THE PEOPLE / THE DIRECTOR
Did the director of 2001 film the landings?
RECORD / AT A GLANCE
FALSE
The 2015 “confession” was an actor in a film by T. Patrick Murray. Kubrick’s family called it fraudulent. The footage shared in 2023 came from the 2018 film First Man.
THE EVENTS / THE CLAIM / THE RECORD
April 1968
Kubrick’s film opens.
2015
A film by T. Patrick Murray shows an actor playing Kubrick admitting to faking the landings.
2023
Behind-the-scenes footage from the 2018 film is shared as Kubrick’s set.
READ THE FILE
He had the skills, and NASA had the motive.
A fake interview and a Hollywood set.
Open an article for its evidence, labeled AI assessment and numbered sources. Read the complete static edition ↗
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THIS FILE
3 claims people make about this file, each rated documented, partly true, disputed, unproven or false. Think a rating is wrong? Use Dispute or Support, or join the Discussion.
In April 1968.
Who says it: NASA history.
An actor played him in a T. Patrick Murray film.
Who says it: Viral video.
It was from the 2018 film First Man.
Who says it: Viral video.
OPEN THE RECORD
Numbered citations in each article identify the relevant sources. These records have different purposes and evidentiary weight.
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Fact check quoting a spokesperson for Kubrick’s widow: the T. Patrick Murray interview is “made up, fraudulent and untrue.”
Fact check: the “confession” interview is an actor in a 2015 film.
← The Moon File hub: the history, the full timeline and every file
Comment, dispute or support a claim, submit a source or rate this page through a short Google Form. It asks you to sign in with Google so we know you are a real person; your email is never shown. Nothing appears here until it has been reviewed. Conversation on X tagged #AIFiles #AIFilesMoon shows up below after the daily refresh.
Reader comments
On X
Posts from the daily snapshot appear here when JavaScript is on. You can read this subject’s threads on the forum: Forum: #AIFilesMoon.
Reader comments are shown only after review, and rows removed from the form’s sheet disappear at the next refresh. X posts are a read-only daily snapshot; posts deleted or made private there are removed at the next refresh. Inclusion is not endorsement. A submitted source stays pending review until a page update says otherwise.
He had the skills, and NASA had the motive.
2001 showed spaceflight more convincingly than anything before it, a year before Apollo 11. Kubrick was a perfectionist who worked closely with technical advisers. If anyone could fake a landing, the argument goes, it was him. [1]
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
A fake interview and a Hollywood set.
The viral “confession” comes from Shooting Stanley Kubrick, a film by T. Patrick Murray. A spokesperson for Kubrick’s widow said Kubrick was “never interviewed by T. Patrick Murray” and called it “made up, fraudulent and untrue.” [1][2]
A 2023 video claiming to show the hoax set was partly behind-the-scenes footage from First Man, a 2018 film about Neil Armstrong. [1]
2001 was celebrated for its effects in 1968. [3] But its scenes do not show what Apollo footage does: dust flying in clean arcs in a vacuum, and hours of continuous low-gravity motion. Those are covered on the slow-motion page.
Fact check quoting a spokesperson for Kubrick’s widow: the T. Patrick Murray interview is “made up, fraudulent and untrue.”
Fact check: the “confession” interview is an actor in a 2015 film.
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Approved reader comments and ratings appear here when JavaScript is on.