Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

Superb work in this video inspired by the whole Drone saga. The music is from Drone, remixing interviews by Linda Moulton Howe (who as an ufologist is a pretty good singer), but the highlight here is clearly the author of the graphics.
Because all the graphics in this video, completely digital, were created by one single person: Kris Avery, also known as “saladfingers”, the artist who has been reproducing and even enhancing the original Drone images to show how they can indeed be created on a computer. According to Avery, it’s all a hoax, though a very interesting one.
Download the original video file, in hi-res, here.

UPDATE: Kris Avery clarifies his views on the OpenMindsForum, where much work has been done to sort the Drone saga. His message:

Hi folks,
listen, you can take me straight OFF the hoaxers list…
If the drone case was hoaxed.. if (because it has yet to be proven) it was not me. Feelings about the possibility of what you imagine this case to be do not make it so. It is way more complicated than that. My video (to some) can only ever show that it is possible that the drones could be the result of CG, not that they are. There is much to be done before that is proven positive or negative.
I will also reply to the comment about how easy it was to create this video. It wasn’t! It took a fair amount of time, and was not a walk in the park.
I’m very glad that the video has been enjoyed, and I am extremely flattered by some of the wonderful feedback! I never expected such a resounding response. But it was not created to debunk, and the wide majority of people who have seen it don’t think so either. It is a dedication to some of the extremely talented and intelligent people who have put many many hours of study into this case. It is also a result of the artistic inspiration I have drawn from the unique imagery in the drones and the CARET documents. Ultimately, it was created to breathe life into objects we have only ever seen as flat 2D images, while bringing some entertainment and enjoyment along the way!
Whether real or not, there are some amazing visual aspects in the original presented evidence. I think the primer part of the video presents this inspiration to the fullest.
So please, don’t dismiss the drone case outright because my work looks pretty close. It took a lot of work to get them as close as they are. A lot of studying of the images.
The answer to this case is personal to everyone, but no one has ‘proved’ anything. Merely provided possibilities, and there are so many of these to choose from. To dismiss this case on a feeling is to dismiss the search for the truth.
I have at times thrown my hands up in the air and said that this has got to be CG! But I haven’t proved that. Has anyone? But it hasn’t been proved to be real either. It is the unanswered questions that drive us mad, which is why it is so easy to throw the towel in and resign ourselves to our feelings. I am still wide open to this case being real, so please don’t think I say it is a hoax, full stop, the end.
It is over when it is proven one way or the other, not before.
To say such is to belittle the hard work done by some very dedicated researchers. This I have learned along the way!
Final note. The special thanks to Linda Moulton Howe is for the kind lending of her voice to the amazing piece of music by ‘Drone’. She is not related to the video in the sense of her involvement in any way. I have never spoken to her myself. But I take this opportunity to thank her again for sounding so cool on the track! It wouldn’t be so good without her on there, and it gives the music a backbone that makes sense of the images.
Anyway, I hope this message clears a few things up. I refuse to be the debunkers champion, or any such nonsense. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I honestly hope everyone makes up their own mind, as opposed to being swayed by the flat conclusions of others.
That’s it really. Maybe you could post this letter a little more prominently? As I don’t really like being tagged with the hoaxer brush. I want to make it VERY CLEAR, that the original evidence has nothing to do with me.
Thanks and the kindest of regards,
Kris : )

“We recently managed to shoot down an object that was landing. We were monitoring the activity of a small capsule for nine days, where it was making the exact same course, around the same time [every day]. (…) We finally neutralized the object, stopping it from flying at the night of March 15, 2007. It happened not very far from the city of Tasso Fragoso, Maranhao, [Brazil]. Near the BR330 road. Two creatures came out of the object and resisted the capture, acting violently and trying to run away. They were both shot down. (…) During the time that we were taking the beings, I was left alone with them and took some photos with my cell phone. I didn’t have much time and couldn’t take many photos because my cell phone battery was going off and the stress of photographing the creature”.

Or so the story goes, according the the “testimony of a MIB” (in Portuguese). As it turns out, it was all the invention of the talented Brazilian graphics artist Philipe Kling David in his own blog, the “Mundo Gump“. As he quickly explained:

“it is my creation, 100% of it. Both the text and the images. In fact, everything happened by accident, I was plying with zbrush and ended up creating an alien. I decided to use this alien in 3dsmax and added some lightining and textures. Then I rendered and photographed the computer screen with my cell phone. Looking at the cell phone, I was impressed as to how it looked more real. Then my mind started to invent this whole X-Files story … Tasso Fragoso was a city chosen arbitraily on google Earth”.

It’s indeed very interesting how a virtual computer creation can look more real when an analogic, real stage — photographing a computer screen with a cell phone camera — is added. This alien is so good it’s comparable to the 20/20 Alien Autopsy recreation, made by special effects artists with a very detailed dummy (and which was later mistaken for a real alien).

Luckily, David didn’t try to sell it as real, like the Haiti UFO videos, the CARET drones or the Italian Air Force saucer. All computer graphics.

The Aztec UFO hoax has been mentioned recently in the discussion about Sparks and Greenwood paper on MJ12, and for those wanting to know more about it, Professors John L. Cotton and Randall J. Scalise have a very nice page about it:

Flying Saucers and Frank Scully. It includes a summary of the book that started it all, and full scans of the articles that thoroughly debunked the hoax.

Seen above, material alleged to be from a crashed flying saucer that turned out to be common aluminum, along with the mysterious superscientist “Dr Gee”, aka Leo GeBauer, proprietor of a radio and television parts store in Phoenix.

Incidentally, a drawing by Chan Johnson, which illustrated “UFO Crash at Aztec”, by William Steinman, published in 1987, very probably inspired special effects artist John Humphreys to create the alien in the infamous Alien Autopsy.

Note the profile. The body is not similar, except for the legs, and Humphreys was probably inspired by progeria (warning: Graphic images!) at that.

Left, illustration by Ron Turner made in 1953 showing how the space suits would look like, available on the very nice page “Atomic Rocket: space suits“.
Right, illustration by Hal Crawford made in 1971 showing how the second more common type of extraterrestrial allegedly looked like at that time.

Astrona is an online collection of space and astronomical art, science fiction art, visions of future worlds, design and visualization of technologies for living in space, space exploration, spaceships, starships, space colonies and everything. Seen above, the work of Alexander Preuss. Of course, flying saucers and alien worlds and beings, as well as psychedelic art also feature proeminently. All fascinating.