YouTube is rife with UFO channels dedicated to churning out hoax videos with the sole purpose of generating as many video views as possible in order to rake in YouTube ad revenue. These channels routinely post what are apparently “mind blowing”, “mind boggling”, “shocking” videos showing otherworldly craft in the skies. These videos often go viral on other websites, suckering thousands of people with their clever use of CGI. What’s worse, is that it doesn’t take a lot of skill to make a rather convincing CGI UFO video these days. The software is readily available and stock images of UFOs abound. We even created our own fake UFO video just to see how difficult it is. While ours wouldn’t fool anyone, it does illustrate how – with no prior training or CGI skills – someone can hit the ground running with making fake UFO videos. You can view that right here.
Professional hoaxers produce much better quality hoaxes than we did in that example above. While you may not have the CGI knowledge to pick these hoaxes apart on a technical level, like the highly recommended UFO Theater channel does, there are a few other ways you can determine whether that amazing UFO video you’re watching is the real deal or not.
Won’t Provide Source Material
One thing you’ll find a YouTube hoaxer will never do is supply the UFO community with the raw, uncompressed video footage or images that were “leaked” to them. Any UFO enthusiast serious about getting to the bottom of the UFO phenomenon would be ready, willing, and able to provide the community at large with the raw, uncompressed media for scrutiny and analysis. Hoaxers will never provide this, because it doesn’t exist. I routinely ask for source material from these channels and have yet to receive even a response, much less any raw images or video.
Nothing but Still Images
Any UFO video on YouTube that is nothing more than a video slide show of still images should be suspect. If you had still images that you wanted to show to someone would you compress them into a video, or simply upload them to an image sharing site like Flickr or Imgur or possibly your own website? There are a few reasons why a hoaxer would opt to cram still images into a YouTube video:
1) YouTube is where the main source of ad revenue is.
2) Compressing them into video format degrades the quality of the images, making debunking more difficult.
3) Entertainment value. Creating a video allows for the addition of some creepy music and narration to really catch your attention…hopefully long enough to increase the revenue potential mentioned in #1.
Why This Particular YouTube Channel?
Why, exactly, are so many people contacting this particular YouTube channel with their stunning, world-changing UFO footage? You can replace this particular YouTube channel with any number of hoax channels out there. If you looked up and saw a gigantic UFO drifting through the air and managed to catch it on video would you contact some two-bit UFO YouTube channel with the news, or call the police, the local news media, perhaps the nearest branch of the military, MUFON, NUFORC, etc., etc.? There are any number of legitimate outlets that any thinking person with at least a thimble of common sense would consider reporting their UFO encounter to other than an ad-bloated YouTube channel.
Where Are the Other Witnesses?
These hoax videos are usually very convincing and impressive. Rarely do hoaxers simply add a few dots of light in a night sky. Oh no, they pull all of the tricks out of their CGI bag and make their UFOs look incredibly detailed, visible, and awesome. So, if these “shocking” UFOs exist, where are all the other reports of this thing? Surely other people saw this thing and you can find corroborating coverage of it on other legitimate websites? But you won’t. You might find other websites writing about that particular video, but they will only be writing about THAT video. There will be no other witnesses, new information, details, etc., because the UFO doesn’t exist outside of the fake CGI video.
Check the UFO Black List
UFO Theater is a very informative, entertaining, and often amusing website and YouTube channel that does a great job debunking hoax videos. The guy who runs the site, Constantine, is an award winning animation and visual effects artist who “has worked on numerous shows for The History Channel, Discovery Channel and Spike TV.” The guy knows what he’s talking about. He has compiled a comprehensive “black list” of dubious UFO websites and YouTube channels that are known to create or help proliferate outright hoaxes. Bookmark The UFO Black List and when you come across a UFO YouTube video that looks too good to be true, consult the list to see if the source is mentioned.
