Are UFO Videos Too Advanced to Detect as Fake?

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, if we ignore the paradigm that any good UFO video that is strange enough must be a fraud, the video software is getting so good that I have no way to judge any more.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDd2I8fr06Y&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mos9-LReoWQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76VSjppjWDY&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FE2s7tySlM&mode=related&search=

 

[Ivan Seeking]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOqNVby9new&NR=1

 

[jostpuur]

Good entertainment anyway

I was hoping that the (assumed) creator of these had made some mistakes, but those seem to be very carefully made. For example when, after UFOs had increased distance, the camera first zooms in, and then focuses to the UFOs with a delay, the focusing effect shows in the palm trees simultaneously. Unfortunately difficult to spot anything.

Only thing that I think could be a mistake, are the shadows on the UFO over Paris. The shadows seem to be casted on the UFO quite horizontally. At least less than 45 degrees above horizontal, because the shadows that show on the lower part of the UFO don't show on the wider part above. I cannot know how high buildings there have been, that still this indicates that the sun was quite low. But if you look at the buildings in the beginning the sun appears to be higher. The shadow of the building on the right is not visible on the left.

On the other hand, I know that it is difficult to predict how real shadows behave also, so that's quite non-rigor.

 

[jostpuur]

Some guy in the youtube comments, that the people, that are visible in the beginning of the UFO over Paris video, should have watched at the UFO. I don't think that's correct. The UFO is more on left than it first appears to be. Those people would have not necessarily seen it yet, even if the UFO had been there. In fact, to me, it seems that the guy in the beginning would have seen the UFO right after he disappears below the camera picture.

 

[K.J.Healey]

I guess these were all done with VUE.

The palm trees in the first video are all CGI, and a lot of them are the same, look at the two at 10-14 seconds in. They're slightly rotated to each other, but theyre the same at the top.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

 

[jostpuur]

so disappointing

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I had to laugh when I read some comments from a true believer's site. They all knew that this was a fake because the UFOs in the video fly like a plane, and not like a flying saucer. Apparently "real flying saucers" don't make banked turns.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

... It took Barzolff a total of 17 hours to make both the Haiti and Dominican Republic videos. He did it all by himself using a MacBook Pro and a suite of commercially available 3-D animation programs, including Vue 6. The videos are 100 percent computer-generated.

The videos, he said, were research for a feature film project. Barzolff called the results of his experiment "entertaining, thrilling, completely addictive and a little scary."

http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hc-lifewebufo.artaug23,0,4376453.story

For the ufology crowd, a pretty good clue was the lack of reports. Even with the best videos, without multiple independent and apparently credible eyewitnesses and their documented testimony, there is no reason to get worked up.

 

[Evo]

Here's this debunking.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=938912&cache=1

 

[russ_watters]

Well, if we ignore the paradigm that any good UFO video that is strange enough must be a fraud, the video software is getting so good that I have no way to judge any more.

No video on YouTube carries much weight on it's own. If I shot a video that looked like that, after I downloaded it from my camera, I'd turn my camera into a lab somewhere for analysis and verification. Anyone unwilling (heck, anyone who doesn't DEMAND) such rigorous treatment of such an extrordinary piece of evidence is quite simply not to be trusted. Those guys who pounce on a YouTube video with no source information as being a 'smoking gun' are just being dumb.

It would be extremely difficult to actually fake good evidence.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

How would one obtain good videographic evidence that couldn't have been faked?

 

[glondor]

The only real creditable video evidence would have to be a multiple source video, or a capture on a live telecast by many source cameras...ie the twin towers terrorist strike. There was video of both planes, Independent and by many sources simultaniously. If there was a sighting in a densly populated area there should be many sources from cell cams, still digital,and digital video cameras. Cameras are everywhere in N.A. If any of this UFO stuff is real, There will be a multi source capture on video some day. This would only prove the sighting was real, however, The question then would be is what was sighted real or fake.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The only real creditable video evidence would have to be a multiple source video, or a capture on a live telecast by many source cameras...ie the twin towers terrorist strike. There was video of both planes, Independent and by many sources simultaniously. If there was a sighting in a densly populated area there should be many sources from cell cams, still digital,and digital video cameras. Cameras are everywhere in N.A. If any of this UFO stuff is real, There will be a multi source capture on video some day. This would only prove the sighting was real, however, The question then would be is what was sighted real or fake.

Beyond that, even when we consider clearly credible cases such as the UFO police chase in Illinois a few years ago in which one officer got a photo, the photo is often of such low quality that it has no value.

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry, I didn't look back at this thread in a while...

How would one obtain good videographic evidence that couldn't have been faked?

I'm really not sure what you mean. Real videos don't just materialize out of the ether onto the internet, they are shot with real video cameras.

Perhaps this is what you are getting at, though:

...the photo is often of such low quality that it has no value.

Correct.

Put it this way: if you see a pixellated, low-resolution video on YouTube that if shot with a real video camera should have been HighDef, you really should wonder why you didn't see it on the nightly news first.

Yeah, making decent fakes keeps getting easier, but that is not an automatic excuse for why decent real videos and pictures don't exist. They don't exist because they don't exist. I've described before what kind of quality is necessary to qualify as good evidence. This video is that kind of quality, but is an obvious fake. There are no real videos that come anywhere close to the quality of this fake.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Sorry, I didn't look back at this thread in a while... I'm really not sure what you mean. Real videos don't just materialize out of the ether onto the internet, they are shot with real video cameras.

The question was, do you know of a way to get videographic evidence that could not have been faked. It seems to me that with digital electronics there is no way to judge. At least with film, the film could be analysed.

Put it this way: if you see a pixellated, low-resolution video on YouTube that if shot with a real video camera should have been HighDef, you really should wonder why you didn't see it on the nightly news first.

The news usually only covers stories that involve a fairly large number of witnesses.

Yeah, making decent fakes keeps getting easier, but that is not an automatic excuse for why decent real videos and pictures don't exist. They don't exist because they don't exist.

Sure they do, there is just no way to determine the authenticity. You can buy all of the videos that you want from Billy Meyers and the like. They are clear, daylight, and in some cases close-up videos, and they have never been discredited or duplicated. I don't believe the guy's story but the evidence does exist. The last time that I checked, there was a ten year old challenge to all debunkers, and no one has been able to duplicate the video evidence.

 

[farmfriend]

The only real creditable video evidence would have to be a multiple source video, or a capture on a live telecast by many source cameras...ie the twin towers terrorist strike.

Even then you can't be sure. Or do you really think there is a yellow line on the football field that moves with every down?

 

[russ_watters]

The question was, do you know of a way to get videographic evidence that could not have been faked. It seems to me that with digital electronics there is no way to judge. At least with film, the film could be analysed.

Digital video can be analyzed too. That's why I said real video doesn't just materialize on the ether. I think I said in another thread that if I shot a video like that, I'd give the actual camera to a lab for analysis.

Regardless, the point is that while a few jackasses on YouTube may be easy to fool, we are still a long way from the day when a forensics lab won't be able to tell the difference between a real one and a fake.

The news usually only covers stories that involve a fairly large number of witnesses.

Journalistic ethics isn't completely dead yet...

If the video in the OP were real, how many people should have seen the event?

Sure they do, there is just no way to determine the authenticity.

You're pretty good about posting likely candidates here - you've never posted anything with anywhere near the quality of the video clip in this thread.

You can buy all of the videos that you want from Billy Meyers and the like. They are clear, daylight, and in some cases close-up videos, and they have never been discredited or duplicated. I don't believe the guy's story but the evidence does exist. The last time that I checked, there was a ten year old challenge to all debunkers, and no one has been able to duplicate the video evidence.

I don't think I've ever heard of him. [5 minutes later...] I found a few still pics on YouTube, but nothing that comes anywhere close to the quality of the video posted in this thread. He also says he hears voices in his head.

Because they aren't moving, it is still as easy as it has always been to fake a still picture. You can toss a pie plate in the air and get a decent still pic. That's also part of my point: the video and camera technology available to the masses is orders of magnitude better than it was just 10 years ago. And more people have them. 9/11 was filmed by dozens (hundreds?) of people. And yet, the quality of UFO videos is not improving. Better cameras and better ability to share information has just multiplied the amount of crap out there. It hasn't created any good evidence. The hypothetical example I always use is of a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn. Besides the interface with the government, the public exposure of such an event would be such that it would be irrefutable. Like 9/11, dozens, if not hundreds of videos and stills would exist, shot at different angles, simultaneously. This is the quality of evidence that is required for such a claim to be proven true to a reasonable level of certainty. Not grainy, blurry stills shot by a nutjob.

Another thing - I look at the photos people say are "good" evidence and shake my head. If the photos were real, the people who shoot them must be the worst photographers on the face of the earth. Nothing I've seen comes anywhere close to the quality of what was shown in the OP.

The signal (showing nothing) keeps getting stronger and stronger - flying saucers still, as always, reside in the noise.

And your point in the OP is still premature - this video, good as it was, was pretty easy to debunk. There hasn't yet been a video that both had compelling quality of what was shot and was difficult to prove a fake. No need yet to go beyond YouTube to look at the source. If we ever get something that good, I sure hope you'll be looking through Youtube to see if there is any background on the video and the shooter. A YouTube video, regardless of what it shows, cannot stand on it's own.

 

[russ_watters]

Digital video can be analyzed too. That's why I said real video doesn't just materialize on the ether. I think I said in another thread that if I shot a video like that, I'd give the actual camera to a lab for analysis.

It occurred to me that you may not understand what information could be gathered this way. There are a number of things.

First off, the bit-rate and compression algorithms used are often proprietary (thus impossible to fake), but regardless, a lab could easily check to make sure they match with what the camera uses.

Second, the lab can analyze the lens and visit the site, match camera angles, fields of view, lighting conditions, etc. They can also match defects in the CCD or the lens, finding dust specs or hot pixels that showed up in the video. These are utterly impossible to fake - they are like fingerprints.

The lab can analyze the media and tell if it has been tampered with and often, where and when it has been written. Sometimes it is as simple as reading a file header that says "Created with 3d Studio Max". But you can also look at the physical location of the data on the disk, analyze deleted info around it (if it is a hard drive), and figure out when the data was written to the drive and where it came from.

This is the kind of analysis a crime lab would do. A stand-alone (ie, no one else shot the same thing at the same time) video of a flying saucer requires nothing less than that standard of evidence treatment to be considered viable.

 

[baywax]

Haitian UFO video!

I don't know if this is already a topic, please have a look at this footage and please try to debunk it!

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1006571&cache=1

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The last post merged with this thread.

Already debunked, Baywax.

 

[baywax]

so disappointing

Ditto!

I'd rather spend my energy getting to the beach in Haiti (and dodging gunfire) than cranking out CGI in my garage.