Fraud in UFO Videos and Still Photos I wish I had the time to do some photographic examinations of some of the photos which popup on the internet so I could be at least reasonably sure they were genuine or not. Since I spend a lot of time writing a column six days a week this is not possible. When I think there is a good chance of a sighting and picture or video of a UFO being genuine it is because of the circumstances in which it was seen and what type of witnesses saw the object. Remember no one can be 100 percent positive about a photo or video, but we do the best we can. Having said that, there are times when it is easier to pick out a phony attempt, but there are not as many as one would think. The state of software today is advanced enough to make some very realistic looking videos. One of the video sources which I believe are more reliable are the NASA videos. Unfortunately, I don’t feel the same about some of the still photos they have taken. Many times, with the videos we catch a glimpse of something near the International Space Station before the cameras are turned off. With the NASA history of altering stills to hide things I have to wonder why they leave those glimpses in many of the videos. One thing I do not know is if the NASA videos are complete. While we believe the cameras were turned off, maybe just the feed to us civilians was turned off and the video continued. It could be the video was then edited and shortened for viewing by the public. Like everything else going on, many of the UFO video’s which appear on the internet are only there for several reasons. One is because they are genuine and the people who took them want to share their experience. Sometimes, depending on the circumstances, a UFO sighting can be traumatic. People want to be validated and post what they saw. Another reason for posting a UFO video is because the creator wants to fool us. He or she gets some kind of rush from this and hopes the video will get popular and posted on more sites. Then there are the UFO videos which were created by people to show off their talents at creating videos which are so realistic they can fool a lot of people. The hope for many of them is someone will hire them in a special effects department. Lastly there is a disinformation campaign which is going on. It has never stopped even with the Navy’s release of their UFO videos a while back. It used to be, in older times many of us would accept a video as real because it was so hard to edit them. They were on film and it really took an expert with expensive video editing equipment to even attempt it. There were also a lot less people running around with video cameras. Today almost everyone has a cell phone and can take a video with it. Once the video is taken, it is a relatively easy thing to alter the video. Some of the methods used to detect a hoax have to do with altered pixels. Pixels are the dots which make up a digital video or photo. Most times under careful examination you can detect if something has been altered by checking these pixels. I doubt if the average person could do this if they occasionally check photos carefully and under magnification. Sometimes you need special software and a computer to get the job done. Examiners check the lighting on the UFO to make sure it is the same as the rest of the video and if not, they check if there is a reason for the difference. The direction of the wind, in some videos is important. If the wind is blowing from one direction and there is some sort of indication in the photo it is blowing from a different direction that is a problem. I remember one photo of a UFO over a rooftop which was said to have been seen by many people. The roof had little flags on it. A photo examiner explained to me not all the little flags were facing the same direction which was impossible. This proved parts of the video were altered. Remember the controversial video and still photos of the Roswell autopsy? An extraterrestrial being from the Roswell crash was supposedly being dissected. Later on, it was disclosed it was a prop. It wasn’t necessary to edit the video or the stills because the props served the purpose of fooling people. In the days of film many photos were taken of UFOs using props. Sometimes they were nothing more than two pie plates put together and thrown up into the sky for a photo. Many models were also used. Some were laughable and some quite good. One of the criteria for detecting a fraud used to be the way it moved. Many times it was discovered it was a model hanging by an almost invisible string. The UFO would be pushed so it rocked back and forth and then a video taken. The only people these fooled were the ones who wanted to believe so bad, they would believe almost anything. UFO hoaxes have been going on for a long time. Two cited in a Wikipedia article are one which happened in 1897 and another which happened in the same year. The first one occurred when a helium balloon was sent into the sky. Hoaxers had attached a wicker basket to it and set it on fire. Imagine how the people who saw this felt as a fire drifted across the sky. The second happened when someone put kerosene on a cotton ball and attached it to the leg of a turkey vulture and set it on fire. The bird violently flew through the air trying to get away from the pain. Neither instance produced a photo that I know about, but they could have. The point is UFO hoaxes are nothing new. I would like to end this article by talking about some of the most controversial UFO photos ever taken. George Adamski claimed he had been in contact with aliens and invited a reporter over. He then set up a UFO flight over his home. He had many UFO photos and some very famous people in the field were convinced the photos were real. Not everyone agreed and to this day nothing has changed.
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