Psychology of a Hoax
The IsaacCaret Phenomenon

Counting Witnesses

The Heirs Of Isaac

The hoax started on May 4th 2007, when Chad first contacted Coast2Coast and ended on June 27th, when Isaac very quickly responded to his reviewers. Since then nothing was added to the saga and still it is discussed daily on a few forums, there is a Drone Research Team, that still tries to prove, that these sighting are the long expected close encounter, and Linda Moulton Howe still provides us with updates of stories of, "could be a drone.".

So why does this story live for so long?

Reading through the posts which multiplied themselves short after the Isaac stuff was released, we find one of the answers: Nearly every poster expressed, how entertaining this story is - hoax or not. And indeed the story developed like a sci fi novel, presenting us more interesting drones with every story and finally the amazing "mothership", which was photographed by two different witnesses on the same day.

Isaac finally presented us a nice story, some "documents" and - most of all - those beautiful diagrams. This fine piece of art even impressed those, who saw immediately the nonsense in the story itself. As we have seen these diagrams inspired even an artist like Sid Mead and the marketing experts of Alienware.

People looked at it closely, blew it's size up, measured and speculated about it's "huge size", looked for a message. But a message was never found, neither "Made in China" as some joked, nor an alien greeting. Isaac himself made the connection to Chad, Rajman and Big Basin, seeing the diagram on the latter, before any high resolution picture was published at all. Others are still busy with measurements of the drones, or are discussing the shadows.

As soon as somebody said, the drones are computer graphics, they were asked, to reproduce it. As soon as someone presented a representation, it was said, that copying something does not mean, the original is made the same way. Some also claimed, that the original is much better. Lately it was called "character" that makes the difference between the copies and the "drones".

Expert's opinions are not accepted, as just seen at ATS, where David Biedney again declared, the drones are computer graphics. After he had refused to work for or with the strong believers and would not support them, Dider le Plaige published the follwing on his site:

Biedney summed up to respond, after a lot of detours, and his response was felt hard by his supporters: "To be quite straightforward, the essential of my analyses on pictures of Ovnis remained confidential. " It is a little easy, but in clear that means: "I don't have the means to prove my expertises in this domain."

This is indeed a little easy. Biedney's original text on June 7th at ATS:

As seen before, this way of reporting things and quoting people is typically for le Plaige, who also seems to be the central figure of the Drone Research Team and works now as a "moderator" for Open Minds, too.

A picture analyses would be useless indeed, since to the most of us it would be as understandable as the "alien writing" and we would have to trust in the experts explanation - as we would have to, if a mathematician would present us a few pages with formulas - and on the other hand we would be confronted with self exclaimed anonymous experts, who would deny the results, supported by some people, who are able to present nice pictures, to prove that the proof was wrong. And if nothing else helps, than there is still the "character" of the drones.

More obvious are the inconsistencies of Isaac's story and his "document". This made some people think, that Isaac was sent to do some damage control after witnesses had reported about the drones, telling a false story to hide the truth. There also was the version, that Isaac was just a trap for those witnesses. The DRT seems not to mind about that part of the story, since they already made their own version: The drones are neither man made nor remote controled by humans!

Although the private investigators proved, that Chad and Ty lied about the place, where they shot their photos, those, who made this possible defend these lies as protection of the family in the first case, and only a slight difference in the second case. The disappearing of all witnesses is explained with fear, especially from being ridiculed. They even don't mind, that their last "witness" also disappeared again, although they had welcomed him on their French forum.

This makes the skeptics a natural enemy. And so the game between both groups became harsher with the time. The DRT is complaining, that they and their "witnesses" are treated bad. Usually this leads to some battle of words, sometimes funny, sometimes just foolish, and Didier le Plaige reports in his "moderate" manner at Ovnis about the bad trouble-makers. Now he even has the power to suspend unloved subjects at OMF.

But this antagonism seems to be an important segment to carry on this story. Everything has been said a long time ago, and every aspect has been looked into since months. Seeing the "big picture" - as one DRT member does not stop to preach - it is obvious to the most, that this was a pretty hoax. The DRT and the few, who still hope, there is at least a little bit of truth, still demand proof, not realizing, that their claim is the extraordinary one.

Again and again appears the question, why the skeptics don't drop the subject, if they think, that this is a hoax. They don't understand that some skeptics just want to solve this riddle, that they are still asking for the who and why. Obviously these people are not interested in facts. Their forum is their church and they don't accept anyone who does not share their believe. They are not aware, that this discussion would die soon without another opinion.

But than again it is the believer's fraction, that kept this story so interesting.

• Who else would engage two private detectives to look for a phantom?
• Who else would dare to sit in front of a camera and talk about a fantasy like this?

This made the entertainment last.
They have become the heirs of Isaac, following a hoaxer and continuing his work.

How far this identification can go, was shown, when a private mail between me and some friends got into the hands of the webmaster of AlienCaseBook. It was forwarded to Didier le Plaige, who interpreted it as a conspiracy of Isaac hunters using "illegal hacker tools" like counters which show the IPs of visitors. This weird interpretation alone tells volumes about his view of the world, but what is even more interesting: It looked as if he wanted to warn the hoaxer!

So we have some participants who carry on to uncover the truth, and one party to carry on the nonsense. For both this case has become somewhat essential. The first still see it as a kind of game or want to get this stupid story solved, because this really ridicules the whole subject. The others can not accept that this is not the time of enlightenment and disclosure.

There is another player on board, who intervened in this story long ago. He used to write weird stuff, as if he thought, he were the devil himself, changed his name rather frequently, showed some talent in creating computer graphics, sent a hoax picture to UfoCaseBook and so on. Between his mysterious dark tales he frequently attacked Kris Avery like a jealous child and presented his own works, which looked better and better each time.

When he migrated from OMF to TheBookOfToth and began to play a new game there, saying "his group" had contact to an informant, some OMFers followed him to warn the people over there, including some members of the DRT. It was a little comedy, since they were thought to be debunkers and the more they tried to tell the people, who this guy was, who uses the name Leviathan most, the more people thought, there must be something, when so many new people flood the forum and try to nullify his messages. The webmaster finally was convinced, after he had followed the invitation to look at the Open Minds Forum for himself.

The more astounding is, that this impersonated group now is active at the DRT forum and gets some back clapping from them - who warned the people at the BookOfToth! - for his great work, which still is to "disprove" Kris Avery's work. One of his accusations was, that Kris always told the people, what to see, when he showed them a new graphic, so that the untrained eye would believe, this is what it sees. This is very humorous, as he does in the same sentence, what he makes people believe, Kris does.

Whatever his joy in this game is, he even has his own blogg, just telling about the drones, presenting one work after the other, and every graphic seems to be better than the last one. And obviously he is interested in continuing this story.

And, of course, the owners of the forums are interested in a continuation. Springer at ATS said it clearly, after he has labeled the thread as hoax: What about the who and why? As many skeptics he is interested in a final resolution.

The motivation of Bren at OMF seems more to be the media attention, the DRT received through their private investigators. Usually the OM forum was mentioned as the home of the researchers. Although there are still all opinions represented, it is clear where the wind blows, since a strong believer was installed as "moderator".

The DRT should be in some conflict of interests, since they also run there own forum. And just these days I saw another forum appear in the net, dedicated mainly to the drones. It already had 1 member!