLandingHoax

* ''LightNovel/FateRequiem'': This story is set in a futuristic society. When a class is taught about the moon landings, Koharu F. Riedenflaus thinks it is a hoax, as she highly doubts the primitive 1969 people could have possibly developed the technology to go to space.

-->'''Eric''': The Feds wouldn't park a car right outside my house.
-->'''Hyde''': Everything you think the Government aren't doing, they are doing, the only thing they didn't do was land man on the moon, [[Creator/StevenSpielberg Spielberg]] shot the whole thing in a Hollywood movie set, that's how he got the job for Film/{{Jaws}}!

* In one of a series of UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheory sketches on ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'', a shady government office (who also for unspecified reasons are covering up the ''successful'' Mars landings) plans to fake the moon landings. When they realize that no one will be fooled unless they really do build and launch the Saturn V rocket and that the other costs ("mainly catering") would be cheaper for three astronauts for a mission than an entire film crew for the duration of a shoot, they decide to just pop over to the moon and fake the footage there.

The [[ConspiracyTheories/OToZ Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969]] is one historical event that conspiracy theorists ''love'' to... theorize about. The idea of space travel seems so farfetched to some that they would rather believe that it was easier to film in a sound stage because they have no actual means to go to the moon and see for themselves that it happened. As such, the conspiracy itself has been ripe for parody in the media.

NASA really ''did'' land on the moon (many times in fact), and there's an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to prove it. The Series/MythBusters [[JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythBusters had a lot of fun proving the theorists wrong many times over on this one]]. Website/TheOtherWiki also has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories a page]] which lists the various pieces of "evidence" for a conspiracy, with rebuttals to each. Please keep your wild mass guessing and theories to the [[UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories Useful Notes page]].

* NASA ''did'' fake the Moon landings... but they hired Creator/StanleyKubrick to do it, and he ''[[GoneHorriblyRight insisted]]'' [[https://www.mirf.ru/comics/pervye-na-lune/that the fake lunar landings]] [[EnforcedMethodActing be filmed on the actual Lunar surface!]]

* NASA ''did'' fake the Moon landings... but they hired Creator/StanleyKubrick to do it, and he ''[[GoneHorriblyRight insisted]]'' that the fake lunar landings [[EnforcedMethodActing be filmed on the actual Lunar surface!]]

* Wiki/SCPFoundation:

** A previous episode has alien scammers who create [[Film/TheMatrix Matrix]][[XMeetsY meets]] [[Film/TheTrumanShow Truman Show]] simulations to con people. When Rick and Morty are running away from them, they pass through a fake moon set and some astronauts, as a nod to this trope.

-->'''Dr Cray''': The moon landings nearly four decades ago were part of a misdirection by our government to confuse the public regarding alien encounters. We've certainly been to the moon but the mysteries and horrors found there would never make for quaint historical quotation.

** Eventually this is revealed to be a unique spin on the concept: the moon landing ''was'' in fact faked by the Department of Truth (with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick, no less) but due to the ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve nature of the comic's universe, the millions of people watching the faked broadcast have caused it to ''become real''.

NASA really ''did'' land on the moon (many times in fact), and there's an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to prove it. The Series/MythBusters [[JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythBusters had a lot of fun proving the theorists wrong many times over on this one]]. Wiki/TheOtherWiki also has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories a page]] which lists the various pieces of "evidence" for a conspiracy, with rebuttals to each. Please keep your wild mass guessing and theories to the [[UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories Useful Notes page]].

* When you read the thoughts of a male Russian in ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans2'', they may comment on how they think the moon landing was filmed in [[PlaceWorseThanDeath Newark, New Jersey]]. Later in the game, when you really do go to the moon, one of the sidequests involves receiving a delivery from a courier.
-->'''Pox:''' It's being delivered by a courier company called... the '''N'''orth '''A'''merican '''S'''hipping '''A'''ssociation.

* ConversationalTroping by Creator/TerryPratchett when asked in a Website/{{Usenet}} discussion why the moonshot from ''Literature/TheLastHero'' hadn't had a lasting effect on society. He explained that it had been a one-shot deal, the Kite had never flown again, Leonard had lost interest and by now there were probably people denying it had ever happened ... before backtracking and saying Discworlders weren't ''that'' stupid.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': "Operation: M.O.O.N." starts with Sector V watching footage from the 1969 landing and laughing about how KND had managed to fool the Apollo 11 crew into thinking that they had landed on the moon, to stop them finding their secret moon base. They then learn that for the anniversary, a family is going to be sent to the moon, and it happens to be Numbuh 4's family. In a direct parody of ''Film/TheTrumanShow'', they build a huge fake stage and control everything behind the scenes in order to convince Numbuh 4's family that they actually had flown to the moon, lived there for a while, and came back to Earth. Oh, and Numhub 4 has been LockedOutOfTheLoop as well.

** Later on this is given a unique spin: the moon landing ''was'' in fact faked but due to the ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve nature of the comic's universe, the millions of people watching the faked broadcast have caused it to ''become real''.

* ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything'' covers this topic in "Adam Ruins Conspiracy Theories", complete with a "re-creation" of the "set" (where the director, though he is not mentioned by name, is of course Creator/StanleyKubrick). As is standard for his series, actual experts are brought in to explain the subject at hand. The expert explains that it was ''technologically impossible'' to stage the moon landing, using the fact that all the shadows in official pictures are completely parallel to each other, as there was only one single light source located 93 million miles away. Shadows produced by lighting in a sound stage would be conical from one point of origin, and the only way to replicate the same effect as the sun would be to use millions of lasers that could only be produced individually through huge bulky machines, and they could only be red lasers back in the 1960s. They also point out the fact that they would've had to prevent 400,000 NASA employees from talking about it, and that the broadcast was picked up in numerous countries across the planet, including the Soviet Union, who would've done anything in their power to prove it was faked just to stop from being one-upped by their Cold War enemies.

* ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob2021'' ziz-zags this. America really ''did'' land on the moon in 1969, but had to fake the return because the astronauts didn't want to come back to Earth, instead founding a free-love commune on the satellite. Revealing this to the world would have been far too embarrassing, so Cognito Inc. was tasked with building a Hollywood set, getting Stanley Kubrick to film a fake landing, and having crisis response actors replace the real ones in their day-to-day lives.

* ''WebOriginal/TheFootprintOfMussolini'': [[spoiler:To shore up flagging domestic support, the Soviet Union decides to give its government a boost in popularity by faking a moon landing. [[DeconstructedTrope The timeline demonstrates exactly why trying to do so is a very bad idea]]: Israeli intelligence agencies know the Soviets don't have the resources for a genuine moon landing, some of the people involved with the hoax are outraged at the idea and have to be coerced into participating, multiple scientific inaccuracies expose the fakery, and Soviet attempts to "[[BlatantLies debunk]]" hoax claims only result in them ending up even deeper in the hole they've dug themselves into. The whole debacle destroys any credibility the Soviet government still has, both at home and abroad, and a subsequent famine proves the final straw for not just the USSR, but communism in general.]]

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Turbo}} FAST'' where [[ConspiracyTheorist Skidmark]] says on a talk show that the moon landing was real, but the moon itself is fake.

* One of many conspiracy theories that has been brought up in ''ComicBook/TheDepartmentOfTruth''. One of the first signs that main character Cole has fallen down the rabbit hole is that he's shown a film of an astronaut climbing down the lander—with a man in a business suit visible in the background, standing in the wrong spot on the set.

[[caption-width-right:350:[-Image by [[https://wronghands1.com/about/ John Atkinson.-]]]]]