A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon is a 2001 documentary written, produced, and directed by Nashville, Tennessee-based filmmaker and investigative journalist Bart Winfield Sibrel. Sibrel is a critic of the United States space program and proponent of the theory that the six Apollo lunar landing missions between 1969 and 1972 were hoaxes perpetrated by the US Government. The name was taken from a 1966 book of humorous anecdotes by people involved in the space program.The 47-minute documentary primarily focuses on the Van Allen belts, areas of intense radiation circling the Earth, as a major reason that Sibrel believes it was impossible for a manned spacecraft to land on the moon. Bart Sibrel also presents what he claims is official NASA footage, shot over the course of three days, that was not meant for public release. In this footage, the crew of Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin are, according to Sibrel, staging part of their mission to make it appear that they were 130,000 miles from Earth. The illusion was allegedly perpetrated thus: a color camera was placed at the rear of the capsule, anything that could produce light was deactivated, and an insert was placed on the window to create a false terminator. Sibrel's allegation here is that it took three days for the astronauts to perfect their filming techniques rather than travel to the moon. Moreover, he contends that there is "Earthshine" clearly visible in the window after the lights were turned back on and that this proves that Apollo 11 was in low Earth orbit.