PROOF that BP faked their command center photo

If they're willing to fake something like this, everything else they have done is now called into question.

Here's the link

The latest curio in the ongoing exhibition of BP obfuscation comes via John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, who examined an image from BP's website and determined it to be a fake. The image depicts BP's "Command Center" in Houston, where ever-vigilant BP employees sit in a dark room, monitoring screens. BP's website has been running a photo in which three men appear to be watching a ten-screen display of oil-spill footage. Here's the thing: it's a Photoshop job. And not just a poor one -- a seemingly unnecessary one.

[edit on 7/20/2010 by atlguy]

Is this the line to make a big deal out of nothing?

Seriously.

Sorry, friend. To me, if they are willing to photoshop something as trivial as an alleged "picture" of a command center, they're willing to fake other things as well. Like live-feeds from the ocean floor.

they added three screens to cover up the blank screens?

umm so what?
i woulda probably done the same if i was working at bp

Originally posted by atlguy
Sorry, friend. To me, if they are willing to photoshop something as trivial as an alleged "picture" of a command center, they're willing to fake other things as well. Like live-feeds from the ocean floor.

you cannot fake the live feeds. The info (location, time, date etc) is PART of the ROVs. You cannot just take it off the screen. The ones that do not have that info is because they don't display it.

reply to post by Kr0nZ


I don't think we can know what was under the photoshopped pics. The blank screens are just something the guy who figured this out put in there. For all we know there were more "interesting" shots on those 3 screens.

IMO this is very important in the implications of what BP is willing to do, hide, or create in this disaster. The contradictions are so vast in this whole mess that it's impossible to even know if there really is a disaster or not.

reply to post by DragonFire1024


As Dragon Says, the ROV feeds (as far as we can tell) are not fake. This has been discussed in various threads so lets not go down that little alley way again

reply to post by DragonFire1024


I do think in this day and age, it would be pretty simple to fake "supposed" live feeds. We are pretty technologically savvy these days.

Originally posted by SunnyDee
reply to post by Kr0nZ

 

I don't think we can know what was under the photoshopped pics. The blank screens are just something the guy who figured this out put in there. For all we know there were more "interesting" shots on those 3 screens.

IMO this is very important in the implications of what BP is willing to do, hide, or create in this disaster. The contradictions are so vast in this whole mess that it's impossible to even know if there really is a disaster or not.

This is what was under them: BP photoshops fake photo of crisis command center, posts on main BP site They just added a person and also put clear video over the feeds that suck or the people that are supposed to be watching them are completely blind and do not even care to try and fix them.

Originally posted by SunnyDee
reply to post by DragonFire1024

 

I do think in this day and age, it would be pretty simple to fake "supposed" live feeds. We are pretty technologically savvy these days.

Do tell then...I would like to know. We may not be seeing all the feeds they have, but the ones we do see are real. Understand that the info on the "LIVE" feeds are built into the ROVs. The only things that can be changed are what is changed by the idiots watching the feeds in the command center. whatever THEY add onto the screens on their end can be changed...like ROV assignments and tasks. They cannot change what is already on the ROVs. To do so would require the ROVs to be reprogrammed. And to do that they need to be on the surface.

[edit on 20-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

Originally posted by DragonFire1024
Do tell then...I would like to know. We may not be seeing all the feeds they have, but the ones we do see are real. Understand that the info on the "LIVE" feeds are built into the ROVs. The only things that can be changed are what is changed by the idiots watching the feeds in the command center. whatever THEY add onto the screens on their end can be changed...like ROV assignments and tasks. They cannot change what is already on the ROVs. To do so would require the ROVs to be reprogrammed. And to do that they need to be on the surface.
[edit on 20-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

Your information is wrong on many fronts and precisely why I think that BP faking anything - no matter how "insignificant" is cause for alarm.

It is ridiculously simple to fake any one, or all of these feeds and any information you see on the screen via text.

Firstly, the text info containing lat/long info, depth and whatnot is NOT programmed into the ROV - the information is added upstream of the ROV between the actual unit and the transmission point. There is a GPS transmitter built into the ROV that sends back the pertinent info to the decoder on the ship, where it is displayed on another monitor and the operator can then add to or remove from the display whatever he/she deems necessary.

For all we know, we could be looking at ROV's swimming around in an olympic size swimming pool, covered with 6" of black beads to give the illusion of being deep underwater. There is nothing, repeat - nothing - on those screens that can't be faked by someone with access to a pool and a MacPro with Final Cut Pro and a 3D program installed.

I am NOT saying that I think these feeds are faked and that we are looking at the bottom of a pool, but to think that BP can't fake the feeds is naive. Now we know for certain that they've "got it in them", so who's to say?

And yes - I do know of what I speak.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9e531d1f176f.jpg[/atsimg]
Say hello to my 2 Emmy nominations and one win. I work in the TV & film industry and have extensive background with special effects.

[edit on 7/20/2010 by atlguy]

LOL, if the original photo had been run, people would be screaming about why those screens were black and what was really going on that they were hiding with black screens.

Originally posted by atlguy
And yes - I do know of what I speak. ... extensive background with special effects.

I don't doubt you at all. However I can't help but find some (unintended) hilarity in using a photograph of an Emmy award for evidence of expertise, embedded in a post about how you can't trust graphic evidence.

Come on now, you've got to see the ironic comedy there.

reply to post by atlguy


One...the GPS is automatic. That cannot be faked. 2) as discussed in other threads, if this info was fake as you put it, then the ROVs would not be registering whatever feet from the well head. Simply use this calculator: BP Gulf Oil Spill ROV UTM Distance Calculator. If any of the ROVs we see with the E, N, coordinates were NOT at the well or near it, then the calculator would not work and show outrageous untrue numbers...that has been detailed in an article I did with the creator who i interviewed: Oil spewing from crack in seafloor of Gulf of Mexico was fifty feet from Deepwater Horizon well

And I quote: Higgins told Wikinews how he created the calculator, and says it is "very accurate," but that the tool would "not give you accurate measurements over a large distance, e.g. from the well head to New Orleans."

Regardless of what you want to believe, the depth, and what not cannot be faked by the fake dudes watching the feeds...if anyone is actually watching them. If they are manually added in then please provide proof of this. So far none has been presented. Not even evidence. And what the poster just above me said yeah they wanted to hide the crappy feeds because they do not care about adjusting them to proper levels so they can actually be seen/examined. That is ALL this photoshop picture presents, along with a ghost person.

And RE your Emmy: I don't care what awards you have. That means nothing to me. And for all I know that can be fake. You did take the time to edit out the names on the certificates. And we don't know where or what they are for to begin with. So before you say something is fake, then provide direct evidence to prove your case...on both ends

Originally posted by DragonFire1024
One...the GPS is automatic. That cannot be faked.

You. Don't. Get. It.

Anything can be faked. There are many ways to insert graphics into a screen - the most common is called a CHYRON. Google it and be awed since you seem to think it is impossible - yet it is done every night on the news.

If you are specifically referencing the compass and GPS coordinates, again - with enough money, you can create a video where Abraham Lincoln looks like he's tongue kissing your dog. Faking GPS coordinates and a compass is child's play. As I stated in my post above, the GPS coordinates ARE accurate - there is a transmitter onboard the ROV and it is sending lat/long, depth and heading info back to the ship where that information is dumped to a separate box that inserts the graphics on-screen. The ROV can't afford the weight of an on-board character generator, so it sends the info back down the same line as the video.

BUT - if you were interested in faking the GPS coordinates? Pathetically simple.
Program an offset into an upstream computer. This computer would take the real info from the onboard GPS which is, say, 2 miles away from the actual wellhead. Upon getting the data from the onboard GPS, it would simply add 2 miles to whatever location was actually being transmitted. Rinse and repeat for latitude, longitude AND DEPTH. All this can be done in real-time and would be dead-nuts accurate to your published GPS coordinates.

Any professional-grade production character generator already has the offset capability. The same "field population" process is how they create the weathermaps on the newscasts. The computer goes out and gets information from whatever source you tell it to, converts it, adjusts it in whatever manner you tell it to, and then populates the on-air fields.

Originally posted by DragonFire1024
And RE your Emmy: I don't care what awards you have. That means nothing to me. And for all I know that can be fake. You did take the time to edit out the names on the certificates. And we don't know where or what they are for to begin with. So before you say something is fake, then provide direct evidence to prove your case...on both ends

As soon as you publish your real name on this board, I will do the same. I rather enjoy my privacy and anonymity here on ATS. If you're simply dying to know if I am legit or not - PM me your phone number and we can have a chat. I guarantee that you will leave the conversation with zero doubts as to the legitimacy of the above photo.

[edit on 7/20/2010 by atlguy] No, I won't be publishing my name.. Sorry.

[edit on 7/20/2010 by atlguy]

Originally posted by MrDesolate
Come on now, you've got to see the ironic comedy there.

Touche and well done!

reply to post by atlguy


lol...really? Still no evidence of this? All that ranting for nothing. Provide evidence this is being done IN THIS CASE RIGHT AT THIS TIME. You have not done that. To further prove you wrong here is a link that contains the UTM location of the Deepwater Horizon: www.gomr.mms.gov.... So again, if the coordinates are fake then the calculator WOULD NOT WORK. I think an IT specialist and Web Developer knows how to make a calculator...oh unless he's fake too.

If they are so fake, then why would BP show anything that is leaking? If they wanted to cover all this up and make fake live feeds, then they wouldn't show ANYTHING bad.

Oh and my name is Jason Safoutin. You can google that...and search well. You will find me with more than my fair share of journalism under my belt. But I don't need to toot my own horn to get people to believe me.

[edit on 20-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

I'm not taking any sides here, just found this and thought you'd enjoy seeing it.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Scott Dean, a spokesman for BP, said that there was nothing sinister in the photo alteration and provided the original unaltered version. He said that a photographer working for the company had inserted the three images in spots where the video screens were blank.
"Normally we only use Photoshop for the typical purposes of color correction and cropping," Dean said in an e-mail. "In this case they copied and pasted three ROV screen images in the original photo over three screens that were not running video feeds at the time." Dean said BP usually has a couple remotely operated vehicles on the surface at any given time for maintenance.
"We will replace the Photoshopped version currently on bp.com with the original image tonight," he added. "We've instructed our post-production team to refrain from doing this in the future."

[edit on 20-7-2010 by asianeko]

reply to post by atlguy


Good stuff, Although I'm sure alot of people have no trust in BP let alone big business.
As far as the live feeds cannot be faked, maybe maybe not.
I wonder about a time delay however.
I have watched the feeds and obviously the rover will be going to do something and the camera will go dead.
Makes me wonder if the cams have a time delay unless they see something they dont want to be seen.

reply to post by DragonFire1024


That's retarded if you think they can't fake the time and date. Particularly if you knew you were going to pull a stunt like they have.... You easily can display whatever you want really. It's just a Headsup User Display...