A weird warp over a Giza Pyramid that fascinated a polish ufologist

[BartekSitek]

Here is the video as posted by Robert Bernatowicz (a controversial polish ufologist)

Source: https://x.com/FNAUTILUS/status/1902338181036425691


While the man is known for presenting dubious evidence and claiming it's supernatural, I don't think it's an intentional hoax.
Let's rule out the possibility that the video was purposefuly edited in any way, and look for a technical solution.

Here is an article (in polish) that gives some more context. The video was shot in Giza by Robert's friend. Robert was present in Giza because of his "research" into how the pyramids were built, so he was in the right frame of mind to interpret ordinary phenomena as something unnatural.
https://geekweek.interia.pl/lifesty...ce-z-egipskiej-piramidy-nagranie,nId,21322281

According to Bernatowicz, the video was shot with an iPhone and sent to him by a friend.
My guess is that the whole top of the frame was warped, but only the pyramid pops out beacuse of the uniform blue sky as a background. We can also see the left side of the frame warping at the end of the unzoomed video.

To me, reasonable explanations include:
- Warping of the top and side of the frame due to camera stabilization or postprocessing
- Warping due to a physical property of the lens (a scratch, a protective case slightly covering the lens)
- Warping due to video format change when the video was sent over to Bernatowicz (FB messenger, telegram, whatsapp, mms). We would need the original video to definitely rule this out.

If anyone recognizes this particular warping effect and knows what could have caused it, or has other examples, I would appreciate the help!

 

[Mick West]

This is an image-processing artifact, although I've not seen one exactly like it. It looks badly programmed. A glitch.

I think what is happening is that the software is trying to keep the faces centered and level. When the camera tilts or moves, it's filling in the edges.

The original video (or another example) would be needed to do anything more.

 

[FatPhil]

This is an image-processing artifact, although I've not seen one exactly like it. It looks badly programmed. A glitch.

I think what is happening is that the software is trying to keep the faces centered and level. When the camera tilts or moves, it's filling in the edges.

The original video (or another example) would be needed to do anything more.

Badly programmed, or cleverly programmed, it's hard to tell sometimes! What else would you fill in the edges with?

I've seen similar but different effects caused by the inability to read a line from the sensor, a h/w problem more than a s/w one, but that results in identical lines being repeated. It's possible that in such a scenario post-processing could have happened, making identical lines non-identical, but the simplest explanation is that of missing, by virtue of dropping off the edge of the captured frame, data being substituted by design, as you say.

Do we know the model of the phone? Can this be replicated?