Hoax Museum Blog: Photos

The Olympics So Far — 1) The school child who walked at the front of the Chinese team during the opening ceremonies (he was a survivor of the Sichuan earthquake) was carrying an upside-down Chinese flag. Why is debatable. Maybe it was an innocent mistake, or maybe it was a coded message of "great distress" (as upside-down flags mean in nautical convention). Whatever the reason, the Chinese media cropped the upside-down flag out of the photos they showed Chinese audiences.

2) The opening ceremonies included a massive fireworks display. But what was shown to television audiences was a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot of fireworks. This was done because of "potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter." I've seen plenty of televised fireworks displays, but I've never heard that excuse before.

[Update: According to stuff.co.nz, the fake fireworks occurred during the sequence when firework "footprints" were going off in a series over the city of Beijing, tracked from a helicopter and leading right up to the stadium. When I watched the ceremony, I remember the NBC commentators noting that the sequence was a computer generated graphic. This is more understandable to me. When I read the yahoo sports article, I got the impression that it was the fireworks directly over the stadium that had been faked.]

3) The ceremonies concluded with a dramatic torch-lighting stunt. As this was happening, a projection of the Microsoft "blue screen of death" mysteriously appeared on the roof of the stadium. Some programmer's mistake, apparently. This really happened.

And a fourth item to note (Thanks, Nick): the little girl who sang "Ode to the Motherland" was lip-synching. The AP reports:

Killer Whale vs. Penguin — Killer whales do eat penguins, but I'd say this has been photoshopped. For a start, if you look closely it appears that the killer whale already has something in its mouth.

I have no information about who created the photo or where the original images came from.

Brangelina Twins Photoshopped? — People magazine reportedly paid $14 million for the rights to publish the first pictures of the twin babies of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But what the blogosphere is buzzing about is the suspicion that the cover photo of the twins was photoshopped. New York magazine seems to be the originator of this theory:


The picture could very well be photoshopped. Most magazine covers are nowadays. But to me it simply looks like the baby happened to have its mouth open.

The Fishing Lures of Faith — Not to be outdone by Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists have come out with their own anti-evolution treatises. Among the most prominent of these is the Atlas of Creation by Harun Yahya. It's a long work (and more is on the way) consisting primarily of page after page of examples showing that modern-day species can be found in the fossil record. This is supposed to demonstrate that evolution hasn't occurred.

Volume 1 contains the example of the Caddis Fly. The illustration in the book shows the modern-day fly in the foreground. Circled in red in the background is the fossil analogue, preserved in amber. (No, they don't look similar to me either).



But look again at the modern fly. Skeptics noticed it had a steel hook coming out the bottom of it. In fact, it's not a Caddis fly at all. It's a fishing lure created by Graham Owen. Harun Yahya lifted the image (right) from Owen's site, apparently not realizing it wasn't a living creature, and pasted it into his book. Other fishing lures by Owen are scattered throughout the Atlas of Creation.

You can download the entire text of the Atlas of Creation, free of charge, from Yahya's site. So I did, but I couldn't find the Caddis fly in there. (It's supposed to be in Vol 1, p 244). I'm assuming Yahya must have removed it. However, I did notice that in Part 2 of the pdf (page 282 of the text) the Mayfly has a steel hook coming out of its belly. (Thanks, Jona!)

Spiderman Tattoo — Photos of a Spiderman tattoo, showing an illusion of skin tearing away to reveal a Spiderman costume beneath, have been circulating around, prompting people to wonder if the images are real or photoshopped.

They are real. The tattoo is the work of Milwaukee-based artist Dan Hazelton. Check out his site for other examples of his work.

He very briefly discusses the Spiderman tattoo on his myspace page in response to a question from someone who asks, "can i get a tear out like the Spiderman one??" Hazelton responds:

Sewer Horse 2 — I came across another picture of a horse in a sewer. I guess when it rains sewer horses, it pours. The previous sewer horse was pretty implausible. After all, you had a horse sticking its head out of a sewer, and no one was even looking at it.

This sewer horse is more believable. I could imagine a horse wandering around in an open field, which happens to back into an open hole. And at least the firemen are looking at this horse.

However, the shadows seem wrong. The angle of light hitting the firemen looks slightly different than the angle of light hitting the horse. And based on the length of the mens' shadows, shouldn't the horse's shadow be longer? But I'm not good enough at interpreting shadow angles to call this one a definite fake.

Holotext Messaging — One day I'm sure it'll be possible to receive holographic messages on your iPhone. But not yet. Which means that this video showing (what appears to be) an iPhone displaying Holotext messages is a fake.



I kept expecting Princess Leia to pop up and say, "Help me, Obi-Wan. You're my only hope."

NOVA Quiz — NOVA interviewed Hany Farid, the world's leading digital forensics expert. If you want to know if an image is real or fake, he's the guy to ask. To accompany the interview, they posted a nine image real-or-fake challenge. Each image shows NOVA host Neil deGrasse Tyson posing with a different celebrity. You have to figure out which images are fake, and which are real. Farid then gives the answer in an audio clip and explains what clues you should have looked for.

It's a good quiz. I got one wrong. But on a few of them I guessed and got lucky.

Tribal Laptop — I saw this image posted on Gizmodo (who got it from pixdaus). They claim to know nothing about it, except that it shows the Dani people of Papua, New Guinea.



Is it real, or has the Sony Vaio been photoshopped in? My hunch is that it's real. I'd guess that the laptop belongs to a photographer or researcher who handed the laptop to the guy with the big headdress in order to show him a picture. But that's just a guess.

I debated whether the image could be considered "not safe for work." But then I figured, No, it's too "National Geographic" to be considered sexual. (Though if this were the exact same scene with Caucasian women, I'm sure it would be considered NSFW... strange how that works.)

Only one question: What's with the disembodied hand reaching out from behind the headdress?

Ben Affleck’s Big Head — This photo of Ben Affleck is doing the rounds on celebrity gossip blogs. People are wondering if it's real or photoshopped.



It is an odd picture, but I'm almost certain it's real. Affleck just happens to be posed at a strange angle, and the small size of the kids around him make his head appear unnaturally large.

The picture comes from an event Affleck attended in Calgary on June 14 to support the oneXone charity. Wireimage.com has a gallery of photos of Affleck at this event. There are plenty of shots of him posing with these kids (including the shot above).

Sewer Horse — The latest internet meme is Sewer Horse: "Sewer Horse is Watching You"



I have no explanation for the image. Is it real or fake? I haven't got a clue. It seems a bit unlikely that a horse would end up in a sewer, but then he could be in a large underground tunnel that has an opening he's looking out of. Sewer Horse is so popular that he even has his own website.

Is the Wii Fit girl video a covert marketing campaign? — Just as popular recently as the Office Freakout video (posted about below), has been a video titled "Wii Fit - Why You Should Buy It For Your Girlfriend." It's one minute of a girl in her underwear working out with the Nintendo Wii Fit as her boyfriend ogles her.

There's been a lot of speculation that the video is a (not-so) covert marketing campaign by Nintendo. People grew even more suspicious after it was discovered that the woman in the video, 25-year-old Lauren Bernat, and her boyfriend, 30-year-old Giovanny Gutierrez, both work in advertising. Even better, they both specialize in internet advertising. But Nintendo insists it had nothing to do with the video. The Telegraph reports:


Nintendo may not have created it, but I'm sure their pr people have been busy trying to spread the word about it, once they realized the interest it was attracting. Of course, it could also be a "sub-viral" campaign (defined as a viral campaign a company creates, but then denies having any hand in.)

Office Freakout Video Turns Out to be Fake — For the past few weeks a video (apparently Russian) of some guy freaking out at his office has been doing the rounds. Tobester posted about it in the forum, speculating that it was real. But no, it isn't. Wired reports that it was covert marketing for the upcoming movie Wanted, starring Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie:

Hand with no thumb — I found this picture on Puld.net, who writes: "The sources said this is not photoshopped or edited and this person really have no THUMB at all! I wonder how he “Thumbs Up” his friends?"



Update: Posted to the Hoax Photo Database.

Cell Phones Cook Popcorn — A youtube video purports to show popcorn popping when placed in between cell phones all ringing at once.



Clearly fake. It's a new spin on the old joke about cooking an egg with two cell phones. The only question is how they got the popcorn to pop. My guess is there must be a heating element beneath the table.

High-Pressure Hijinks —

What are the odds this scene is real? Not very good, I'd say. The photo is from 1923. I found it in a book by Mark Sloan titled Hoaxes, Humbugs, and Spectacles. Despite that title, most of the photos in the book are not fake. The majority show circus performers and publicity stunts. Sloan titled this photo "High-Pressure Hijinks." He provides a short caption:


Pressure from a fire hose would be enough to lift a man straight up. Check out this youtube video of a car being lifted by water pressure. But I doubt a man would be strong enough to keep the hose pointed downward. The tendency would be for the hose to kick him straight back. I'm guessing the photo is a composite -- the soldier having been cut-and-pasted onto the background shot.

Terrifying Vision of a Devastated America — Eric writes: "Alex, please look into this one" -- Al-Qaeda's terrifying vision of a devastated America in the wake of a nuclear attack.

According to the Daily Mail article, a computer-generated image of what Washington DC would look like after a nuclear attack was recently posted on an Islamic extremist website. Simultaneously, there have been rumors circulating suggesting that "the FBI was warning that an Al Qaeda video was about to be released urging militants to use weapons of mass destruction to attack the West."



Turns out that the FBI hasn't issued such a warning. Nor is the picture of Washington in ruins an Al-Qaeda creation. It's actually a piece of concept art that was used to promote the game Fallout 3, from Bethesda Softworks. Shacknews.com reports:


What occurs to me, when I look at the picture, is how unlikely it is that the Capitol Building would survive a nuclear attack. Growing up in DC, I always heard that the one building in the city most likely to survive a nuclear bomb would be the National Cathedral since its walls are massively thick.

Grand Teton and Wildflowers — The image to the right is available for purchase on webshots.com. The photographer is listed as Adam Jones. It's titled "Grand Teton and Wildflowers, Wyoming."

The image has become quite popular and has slowly been circulating around the internet. One person on the webshots message board writes:


But the image has met with skepticism from professional photographers. Ralph Nordstrom of ralphnordstromphotography.com writes in his blog:


It's a bit sad to think of that guy in smoggy Beijing staring longingly every day at a fake photo. (via How could I be so dumb)

Altered Yearbook Photos — When students at McKinney High School recently received copies of their yearbook, they noticed that many of their photos had been altered. From dallasnews.com:


I'm pretty sure the school's photo guidelines didn't specify digitally disrobing students. Sounds more like there's a rogue employee at Lifetouch Studios. (via J-Walk)

Malaysian Sea Monster — In an email with the subject "Giant Fish - Caught in Malaysia? Apparently...," Joshua Penley asks: "What the HELL is this?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!"



This sounds like a question for Big Gary, the museum's Deputy Curator in Charge of Fish. I would simply note that the guys in the photos don't look particularly Malaysian, making it a case of "real picture, fake caption."

The bottom picture reminds me of a picture of a (fake looking) sea monster, taken in 1906 on the beach at Ballard, Washington and now part of the Library of Congress's collection: