Operation Avalanche, the only good conspiracy—fake the Moon landing, get promoted

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  [credit:
  Zapruder Films
  ]

With this weekend’s 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, it’s worth remembering most conspiracy theories are more-or-less the same: a shadowy cabal of all-powerful, all-knowing elites comes together to manipulate us commoners, for whom they have nothing but contempt. The cabal changes—globalists, Lizard People, the media, the Vatican, whatevs—but the song remains the same.

So a few years back when I heard someone had made yet another a low-budget mockumentary about faking the Apollo 11 Moon landing, that’s what I was expecting. Maybe even Kubrick would be evoked again. Instead, imagine my surprise when 2016’s Operation Avalanche turned out to be light on conspiracy against the sheeple and heavy on a bumbling, baby-faced doofus who comes up with a plan to fake the Moon landing as basically a way to impress his boss.

Psychologists speculate that people are drawn to conspiracy theories because a world controlled by dark forces is still preferable to a world in which no one is at the controls. But truthers will find cold comfort in Operation Avalanche‘s view that the masters of the universe are more likely to be a grinning nincompoop whose best friend’s wife greets him with “Don’t touch me.”