[Fake] UFO's Casting Shadows On The Moon - "OVNI sur la Lune , 2020-03-26"

[Getoffthisplanet]

This one is getting a lot of attention.


Source: https://youtu.be/uJOIIEQF_xs

from vid description

This video is not mine. A friend passed it on to me.
Filmed towards Montreal in the late afternoon with a Nikon P1000
He tells me:
I regularly film the Moon by day, at the time of the first and last crescent.
I think that if a hidden activity must be visible on the Moon, it is at this moment, when the population does not observe it, because it is day and the first or last crescent makes it more discreet in the sky.
And after hundreds of videos, March 26 ...

UFOofinterest asked me to stabilize the footage and to specifically look at the shadows, I haven't gotten to that yet but here's a stabilized and contrast enhanced version highlighting the objects:


Source: https://youtu.be/6zgXHWKzeHc


I'm aware of the difficulties proving hoax from a well done CG fake and sadly math and astronomy are not my fortes, but isn't there a way to estimate the size, speed and distance traveled based on how far the objects traveled from curvature of the moon to the area in shadow?

If real these objects were real they would have to be massive and fast, no?

 

[Mick West]

It's quite well done, with the correct moon phase, and appears like a good attempt at getting the lighting direction correct. It's a tricky one to stabilize due to atmospheric distortion. I did this one:

 

[deirdre]

a good attempt at getting the lighting direction correct

is that normal that each tic tac would have two shadows? wouldn't you need 2 separate light sources for that?

 

[Creamy Pasta]

They appear to pass by Endymion is just a mere 2 to 3 seconds. Given that it's 125km wide that's some orbital velocity. But the Moon's escape velocity is just 2.38km/s. So, in making a really good looking video the physics had to go right out of the window.

 

[Mick West]

is that normal that each tic tac would have two shadows? wouldn't you need 2 separate light sources for that?

The other shadow isn't on the surface of the Moon, it's the unlit portion of the object.

 

[Ravi]

The shadows look ridiculously incorrect to me. The shadows on the objects are wrong. Knowing the sun is illuminating it from the right. the shadow cannot be on top of the object. As we know, the sun's rays are almost parallel (collimated) when arriving at the moon. It looks off by a large margin. Cleverly made though, probably someone was good in rotoscoping and CGI.

 

[Mick West]

As noted in a YouTube comment, at 0:34 the fake atmospheric distortion is not applied, the moon suddenly appears solid, but the camera and cloud continue to move. This proves that it's a fake.



Credit to ARTMA DG

Here I've just rotated it and increased the contrast to make it clearer. The moon image suddenly becomes rock solid.

 

[Mendel]

If the flying objects were spheres, the shadow on their skins would look like the moon: a small lit crescent on the right. The surface turned to us can't be as brightly lit as it is. And the sun incident angle to the shadows on the ground looks all wrong, too.

 

[Getoffthisplanet]

As noted in a YouTube comment, at 0:34 the fake atmospheric distortion is not applied, the moon suddenly appears solid, but the camera and cloud continue to move. This proves that it's a fake.

There are 155 frames/4:05 seconds from when the distortion stops until the main zoom and big action.

Seems like forgetting to apply the displacement/distortion effect here doesn't jibe too well with the advanced artistic abilities needed to create this fake.

Is it an absolute that this sort of atmospheric distortion is a constant in real life or can the turbulence ever be periodic?

 

[Mick West]

Is it an absolute that this sort of atmospheric distortion is a constant in real life or can the turbulence ever be periodic?

It's not constant, but it's never going to be zero in the daytime at that magnification. The effect they used here also looks a bit watery, atmospheric distortion is faster.
Compare the UFO distortion with this:

Source: https://youtu.be/FZCI2Pp-jLQ?t=38


Night videos can have more stable air, but still will have SOME distortion.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO7wKGHQBBw

 

[Ravi]

Mick, is it possible to stabilise the moon in the 7 second video you presented above (post #7)?
This would even show more clear how much distortion is "left".

 

[mendezmendez]

Hi everyone! I recreated this video with CGI over the weekend, here's a breakdown of the process:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScBx2EwSuDo


My theory is that the original video features real footage of the moon with real camera jitter and some atmospheric distortion, then they did the exact same process as I did, but only used the cgi moon to get the shadows to interact with the terrain's geometry. They overlaid the UFOs + shadows on top of the real moon, matched the depth of field / focus and added more distortion fx on top to tie it all together.

 

[Mick West]

Mick, is it possible to stabilise the moon in the 7 second video you presented above (post #7)?
This would even show more clear how much distortion is "left".

It's not perfect, because the changing brightness from the scrolling cloud overlay made precise feature-tracking difficult. But this largely removes the fake camera shake and does show the abrupt cessation of the distortion more clearly.

 

[Mick West]

My theory is that the original video features real footage of the moon with real camera jitter and some atmospheric distortion

Great recreation. But I think it's more likely they used a still image and added all the shake and atmospheric effects - based on the sudden stopping of the distortion seen above.

 

[mendezmendez]

Thanks! I agree with you, that sudden stop is the giveaway! I had fun recreating the video though

 

[Mick West]

Thanks! I agree with you, that sudden stop is the giveaway! I had fun recreating the video though

And I'm glad you did, as I was considering doing it myself. So you saved me a lot of time

 

[Ravi]

It's not perfect, because the changing brightness from the scrolling cloud overlay made precise feature-tracking difficult. But this largely removes the fake camera shake and does show the abrupt cessation of the distortion more clearly.

Thanks. And, proven fake indeed.

 

[mendezmendez]

And I'm glad you did, as I was considering doing it myself. So you saved me a lot of time

Awesome! Looking forward to contributing on future posts here!

 

[Khaled Salah]

I analysed the video from the orbital mechanics point of view
1. the path seems to follow a latitude line rather than a great circle ....that's impossible orbit path or even a route of travel
2. with pixel count the crafts are around 18 Km AGL, using your advanced curvature calculator with the moon radius, that gives 250 Km from the crafts to the horizon, it took at least 2 seconds from the moment it appeared on the horizon until it reached it's highest point above the moon's horizon from our perspective, that gives it a speed of 125 Km/s
3. to orbit the moon (regardless to the unrealistic orbit path) at 125Km/s , the crafts require downward thrust equivalent to 917 Gs (g for earth gravity) to counter the centrifugal force (centrifugal acceleration for that speed and radius is around 9000 m/s^2 )

my video:
Source: https://youtu.be/-uyhn7oI

 

[Getoffthisplanet]

I analysed the video from the orbital mechanics point of view

While the problem with the atmospheric distortion effect was enough to kill it for me, thanks for taking the time to break it down and present your ideas.

Very cool video.

 

[Mick West]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voC0CcwDNUM


Good analysis from Captain Disillusion. He notes the abrupt stop of the wobble and several other inconsistencies. Phil plait is on, and note that other people would have seen it, but nobody did.

 

[Matt33]

A 4K NASA video from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter might be the source for the UFO Video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFC71rFejvo

At 00:09 we have this frame:

Beginning of UFO video:

Zoomed in, tilted and tinted the NASA screenshot looks like this:

Compare to UFO video:

Close up from UFO video:

Close up from NASA video (no rotation):

Edit: even higher resolution videos at the NASA website:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4655

 

[Mendel]

Compare to UFO video

It's certainly a close match, but there is a shadow I don't see in the UFO footage:

 

[jarlrmai]

The moon is going to look pretty similar between images if it's in the same phase between photos maybe slight shadow differences on the shallower craters.

 

[John_Sheldon]

I have seen this posted around quite a bit among ufo circles as proof,

Description:

This video is showing the moment three bright UFOs fly in front of the moon. Their shadow can be seen across the surface of Earth's natural satellite. From the perspective and the background, the flying objects appear to be pretty big and moving very fast. The clip was filmed by an amateur astronomer from France.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAXsekAQk8E
(Whole Video is 1min long)

 

[JMartJr]

Captain Disillusion trashed this one pretty thoroughly.


Source: https://youtu.be/voC0CcwDNUM


The clencher to me is that somebody forgets to extend an effects layer all the way to the end in the original video, and the atmospheric shimmer goes away. Savvy hoax pushers have since started pushing a truncated version that cuts the moment that happens. That specific point is shown at

Source: https://youtu.be/voC0CcwDNUM?t=223

for those not wishing to watch the whole thing.

 

[NorCal Dave]

There are a number of satellites in Lunar orbit. Not saying that's what this is, but they are up there. Always start with the simple answer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extraterrestrial_orbiters

There are others besides the ones listed above. The YouTube channel this is from is a collection of stuff that makes for good shorts of weird looking stuff. It includes debunked UFO claims, like the flares near China, probable hoaxes like Skinny Bob and lots of "ghost" videos that are either bad camera artifacts or the wind.

I'm always skeptical when a video has no provenance. The description just claims it's from an armature astronomer in France. Who? Where? When? No description of the equipment used, no location, no date. It simply gives a website that seems to be where the guy running the YouTube channel gets a lot of his stuff.

Certainly could be fake. EDIT: I passed @JMartJr in posting above. It's fake.

 

[NorCal Dave]

There are a number of satellites in Lunar orbit. Not saying that's what this is, but they are up there. Always start with the simple answer:

Just to clarify, I didn't offer up the idea of actual satellites in Lunar orbit AFTER this was thoroughly debunked as fake. What's now post #25, was a NEW post yesterday! I, like the OP in Post #25 was unaware of the OP about this from April. As the OP of yesterday had a "what about this" vibe to it with no attempt at understanding it or apparently checking if it had already been on the forum, I was merely offering a logical starting point.

I'll have to use a term form another thread. Once the threads were merged, I appear to be carrying the "idiot ball"

A moment when a normally competent character suddenly becomes incompetent — knowingly or otherwise — which fuels an episode, a plot line, or any number of smaller threads.

Coined by Hank Azaria on Herman's Head: Azaria would ask the writing staff, "Who's carrying the idiot ball this week?"

 

[John_Sheldon]

Just to clarify, I didn't offer up the idea of actual satellites in Lunar orbit AFTER this was thoroughly debunked as fake. What's now post #25, was a NEW post yesterday! I, like the OP in Post #25 was unaware of the OP about this from April. As the OP of yesterday had a "what about this" vibe to it with no attempt at understanding it or apparently checking if it had already been on the forum, I was merely offering a logical starting point.

I'll have to use a term form another thread. Once the threads were merged, I appear to be carrying the "idiot ball"

A moment when a normally competent character suddenly becomes incompetent — knowingly or otherwise — which fuels an episode, a plot line, or any number of smaller threads.

Coined by Hank Azaria on Herman's Head: Azaria would ask the writing staff, "Who's carrying the idiot ball this week?"

Just to clarify, I did quick a search in threads before posting with something like ''three ufos across moon" but nothing came up.
I will do a more advanced search in future to save any mods having to clean up after me.
Thanks

 

[Mendel]

Just to clarify, I did quick a search in threads before posting with something like ''three ufos across moon" but nothing came up.

That's too specific a search. I'd have done a title search on UFOs Moon and also failed to find it because of the erroneous apostrophe in the thread title.
My advantage was that I remembered the thread, so I searched on "Disillusion", and then suggested for the threads to be merged.