Friday Video: 6 Paranormal Videos Debunkified

Friday Video: 6 Paranormal Videos Debunkified


Hey everyone! It’s me, it’s me, it’s Earnest T! What, you’ve never watched the Andy Griffith Show? Blasphemy!

I’ve got a little secret to tell you: I’m not Earnest T. at all but your Friday Funnyman! I’ve been on hiatus for a week to allow Javier his shot at doing the FV. Lets all give him a hand for his contribution! If you happen to not like his FV last week, fake it and applaud anyway. Who watches these things anyway? You Lt. Weinberg?

We have more responsibility than you can fathom. You weep for Santiago and curse the Marines. You don’t know what I know. Santiago’s death while tragic, saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque to you, saves lives! Deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall!

Holy crap! What happened, I remember typing a light hearted Friday Video intro and then I blacked out. Maybe I’m losing what’s left of my simple mind, maybe I’m going stark raving mad! Maybe, just maybe, I belong in some sort of institution where a team of top doctors and scientists can study me around the clock to determine just what it is that makes me tick. Nawww!

OK, this weeks Video is actually something new I am trying. Instead of a long drawn out boring film, it’s a series of shorter drawn out films. But wait, there’s a theme to it all, kind of like The Little Morman…Err, Merman…What the He…MERMAID! Yea, that’s the one! Wow, my memory had to go into overdrive for that, I almost blew a hamster! Wait, that didn’t come out right. I meant the little hamster running on the wheel in my head. Whoever has the dirty mind can just go home! Yea, that means you Jocko! Listen, I know your mother! Don’t make me call her!

So, these videos are all about paranormal incidents that have been proven hoaxed. Some may seem silly, OK, they all seem silly but think of it in terms of a learning experience….Like in the first grade when that little girl with the pretty dress was called on to read and peed on the floor instead. Now that’s a lesson in humiliation, right? Huh? Right?

Now, since I’ve run out of stuff to waste your valuable time, I suppose we can watch the videos. They run backwards from 6 to 1. No Cletus, you don’t need your feet, just use your other hand…..What? A Combine accident in your Daddy’s cornfield? What the hell is a Combi….Nevermind! OK, so everyone but Cletus can count with both hands.

#6 – Dead Little Green Man

A UFO crash video titled “Dead Alien Found in UFO Hotspot in Russia” was posted to YouTube earlier this month. It shows two Russian men finding what appears to be a dead extraterrestrial alien near a tree stump in a snowy field in Irkutsk, Siberia.

Several elements in the video point to it being a hoax. First, the “little green man” looks a little too much like a Hollywood depiction of an alien. Furthermore, where’s the creature’s spacecraft? A spacecraft would be harder to fabricate than a dead alien body. Finally, the videographers can be heard laughing rather than seriously discussing a remarkable find. It was later revealed that two teenagers had made the body from old bread and chicken skin.

See in depth analysis here

#5 – Ghost In the Closet

This viral video, shot by Lisa Manning in her house in Coventry, England, allegedly shows a closet door opening of its own accord and a chair sliding Ouija-board style across the floor. The footage appeared on Independent Television News (ITN), with a voiceover asking, “Is this family being visited by a poltergeist? Very spooky!”

Spooky is one word that could be used to describe the video; hokey is another, depending on your perspective. For one thing, both of the objects that move are fairly lightweight and could easily have been pulled by someone off-camera with a fishing line. Also, the video does not depict any of several extraordinary claims the Mannings made to the media: The chair does not “fly across the room and crash into walls,” but merely scoots a few feet. The door does not “bang open and shut before being ripped off [its] hinges,” but instead opens slowly and gently.

What’s more, the video has clearly been edited, and does not show one continuous mysterious event but instead two or more scenes that may or may not have occurred together. Without seeing the original, unedited videotape, it’s impossible to know what the camera might have captured that was not presented.

The poltergeist video is very weak indeed — though if its purpose was to give the Manning family some publicity, it succeeded.

See in depth analysis here

#4 – Magnetism vs. Stickiness

Bogdan, a 7-year-old Serbian boy, made international news in March 2011 through his apparent ability to magnetically attract metal objects. He fooled an MSNBC reporter. He fooled the Daily Mail. But he could not fool us here at Life’s Little Mysteries.

YouTube is chock full of similar demonstrations of bodily magnetism. But unfortunately for paranormal enthusiasts, they’re all hoaxes. Bogdan, like the others, has to lean back slightly in order for objects to stick to him. If the force at play were magnetic, it would overcome the much weaker force of gravity.

Furthermore, glass plates and a plastic remote control, as well as metal objects, stick to Bogdan’s chest. Glass and plastic aren’t magnetic, but they are smooth. According to scientists, smooth objects stick to slightly greasy, flabby skin — much like Bogdan’s.

In depth analysis here

#3 – Hoax In the Holy Land

In February, videos surfaced online that supposedly showed a UFO hovering over an Islamic shrine known as the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 28. The videos sparked a furious debate about whether we finally have evidence of UFOs.

However, there are several indicators that the videos are fakes. First, they were posted anonymously — usually a red flag that something’s bogus, as there are very few legitimate reasons why a genuine witness would not want to be identified, especially given the chance to sell their story to a major media outlet.

Second, not only do we not know who took the footage, but no one other than the videographers reported having seen the lights, despite there being well over a million people in Jerusalem at any given time, and the Dome of the Rock being one of the most famous religious sites in the world.

Third, the bright UFO light in the video does not seem to reflect off the Dome of the Rock, suggesting it was digitally inserted into the video. The footage shows clear signs of having been edited by video processing software called Motion Tile, used to introduce camera shake into it. This suggests other edits were made also.

In depth analysis here

#2 – Alien Autopsy

In 1995, a grainy, black-and-white film surfaced that had supposedly been shot by the military shortly after the Roswell incident in 1947. It shows a post-mortem dissection of an alien body, and was touted as evidence of what some UFO buffs had claimed all along: that alien bodies had been recovered from the Roswell crash site by the U.S. government.

Soon after the alien autopsy footage was broadcast on Fox television, serious doubts were raised about its authenticity. Skeptics (and even many UFO researchers) branded the film a hoax, pointing out anachronisms and inconsistencies in the film. In 2006, the special effects artist who created the alien body shown in the video confessed that it was in fact an elaborate hoax.

More alien debunkings here

#1 – Blurry Bear Costume

A North Carolina man named Thomas Byers posted this video to Youtube in late March. While driving down a country road, he and a friend allegedly saw the elusive human-ape creature known as Bigfoot, which many people claim lives in our midst. Byers jumped out of his truck, got out his video camera and filmed the creature crossing the road. His footage made its way onto Fox News, MSNBC, the LA Times, and Huffington Post, among other places, despite the fact that it’s just about the blurriest, worst-made bogus video imaginable.

First of all, Bigfoot clearly looks like a man in a bear suit. Secondly, we viewers are left to wonder how long it took Byers to notice the creature, slow down, pull over to the side of the road, get out, walk in front of his truck, turn on his video camera, and start filming. Most Bigfoot reports claim that the animal moves quickly (if it moved slowly we’d expect to see more videos of it), but this one does not seem to be in much of a hurry, and almost looks like the mythical creature is waving as it wanders into the woods.

In depth analysis here

Note: All six video debunkings courtesy of Life’s Little Mysteries

So, what do you think? Did you like this new pop culture fast and furious style? If so, add your approval to your comment below. If not, well, all complaints should be addressed to Javier C/O Ghosttheory, PO Blue Box: seventy eleven, Bent Fork, TN.

Next week, real videos with real stuff from real people in real life. Then again, maybe not! You’re already getting too pampered….of course, that Depends. Man, they are expensive too, right?

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