The Real Reason For The Moon Landing Conspiracy

After Bill Kaysing left his job at Rocketdyne, he eventually became something of a vagabond, as explained in his obituary by The Independent. First, he sold his home, then he bought a trailer to take his family on what was essentially a never-ending road trip. Soon he left his family, too, and continued living life on the road. Kaysing was a writer first and foremost and he published works that instructed others on how they could lead a life similar to his own. There came to be, however, an anti-status quo undertone in his later writings that eventually gave way to a conspiratorial mindset. 

At first, the idea to write a book on how the moon landing was faked was meant to be a work of satire; this was agreed upon with the publishing company that gave him a contract. As Kaysing got into writing the book, though, the “evidence” he came up with began to persuade him until he felt like what he was writing was the truth, as he explained in a 1975 interview with the Los Angeles Free Press. This includes his belief that the probability of the moon landing was somewhere at .017%, though he never discloses where that figure came from. He used documents and his time working at Rocketdyne to further propel his conspiracy. He also proposed his own conspiracy about what he thought actually happened to create the moon landing. Using an underground movie set, as well as special effects and camera tricks, Kaysing believed the government simply made all the footage up.