People were dumb in 1960

I was watching old Twilight Zone episodes a few nights ago...there were these astronauts that went up into space in the "first aircraft to enter space". Well, during the flight something went wrong and the people back at NASA or DUMASA or whoever they were lost contact with the craft. (There was some untimely "interference" right before they lost track of the ship, naturally.)

The surviving astronauts awoke to find themselves marooned in what looked like the worst part of the Mojave Desert. Naturally, given the fact they they could breathe and walk around in Earth-like gravity without space suits and without their blood boiling, their first assumption was that they had landed on some "uncharted asteroid". They immediately went about fighting over who would get the rest of the water. Later they took a break from fighting and noticed the size of the sun, which helped them to deduce that the Uncharted Asteroid was in the same orbit as the Earth. How clever! Then they went back to fighting.

Eventually the meanest guy killed all the others so he could have all the water for himself. A grim statement about human nature, indeed. Or maybe just a grim statement about that guy.

Then he scrambled up a hill and looked down, and, oh my God! Telephone wires? Signs? What have I done, I'm so full of regret, it was Earth all along and we actually crash landed in Nevada, and I know you didn't see that coming!

Seriously, I know the space age was just beginning in 1960, but were people really dumb enough to believe that anyone could be that dumb?