Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

Or are they hoaxed fakes? Fact is, they are amazing works by “The Faking Hoaxer”. Keep reading for much more, including making ofs and ghosts.

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“My name is Marcio and I’m sending this photo for you to explain this phenomenon, I assure you this is no hoax. I don’t know when it was taken, I just know it was captured during a religious celebration, and it looks like an angel… what can you tell me about it?”

One of the most interesting photos I have received (click to enlarge), it no doubt looks like an angel, complete with wings and something in its hands… perhaps a harp?

Perhaps, fact is that there are some other white blurs in the photograph that don’t remind of any obvious religious imagery, and perhaps more importantly, there’s a little girl in a white dress in the same pose as the “angel”.

Or the opposite would be more appropriated.

We can explain the image as the result of long exposure of the film, which captured all the bright elements in the image – like those white and shiny – whilst the photographer shook his camera, by accident. Mix some pareidolia, and we have this image.

The illustration below may help to understand the effects in action here:

Highlighted in red are the sources of the blurs: the girl’s white dress, the white shirt of a man sitting at left and the shiny metal microphone stand up in the stage. All these elements were reflecting the ambient light, as well as camera flashes, producing the blurs that we highlighted in green.

The yellow arrows point the movement blurs produced by other sources of light and that are everywhere in the image. They also explain the “wings” of the angel, which are in fact blurs of the same white dress. Note the camera movement could be either going up or down, depending on the fact that the blurs were captured before or after the rest of the image.

Also note that the relative position between the white angel and the blur on its left side exactly matches the relative position between the little girl’s dress and the man in a white shirt. This match gives us reason to think our interpretation is correct, and this angel of light is just a blurred image of the little miss singing.

A real angel, indeed.

[With thanks to Marcio Silva for the image]

“Is it a bird? Is it a plane? An unidentified flying object is spotted by a BBC Look North webcam.” – BBC, Daily Mail, Sun

Though Nick Pope has already termed it “a genuine mystery”, as in previous cases the explanation here may be very mundane. Not a bird, not a plane but…

Let’s take a look first at another “mysterious” footage captured in Brazil in 2001. Notorious spiritualist leader Chico Xavier was hospitalized, and a cameraman captured a quick pair of lights that seemed to come from the sky directly to the window of Xavier’s room!

Shortly after this phenomenon was captured, Xavier’s health got “miraculously” better. He identified the light as the spirit of his own mother. Obviously, for a spiritualist leader, the light was a spirit.

Around a year later Xavier passed away, and local TV show Fantástico had the footage analyzed by the occasion. They quoted Ricardo Bárthem, physicist at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University:

“The most probable hypothesis is that it was a lens effect, as it’s not a light coming from the sky that was cast in the building, it’s not something bright wandering around that space. It seems to me it’s due to a moving object off camera, something that went around, reflecting the sunlight. The Sun is behind the building, so it’s shining over a car, something that passed behind the camera.”

That is, the moving specks of light are internal reflections of intense sources of light in movement off-camera, which were not recorded in the videos but were captured by the most external lenses of the camera. Probably not a bird, not a plane, just reflections.

Or perhaps it’s a coincidence that both Xavier’s “spiritual” light and BBC’s “alien” light were captured in the morning, with the Sun still low in the sky.

Considering these two cases are indeed simply reflections from the sun into windshields or some other surface, it’s interesting that the exact same original phenomenon is interpreted in completely different terms according to the social context.

At the hospital where a religious leader is being treated, the lights are understood and promoted by the general media as a possible spiritual manifestation. At a morning live TV show, they are classified as UFOs even by BBC.

Why a UFO couldn’t visit a religious leader in the hospital or the spirit or that leader’s mother couldn’t appear at a morning British TV show are questions only an inconvenient skeptic would ask.

Either way, both are very similar and could be explained as reflections of the Sun, making those considerations unnecessary.

Over two and a half million viewers – and that’s just for the dramatic music version above. That is the “Michael Jackson’s Ghost” video spreading through the intertubes, which originally aired on Larry King (click for the original segment).

As everyone that watches it a couple of times must have considered, the “ghost” is simply a shadow. There are many people walking around the ranch (who can be seen in other parts of the tour video), and it’s obvious one of them cast that shadow. Simple as that, if there’s any doubt, this enhanced version below can make it even clearer:

Pay attention to how the shadow follows the countour of the fireplace. It’s also clear in this other video, captured from TV. Just a shadow. A real ghost would probably look like this.

The unimpressive shadow is just part of the whole exploitation phenomenon of the pop icon’s death. In a slow news day, instead of Jesus one can see Michael Jackson’s face on a roasting pan in Lajeado, Rio Grande do Sul… Brazil! Yes, Brazil!

And that’s not all. As with Elvis (and Morrison and even Hitler), to some news of the death have been greatly exaggerated. Jacko is still very alive, after successfully executing his elaborate plan to escape the debts and burdens of fame and killing his own double (or evil twin, something like that). And there are photos of a man with an umbrella taken after his death to prove it!

A shadow, burned fat pareidolia and a man with an umbrella. If you want the real thing, you have to look for a credible news source. Weekly World News, of course, which spotted Michael Jackson dining with Elvis.

Seriously, you can bet that after today’s burial and ceremony, many other videos, reports and sightings of Michael Jackson’s ghost – or of him alive – will pop up. That is the predictable nature of human gullibility.

“Ghost? Michael Jackson?
Hi, I’m a boxing enthusiast. I was browsing youtube and found a video of the famous fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, “Rumble in the jungle”. Well, at a point in the video (5:45~46 to be exact) a bizarre figure appeared in the background. I was curious, it’s certainly some problem that appeared due to the dozens of edits the image must have passed through… the eyes are even shining… or is it indeed some sort of hoax? Does anyone have an explanation?”

Asked Luis Fernando. The face is indeed bizarre, and I found it interesting enough to post here. And I honestly and unfortunately don’t have a clear explanation for the image. It could be a hoax, a bizarre face added digitally and recently to the scene, as what we assume would be the black hair around the face is actually transparent.

On the other hand, the are some things that interact with the image – passing both in front and behind the “face” – which suggest that it was not such a bad editing job. And also suggest that perhaps it’s not a hoax, but pareidolia. Even if I have no idea of what could have looked like a face with glowing eyes. Certainly the height of that face is not right, it’s at the height of everyone else’s waists. Perhaps a bag? I don’t know.

I compiled an animated GIF with the relevant section after the jump, but have no further comments. Do you have an idea of what could this be? Or is this uninteresting? Do share your thoughts.

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