California Drone photos by "Raji" - MUFON Investigation Shows

Drone Photos Hoaxed

From: Bill Hamilton
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:56:18 -0700
Archived: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:40:05 -0400
Subject: MUFON Investigation Shows Drone Photos Hoaxed

I received this on the MUFON LA mailing list and thought

it would be worth posting it here. I have examined the
related CARET docs and have detected some erroneous
statements on antigravity. The whole affair seems
contrived as a hoax, but why?

-Bill Hamilton

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Dear MUFON LA Members and Supporters,

Many of you have expressed your certainty that the alleged drone
photos which appear on C2C and Earthfiles are the real deal. I
decided to log on to MUFON.com, and see what the field
investigator assigned to the case came up with. Incidentally,
the investigator turned out to be the SSD for that district.
Befitting for such a high profile case, don’t you agree? Here
are his comments:

INVESTIGATION AND REPORT

May 16, 2007

The object in the attached images within this report first

appeared several weeks earlier on the Coast to Coast web site
page. This new witness report was posted May 12, 2007.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2022.html?theme=light

I had several trusted friends & experts in CGI (computer

generated Images) examine these images, as well as the earlier
Coast to Coast images. One examiner is Mr. Steve Neil who has
and continues to do computer generated images for the History
channels television program 'UFO Files'. The other effects
person is a Mr. Marc D' Antonio. He owns and operates a business
in Connecticut named FX Models.

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 'extraterrestral' 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.

http://www.DroneHoax.com
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.

Marc writes "Those of us in that community can look at and

immediately spot, fakery. I have to say that this one is not
actually even a GOOD fake."

Marc further writes:

Why?

In one of the images, you can see that the faker used, something
called "radiosity" to render the images. The technique allows
for more realistic images and makes things look very good, as if
lit by the sun in this case. Well, in ONE of the radiosity
images supposedly looking up at the 'fake ship' from directly
below it is clear that the faker didn't take care in setting his
settings for the renderer and you can see classic "radiosity
render artifacts" in the dark shadow areas of the CG craft. They
show up as mottling in the shadows instead of smooth
transitions. It is what happens when you want the rendering to
be finished quickly. If radiosity settings were used to make the
image look absolutely real, each image could take tens of hours
to render perhaps.

In another shot where the craft ought to have been some distance
away, it is sharp and clear as if there is suddenly no
atmospheric haze.

Finally, in one image the faker composited the craft to appear

behind tree branches. This is easy to perform. The faker used
something called an Alpha map which affords you JUST this
capability.

Sooner or later, I will bet that a 'video' will emerge, and the
faker is no doubt working on it but doesn't like the results I
guarantee because the radiosity renders take a long time to
render per frame and in motion, he has to get all his Photoshop
type filtering done on the fly within his rendering software and
it isn't as easy.

When I saw this I winced at how obvious the fakery is and how
utterly uneducated the coast to coast people are for falling for it.
The faker, named 'Chad' is a complete and total fabricator."

I have still sent a request to the above witness Email address

wishing a interview, following Mufon investigative proceedures.
I plan to play this interview 'dumb smart' (if it ever occurs
- but hope so) wishing to glean any further information if
possible and post it here. It maybe possible these images
submitted were hoaxed by someone else, rather than by the
witnesses themselves (names stated above).

I suspect the Coast to Coast web site appearance was a trial run
before posting here in the Mufon CMS. The attached images files

http://www.DroneHoax.com
from Coast to Coast read in the image file text' the name
'McKinley'. The same witness name above in the witness report.

I seriously doubt the 'Coast to Coast' people may even know

about this authenticity issue.

As of May 16, 2007, I have not recieved any reply from these
witnesses.

Clearly a 'HOAX'. Case completed, but will reopen should I

recieve get a reply from the witness. (hopefully).

Very Respectfully,

Steve Reichmuth
Mufon - Northern California
SSD - Alameda / Contra Costa Co.
May 16, 2007 (20:19 hours)”

As you can see from his comments, Mr. Reichmuth is convinced

that the photos are a HOAX. So don’t get too excited. Know that
there are people out there who get their jollies from spoofing
the unsuspecting and gullible. Hey, don’t feel too bad. If it
makes you feel any better, I thought they looked real too. As
ancient Chinese proverb say; “believe nothing of what you hear,
and only half of what you see”. Or maybe that was Kwai Chang
Caine. No matter.

Steve R. Murillo

State Section Director

MUFON L.A.

http://www.DroneHoax.com