A few months ago I performed an experiment on a whim wherein I, with no prior Adobe After Effects experience, created a fake UFO video. The experiment was meant to illustrate how easy it is for even a complete novice like myself to create at least a rudimentary hoax video. The resulting video was by no means something that would fool the average person, but it showed how quickly someone can learn the basics of inserting a UFO into background footage and having it move convincingly with the camera’s motions. The point of the piece was essentially: be careful, because with today’s technology it’s easy to be fooled.
Naturally, this also applies to still photographs, which web & graphic designer Barrie Reader illustrates very well below in this step-by-step “how-to” for hoaxing a UFO photograph:
- Add image of UFO (I used this one ) to a generic photo
- Motion blur said UFO
- Lens blur the entire image as a whole
- Save at 60% to 75% JPG quality
- Re-open and do a tiny lens blur again
- Save at 50% to 60% JPG quality
- Check levels and curves so that no obvious pixel edges are in existence
- Save out at 50% to 60% JPG quality
- Run through an EXIF program to remove all of the EXIF data
- Open said image in a browser (as if others are looking at it) and zoom in and look about
- Repeat steps 3-6 if required.
And here is the result:
That pretty much looks just like every UFO photo you see these days, which is unfortunate, because now you know how many of them are faked.
If you need a UFO faked or, better yet, a kickass website designed, go check out Barrie’s website RIGHT HERE!
