The movie industry is labeling a series of upcoming films as a “found footage” sub-genre.
The premise is fairly simple. Some documentary filmmaker or journalist is conducting research on a topic (ghosts, aliens, the boogie man, etc). In the midst of this deep and methodical research, the protagonist stumbles upon some lost film footage that not only solves the mystery, but also reveals a government cover-up or some other conspiracy.
Then a mock “documentary” is made to explain the footage and the facts surrounding it, or an actual movie is made to tell the story (you know the drill: “the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent”).
There have been a whole host of these films made; films such as The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and Cloverfield. However, Hollywood is not done yet, and they are going all out this time with the release of Apollo 18.
The movie seems to follow the “found footage” sub-genre to a “T”. A documentary filmmaker finds some footage about a secret Apollo mission and sets out to make this information public. The movie posters harbor a tag-line that reads, “There’s a reason we’ve never gone back to the moon.”
So, obviously there is going to be some sort of alien action going on. Think Quarantine meets The Fourth Kind. However, this time the producers of Apollo 18 are going all out.
They have actually gone as far as to falsify government documents and circulate them across the web.
The attention to detail here far surpasses what most conspiracy hoaxers could come up with. The document is even blacked-out and contains hand scribbled notes in the corners. Very impressive!
However this tactic is not a new one. The people over at Pixar tried to impose themselves on our childhood memories with a fabricated commercial for the "Lots-o-Huggin" Bear. Claiming the commercial was from 1983, Pixar used it as a marketing ploy and a way to introduce the new villain in Toy Story 3.
Lotso aside, the makers of Apollo 18 are not revealing much. Not much of the “footage” is out there, but they are weaving in enough historical fact that it becomes difficult to gather what has been fabricated and what is actual historical fact from any web search results.
Most space race fans will agree that Apollo 17,which landed on the moon in December 11, 1972, was the last Apollo mission. Apollo 18 and 19 were canceled due to budget cuts. Apollo 20 was canceled because NASA needed its launch vehicle to launch their Skylab project. These are solid and verified historic facts, backed with clear documentation.
There has always been some speculation among conspiracy theorists that the official reasons for canceling the last three Apollo missions were just cover stories. Most theories play on the idea that NASA found “physical evidence” of the existence of extraterrestrials on the moon. Some even go as far as to state that NASA found the aliens themselves there.
It is this theory that Apollo 18 is using as the basis for its plot. They are essentially using fake materials to fuel those speculations among theorists.
As far as conspiracy theories go, it is somewhat funny that this particular theory revolves around landing on the moon, when the most famous conspiracy theory, surrounding Apollo 11, is the idea that it was all staged in a movie studio. Honestly, how could we find aliens on the moon if we have never really been there in the first place?
Anyway, the fact of the matter is that Hollywood is running out of ideas. They are turning to poor excuses for conspiracy theories or just simply making up their own conspiracies to use as film fodder.
In the process, they have to fabricate the evidence to support their bogus theories. Then, circulate that “evidence” around to try to give it some credibility. Basically, "The story you are about to hear is true. Only the facts have been changed to protect the innocent."
Dennis Dufrene is the resident historian and technical writer. With this background, Dennis brings insight and accuracy to the stories published here at Top Secret Writers. Dennis has 314 post(s) at Top Secret Writers
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