Heavyweight Digital Image Expert Weighs In On Drones, Calling Hoax (Again!!)

Back in May last year (2007) The Paracast broadcast their regular podcast with Gene Steinberg & David Biedny, on it they covered the California Drone Flap. This was a fairly discreet offering and passed under the radar of a lot of people who are interested in the Drones. Proponents of the Drones are quick to shout that no known professional digital image analysts are willing to go on record with any kind of judgement regarding the images, well enter David Biedny, as far as expert analysts go they don't come with credentials much more impeccable than Biedny's!!

David Biedny has been interested in the hard science aspects of the paranormal world since youth, and especially due to his formative years spent in Caracas, Venezuela . He has personally witnessed the range of the absurd to the truly unexplainable in the realm of paranormal phenomenon, and these experiences have forged the foundation of his curiosity and desire to uncover the truth of the limitations of our knowledge of the wondrous possibilities of nature and the Universe.

Listen to the relevant section of the Paracast.

David Biedny on why he thinks the Californian Drones are hoax.

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"David Biedny is the President & Technical Director of IDIG, Inc. he is a leading digital effects, graphics and multimedia expert. His writing, educational efforts, multimedia and special effects work have enjoyed global exposure. He is considered by many longtime industry players to be one of the technical and creative pioneers of personal computer-based multimedia.

Biedny was formerly President and Technical Director of Incredible Interactivity Inc., a pioneering New York based firm which created multimedia projects and products for companies such as General Motors, Knoll International, Apple Computer, HBO, American Express, The American International Group and AT&T, among others. In recent years, he has participated as a project director/interface designer/consultant for a variety of CD-ROM/software projects, including BeInfinite Infinite FX(TM) for Adobe Illustrator (special effects plug-in product, first commercially shipping plug-in for Illustrator in the U.S.), Penthouse Interactive (Project Director), The Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties! CD-ROM (Biedny is a technical advisor for Rockument, Inc ., the publisher) and Quantum Gate I and II (Biedny is on the advisory board of Hyperbole Studios ).

Biedny has also been a key interface/feature consultant/beta tester for many of the major multimedia tools currently on the market. His involvement with computer graphics includes participating as a feature and interface consultant for key applications such as ImageStudio (the first mass market digital retouching software for the Macintosh platform), PixelPaint, ColorStudio (Biedny conceived the Shapes vector graphics capabilities unique to that product), Altamira Composer (which was acquired by Microsoft) and Photoshop (David was user #4, spec'd many of the key features of the product, and was included in the credits for Photoshop 1.0). Most recently, David conceived of the name for Eric Wenger's ArtMatic texture generation and animation software. David was also a seed site for the original Power Macintosh computer, and has been credited with helping conceive of the "Power Macintosh" name. David is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop, and IDIG is an Adobe Authorized Training Provider.

Other technology consulting clients also include Landor Associates, LucasArts Entertainment, Microsoft, Broderbund Software, Ressmeyer Starlight (Roger Ressmeyer is the world's leading space photographer) and Kraft Robot. IDIG is also involved in designing graphics for a variety of WWW pages, including the infamous Surfing Monkey site and Chuck Farnham's Weird World (both recently taken offline), among others. IDIG has also recently produced graphics and processed digital imagery for the McGuire Real Estate web site, one of the larger real estate agents in the Bay area.

Biedny was a founding editor of MacUser and Macintosh Today, formerly a Contributing Editor for MacWorld , New Media and the Macromedia User Journal and, and has written for Windows Sources, ID, MacUser, MacWeek, The New Media Showcase, Morph's Outpost on the Digital Frontier and Computer Graphics World, among others. He co-authored, with Bert Monroy, the award winning, best selling Official Adobe Photoshop Handbook , published by Bantam/Random House, as well as Adobe Photoshop: A Visual Guide (published by Addison-Wesley). His newest book, Photoshop Channel Chops (co-authored with collaborators Bert Monroy and Nathan Moody), is published by New Riders Publishing. He is currently producing a leading Photoshop video series, Photoshop Inside & Out™ , and is hosting the definitive Photoshop web portal, Photoshop Central .

He has taught Interactive Multimedia Design and Advanced Imaging for the MFA program of the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and rejoined the faculty in the spring of 1993 as an ISDN-based TeleTeacher from his Marin home. Recently a faculty member of the San Francisco State University Multimedia Studies Program, Biedny has been a top-rated lecturer and speaker at the Kodak Center for Creative Imaging, Seybold Seminars, Stanford University, UCSC Multimedia Extensions Program, Pratt, MacWorld and NCGA, among others."[1]

After reading the above I'm sure you can appreciate that David Biedny is possibly one of the most qualified people around today regarding digital imaging and so his opinion undoubtedly carries more weight than your average hobbyist and indeed more than the vast majority of professionals.

Just recently he posted a comment at the ATS forum (3rd May 2008) on the Drone thread stating that:

“I'm one of the people who instantly saw that these images were fakes, CG elements composited onto photographic background plates. Jeff Ritzmann & I could immediately tell that the first image was a total fake, and the silly story from "Chad" made if painfully clear that this was all nonsense, perhaps perpetrated by C2C & LMH in order to drum up some traffic and interest. Subsequent images were increasingly more ridiculous. From the fact that these images don't match up to any morphology we've seen in over 60 years of publicly reported UFO sightings, to the childish typefaces, the obvious rendered look of the "craft", the lighting mismatch between the CG element and the background plates, what more do you need?”[2]

So now we have David Biedny & Jeff Ritzman to add to the list of at least another five professionals in the digital imagery/analysis field who say that these images are obvious fakes.

Mr Steve Reichmuth (Mufon - Northern California, SSD - Alameda / Contra Costa Co.) announced in May of last year that Mufon had contacted two outside specialists to undertake an evaluation of these images, these are Mr Steve Neil who has and continues to do computer generated images for the History channels television program 'UFO Files'.

And a Mr. Marc D'Antonio, who owns and operates a business in Connecticut named FX Models. Also, I personally exchanged several emails with Mr D'Antonio last year and as well as the original images, Mr. D'Antonio was also convinced that all of the subsequent images as well as those of the antigrav device which was included in the Isaac documentation were obvious fakes.

Steve Reichmuth wrote, “Marc is a former MUFON Field investigator, and has taught Astronomy for a number of years at a local area east coast college. Both Marc & Steve I would consider well grounded and I would consider them both 'non-skeptics' related to 'UFO's. They think UFO's are 'real' and likely 'extraterrestrial' in origin. Marc works with computer generated images every day. Both experts state all images of this object are clearly fakes. Mr. D' Antonio is one of my valued expert contacts I network with in studying UFO photographs. He has volunteered to assist in future cases.

Marc examined the Coast to Coast images days earlier week (May 10) earlier. I contacted Marc again when this latest witness report was posted on CMS shortly later (May 12, 2007). Attached images have been studied by these two friends in the Special visual computer effects industry. They both independently state this object is clearly a CG fake.”[3]

Again by way of Mufon and Steve Reichmuth we have been told that that Dr Bruce Maccabee (optical physicist employed by the U.S. Navy and leading UFO researcher) and Mr. Jeff Sainio also believed that the images were faked, Steve Reichmuth wrote:

“Later with permission from Mufon, our own Mufon photo consultants, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, and Mr. Jeff Sainio. It was felt important for MUFON experts to also verify the other experts to either confirm or dispute everyone's findings. The result was unanimous the images were fakes. Interestingly, peer review brought out new different reasons among the main reasons they were regarded as hoaxes. So apparently, there are a number of 'red flags' as to why the images are untruthful being claimed to be authentic. The analysis was objective, knowing all these experts opinions lean toward that UFO's being likely alien craft. Two of the outside experts are even possible abductees, so their 'slant' if anything is pre-existing.... it is towards UFO's being extraterrestrial in a very personal way. Still, the outside Mufon experts emphatically stated they were most definitely bogus.”[4]

Again I've personally contacted Dr. Maccabee myself and as recently as the 16 th April 2008 he confirmed that he's highly suspicious of the authenticity of the images, and James Carrion (Director of Mufon) also confirmed to me personally that Dr Maccabee and Mr. Jeff Sainio were in fact consulted by Mufon in their capacity as digital imaging experts to offer an analysis of the Drone images.

And lastly we have Kris Avery who has stated his belief that the Drone images were faked since they first appeared, you will probably recognise the name as he's the person who along with fellow forum member, “DroneOnline” created the Drone music video which was such a success that it led to many people who were unfamiliar with the Drone case claiming that he was actually the original hoaxer. Kris is a CGI artist based in the UK and his business website, “Kaptive Studios” may be viewed here.

I guess the question is how much expert analysis will suffice before it is accepted?

Sources:
[1] IDIG - Personnel (David Biedny)
[2] ATS Forums
[3] Steve Reichmuth email to UFOUpdates
[4] UFOResearcher.com

YouTube Haiti UFO Hoaxer Reveals Other YouTube UFO Videos

I'm sure everyone has seen and can remember the furore that the YouTube video of a UFO in Haiti caused last year, the video views are currently at a staggering 7,404,911 and is only six months old.

A couple of days after it was released I created a short video on why I personally believed it was fake.

David Nicolas later released another video to LATimes showing what appeared to be two grannies flying the same UFO as in the Haiti video by using a remote control, it was of course CGI but a lot of people missed this subtle point and thought it was an actual remote controlled vehicle such was the quality of the video.

I know the vast majority of people realised that the Haiti YouTube video was undoubtedly a hoax, more...especially so after David Sarno of the LA Times secured an interview with the creator/hoaxer of the clip. Incredulously, there were STILL people who doubted the validity of the admission, I guess you just can't tell some people. Here's an interview with David Sarno where he explains who by, how and why the UFO's were created.

The creator, David Nicolas (a.k.a. Barzolff814) is part of Partizan. which is an international community of directors with offices in London , Los Angeles , New York and Paris . Since launching in 1991 we have developed some of the most talented and exciting directors in the world.

Partizan began by making music videos, then grew and expanded into commercials, short films, feature films, and more recently TV content and branded content. His biography page at Partizan says that:

Definitive Proof of Haiti UFO Hoax (Again)

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“David Nicolas was born in 1969 in Aix-en-Provence where he spent the early days of his childhood. At a very young age, drawing started to play a large role in his life and with his older brother Laurent, they started experimenting with drawings together.

David's first foray into the Dark Room came when he took the internet by storm with a series of viral films he made while researching his first feature project, a comedy about the biggest UFO hoax of all time. The film is to be produced by Partizan Films over the next year. The clips David made showed UFOs flying across the skies of Haiti , the Dominican Republic and Brooklyn . They clocked up over 3 million hits within their first two weeks on YouTube and were featured in the LA Times, on CNN and on Fox News.

At the age of 21, after sitting an entrance exam, David was accepted into the, “Gobelins de Paris” School of animation where he studied for 3 years. He acquired a basic knowledge of animation and briefly started to work on 3D animation. With the help of his computer, he taught himself how to make his first short films in 2D animation.”

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Nicolas has since revealed that he created (and released on YouTube) several prequels to the Haiti UFO clip, the chances are that you've inadvertently seen these already, but just in case, here they are!!

You can also see them at David Nicolas' page at Partizan by visiting here.

Chad (Coast To Coast) - Latest UFO Pictures - Too Good To Be True? Look & Judge for yourself!

It would seem that there is quite a bit of furore about these latest UFO pictures, the American Chronicle ran the story just two days ago (May 13th) questioning the credibility of these photos and muses,

“As you can see, the detail is quite unsurpassed for a 'UFO' picture. Clear(ish) markings underneath indicate an as yet unknown language. Some pundits have suggested that the 'letters' are some kind of Asian extraction and that the whole thing has been CGI produced (using clever computer graphics)”

Well I believed this question was answered thoroughly and accurately in our UFO-Forums back on the 9th May by one of the Forum moderators, “Area51”. But upon further investigation doubts have been raised. Firstly it has transpired that Coast To Coast uses Adobe Elements to edit their pictures and secondly not every letter has a corresponding letter in the respective alphabet, although the resemblance is still striking.

Have a look and judge for yourself…..

To view further photos and to read the evidence collected, visit here. And while you're there why not sign up to our UFO Forums and I'm sure you'll find some interesting information there and we'd love to hear your opinions.

To view further photographs and to get the full story, visit here.

Watch, The Infamous "Alien Autopsy" Video & Stanton Friedman Debunk It.

A couple of clips regarding the Alien autopsy. So first of all we have Stanton Friedman on exactly Why The Alien Autopsy video is fake, then we have the Alien autopsy footage itself.

The term alien autopsy is used within the UFOlogical community to refer to the supposed examination of an extraterrestrial cadaver by government authorities. Belief in alien autopsies is a common element of UFO conspiracy theory. Film footage, purporting to show an alien autopsy was promoted during the 1990s by Ray Santilli, a London-based video entrepreneur. However, Santilli announced in 2006 that the film was not genuine.

Ray Santilli and fellow producer Gary Shoefield announced that their film was only partially real (a "few frames", in their words), while the rest was a reconstruction of twenty-two rolls of film, averaging four minutes in length, which Santilli had viewed in 1992 but which had subsequently degraded from humidity and heat. They said that only a few frames of the original were still intact by the time they had raised enough money to purchase it. Santilli and Shoefield stated that they had "restored" the damaged footage by filming a simulated autopsy on a fabricated alien, based upon what Santilli saw in 1992, and then adding in a few frames of the original film that had not degraded. They have not identified which parts are original footage.

Watch, The Infamous "Alien Autopsy" Video