Moon UFOs (Or why would someone fake this)

originally posted by: ArMaP
Fake, the shadows of the "UFOs" are being projected in the wrong direction.

Although I tend to trust your judgement AM, a little more than a one-liner would not go unappreciated. You are usually more elaborate than that.

Strange, I was outside with the dogs last night and it was partly cloudy but the moon was still bright.
I was just standing together looking at it and I kept seeing little sparkles around the moon that were almost like this, I thought it was just my eyes or something in the atmosphere but then I see this post so now I don't know what to think.

a reply to: Jonjonj

why would someone fake this

Fun
Profit
boredom

Why would anyone fake anything?

a reply to: ArMaP

How do you figure? The sun is behind the objects.

The concern from me is that the top craft disappears into the darkness about 30% earlier than the middle and bottom. Could be from altitude variation, but they don't seem to differ in that sense when approaching that area.

You can get an idea of where the sun is by the shadow and lighted parts of the moon. The craft doesn't share this same angle of shadows. The shadows, once it peaked over the further side, would have already been on the surface and wouldn't have just poofed there all of a sudden. The height of the craft could be why they didn't go into shadow with the moon but that shadow being so large and so dark from the craft... I'm going to say it's too dark and too perfect a shadow. I would expect the shadow to fade inward, I can't imagine it being so defined.


ETA:

watched it on highest rez on my big screen and slowest settings YouTube has to offer other than custom.

- The time between shadow and craft for each of the 3 crafts do not coincide. It takes less time for the second craft, where the shadow shows up immediately after the first craft's shadow appears but the first crafts shadow takes a bit to appear after the craft comes into view. Not so with the second or the third. Hope this makes sense. Timing is wrong between each craft and each shadow when compared.

= The 3rd UFO is key. They try to give the impression that the atmosphere is affecting the craft in the same way that the moon's clarity is affected. They messed up on the 3rd craft's shadow. You can literally see it move upward for a frame then back down as though the shadow moved without the craft. It's not due to the shadow going over any terrain. Shadows will fall over the surface in the same direction as the craft. It will not jump up out of the way for a whole second and then back down without the UFO doing the same. I'm not referring to the forward motion. The only way that shadow could be made possible is if that craft also jumped up at the same time but it didn't. The shadow distorts over the terrain as you would expect it to but this was nowhere near that. It was very, very obvious that it was created by someone and not real.

= Timing was too perfect. I would have given the video more credit had it been already fixed on the moon a good time prior. This was almost anticipated.

- The bright bit of a crater right at the shadow line blinks dark then back to bright for a split second. Shadows wouldn't move like that unless the moon had a hiccup and reversed it's spin immediately then back. We all know that the moon doesn't spin that quickly and it certainly doesn't spin backwards and finally, the sun doesn't move around the moon either. So this is impossible.


ETA ETA

- Also noticed that the atmosphere affects the moon and the craft separate and not together as it should. The craft moves up and down and so does the moon but not together and the terrain isn't affected when the craft is affected.

- Why is the shadow behind the craft and not in front? The sun is behind the craft and the moon. This would make the shadow forward and not behind thus the shadow wouldn't appear seconds after the craft appears.


Too much wrong with this when you play it on .25% speed.

At the very beginning, you can see a white defined dot on the surface. For only a second, it blinks off then on. As that happens, the UFOs appear.

originally posted by: fromtheskydown

originally posted by: ArMaP
Fake, the shadows of the "UFOs" are being projected in the wrong direction.

Although I tend to trust your judgement AM, a little more than a one-liner would not go unappreciated. You are usually more elaborate than that.

I was making lunch.

OK, although not as I thought at first, the shadows are really wrong.

I used the original video (this one), as it doesn't have any text over the images at the beginning.

First, I used the start of the video to get a reference for the direction of the light, and made this crude image.


Then I marked the direction of the three shadows of the "UFOs", marked in red in the image below, and compared them with the light's direction (in yellow). As the camera doesn't rotate between frames we can use the same reference in different frames.


We can see that the shadows (red lines) are not parallel to each other, with the central one pointing in a slightly different direction. Considering the different positions of the "UFOs" over the curved surface of the Moon, the shadows should be pointing more to the top of the frame the closer the "UFOs" were to the top. In the same way, an UFO over the equator should have its shadow perfectly perpendicular to the surface of the Moon.

I'm sorry for the slightly confusing explanation (as usual, I'm not that good at explaining things, not even in Portuguese), I hope everyone understands what I am trying to say.

Besides that, the shadows should not move around, like the one from the topmost "UFO" does.

a reply to: ArMaP

Good job!

We need more of these videos. This is fun stuff. One of these days there will be a logically thinking hoaxer that might get it right and stump us all. So far.. Seems like fakers have less grey matter than exists proof of grey aliens.

'If' they exist... I most definitely want to see and understand. Like Mulder says... I WANT to believe.

a reply to: StallionDuck

The fact is that it's easy for a faker to do a good job, even using only free tools.

There are 3D models of the Moon available, including height information (some have been posted on ATS) and there free 3D modelling tools. The rest is human work, and that's where things usually fail, as most hoaxers are not interested in investing a lot of time in their hoaxes. If they do then we cannot really know if it's true or not, as there's nor way of telling if something is true or fake if the fake was made with some care.

PS: many years ago I made a test here on ATS to see if people could identify which of two photos was faked. Some pointed to the right photo as being fake, but they pointed to areas that were not altered, so nobody was able to spot what was faked.

The direction from which the Sun is lighting the Moon is not consistent with the direction from which the objects are lit:

Well, as the guy who had a large part to play in the understanding that CGI was good enough to fake close up UFOs (or convincing enough for most) 12 years ago, I'll throw my hat in the ring here and say that I think this might be real.
It'll take a bit of work to have conclusions though.

This isn't as easy to fake as you might simply assume. The shadows on initial viewings look correct to me, but I'll look into that more. There are a lot of things going on here that make faking it quite in depth. Camera zooms, atmospheric distortion... there are a number of ways to do this, but certainly not easy.

We need more context to the original source... is it a guy with one of the new super zoom cameras? A guy with a telescope? Who what where why...

But general impression is that this is real, and worthy more research. Writing it off as CG is incorrect at this time, and I see no proof of it yet. The shadows can change shape and path depending on the surface concavity below it, as well as any number of other things. I'll have a look into it.

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
The shadows can change shape and path depending on the surface concavity below it, as well as any number of other things. I'll have a look into it.

Yes, shadows can change, but they do not jump around as we can see in the slow motion video I posted above. Also, shadows are cast according to the source of light and the surface where they are projected, and what we see here doesn't appear to follow that.

Just on the fact trail:-

This is a comment by the channel ZEAL (original video source OP put up)..

I see a lot of channels spreading false information of where this video was captured. Please take note that we were the first to speak with the original uploader of this video and given permission to share it by him (Jean-Michel Tenac) Jean states that this video was filmed somewhere in Montréal, France NOT Canada. This footage was given to him by his friend who wishes to remain anonymous. We have asked him to reach out and take full credit but if he wishes not to then we will respect that. I understand that there are some typos in the beginning please forgive that for this was translated from French to English. If you would like to see the original clip you can do so by following this link: youtu.be... Thank you so much and don’t forget to share our ZeaL for truth.

Here is the original version:-


I'm not seeing any major fame and glory agenda with this footage, unless Jean-Michel Tenac and his friend are fake people in service of Zeal the youtube channel. It's possible of course. It will largely depend on how much "original" ufo content that channel puts up. In general, UFO channels that seem to keep sourcing totally new footage found from "somewhere" that no one else has picked up on tend to be fakers.
But also, the CGI aspects of these channels also stands out to my trained eye.

I've also found that there are a lot of people who claim CGI on genuine videos, but offer no claim to being experts in it, so how would they know? I'm 25 years in CGI now as an animator/effects/video guy, so I'd like to think my opinion is worth something. I have no vested interest in any agenda, and am against fakes of all kinds unless it is clearly stated as such and for entertainment.

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
The shadows on initial viewings look correct to me, but I'll look into that more.

As I indicated in my post above, the Moon is lit from mostly behind it while the objects are lit from their sides.

That is, the far side of the moon is mostly lit, considering that the near side is mostly in shadow. So the sun is mostly behind the Moon. The lit portions of the objects are not consistent with that Sun location.

There are a lot of things going on here that make faking it quite in depth. Camera zooms, atmospheric distortion... there are a number of ways to do this, but certainly not easy.

The camera zoom happened before the objects came from behind the moon. There was no camera zoom while the objects were in frame. Plus, it was quite serendipitous that the objects decided to appear almost immediately after he zoomed into that part of the Moon.

The moon video with the zooming and the atmospheric distortions are likely all real. The objects could have been added later, along with how their shadows would react in the distortion.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
The shadows can change shape and path depending on the surface concavity below it, as well as any number of other things. I'll have a look into it.

Yes, shadows can change, but they do not jump around as we can see in the slow motion video I posted above. Also, shadows are cast according to the source of light and the surface where they are projected, and what we see here doesn't appear to follow that.

I think you are making a lot of asumptions. The shadows move around because of the atmospheric distortion.

IF you were going to fake this, the methods used in any approach would at the very least create correct shadows. Trying to use the shadowing as negative evidence in my book is folly.

You have to consider approach...
1) The moon footage is real, the UFOs added afterwards. In this set up, you'd need to perfectly match the natural atmospheric distortion... a near impossible task. I don't even know how you'd do that.

2) The moon and the UFOs are all CG. In this scenario, the lighting and ufos shadows would be correct because it is easier to get it right than to get it wrong.

So doing number 1)... this would be a really hard way of faking it, and I'm not sure why you'd bother... too many hoops to jump through. A) You'd have to create and match the surface of the moon we are looking at accurately, in order to get the shadows working at all. B) Try to match the atmospheric distortion to all of your work... again, near impossible. Go ask any 3d artist how you'd match the distortion without a tonne of work.

Doing number 2) In this version you are somehow recreating atmospheric distortion after all the work of making what looks like very accurate footage of the moon during the day, with clouds passing by etc. This also is no easy task. But under this scenario, the light source would be accurately casting shadows on the moon and the objects, so there would be no errors.

Take your pick... but it would be a huge amount of work either way.

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
I'm not seeing any major fame and glory agenda with this footage, unless Jean-Michel Tenac and his friend are fake people in service of Zeal the youtube channel. It's possible of course.

Or the story is true and Jean-Michel Tenac got the video from a friend, but that friend faked the video and gave it him as real and Jean-Michel believed him.

originally posted by: saladfingers123456

I'm not seeing any major fame and glory agenda with this footage, unless Jean-Michel Tenac and his friend are fake people in service of Zeal the youtube channel.

People make up stories for reasons other than fame and glory. Some people make up stories simply because they "get their jollies" from the act of trying to fool people.

No fame, glory, or monetary gain is required.

originally posted by: Box of Rain

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
The shadows on initial viewings look correct to me, but I'll look into that more.

As I indicated in my post above, the Moon is lit from mostly behind it while the objects are lit from their sides.

That is, the far side of the moon is mostly lit, considering that the near side is mostly in shadow. So the sun is mostly behind the Moon. The lit portions of the objects are not consistent with that Sun location.

There are a lot of things going on here that make faking it quite in depth. Camera zooms, atmospheric distortion... there are a number of ways to do this, but certainly not easy.

The camera zoom happened before the objects came from behind the moon. There was no camera zoom while the objects were in frame. Plus, it was quite serendipitous that the objects decided to appear almost immediately after he zoomed into that part of the Moon.

The moon video with the zooming and the atmospheric distortions are likely all real. The objects could have been added later, along with how their shadows would react in the distortion.

My last post speaks to what you are saying also. If you were going to fake it, then lighting correctly is actually easier than lighting it incorrectly. Your assumption is using version 1) of how it could be done (Moon footage real, ufos added afterwards). This approach to me is near impossible because of the atmospheric distortion.

Also, this is incredibly well done... if you were to fake this, then you'd actually get the lighting correct. There would be no good reason to get it wrong. I wonder if you're considering the flatness created by such a huge zoom. It changes what you are looking at. Think about looking through binoculars.

edit: Also, with regard to the point about the UFOs appearing right after zoom in... well yes, that is suss... but, to be fair, this could be happening a lot if real. Another argument would be (and many will attest to this) that the UFO phenomenon is quite spiritual. You tend to either get a weird feeling to look at the sky and there they are, or you wish to see them, and then they literally make themselves appear.
I've been witness to this myself, so I don't dismiss it on those grounds.
The world is beyond weird ya know

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
I'm not seeing any major fame and glory agenda with this footage, unless Jean-Michel Tenac and his friend are fake people in service of Zeal the youtube channel. It's possible of course.

Or the story is true and Jean-Michel Tenac got the video from a friend, but that friend faked the video and gave it him as real and Jean-Michel believed him.

But where is the fame and glory there? If that were true, then it is for kicks? Not sure of the reasoning to fake it on those grounds.
edit: Or to make his friend look stupid.

originally posted by: saladfingers123456
I think you are making a lot of asumptions. The shadows move around because of the atmospheric distortion.

If the shadows move because of the atmospheric distortion then they wouldn't be the only thing moving, as the shadow of the topmost "UFO" does, there's a moment when it jumps one pixel in one direction then in the other.

IF you were going to fake this, the methods used in any approach would at the very least create correct shadows. Trying to use the shadowing as negative evidence in my book is folly.

No, there's one approach in which the shadows would have to be made manually, and would be very difficult to make them correctly.

You have to consider approach...
1) The moon footage is real, the UFOs added afterwards. In this set up, you'd need to perfectly match the natural atmospheric distortion... a near impossible task. I don't even know how you'd do that.

There's no need to match the atmospheric distortion, the objects and their shadows are too small for us to see if the distortion is correct or not.

2) The moon and the UFOs are all CG. In this scenario, the lighting and ufos shadows would be correct because it is easier to get it right than to get it wrong.

I agree, that's why I mentioned 3D models of the Moon in a previous post. That would look perfect, with only the need to add the atmospheric distortion.

So doing number 1)... this would be a really hard way of faking it, and I'm not sure why you'd bother... too many hoops to jump through. A) You'd have to create and match the surface of the moon we are looking at accurately, in order to get the shadows working at all.

That's why I don't think this is real, because the shadows do not match.

B) Try to match the atmospheric distortion to all of your work... again, near impossible. Go ask any 3d artist how you'd match the distortion without a tonne of work.

No need to match the distortion, you just have to move the objects around a little, being so small they cannot be affected in the same way as the Moon.

PS: in your 25 years in CGI as an animator/effects/video guy, have you worked with 3D models? If you did then you shouldn't have any problem recreating the video, by creating a sphere with a light source with parallel rays being cast on it, more or less from the same direction as we see on the video, and add some small cigar-shaped objects over it to see if the shadows look the same. I'd do it if I knew how, but I haven't used a 3D program in a long time.