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Confessed UFO and Paranormal Hoaxers

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Burnt State said:
The two recent standouts for me are the Trindade Island Photo and the Belgian Wave infamous Triangular Craft nightime photo which both Almiro Barauna and 'Patrick' confessed to their respective hoaxes. Barauna had faked a treasure trove earlier in his photographic career and the very famous UFO photo seen below was supposedly two spoons he had previously shot indoors against a neutral background. The UFO confession though is 3rd party reporting.
forgetomori » Trindade Island case photographer admits hoax
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'Patrick,' however actually produced other slides from the same series and even explained the numerous attempts to create this image using a small scale model with plastics. What's quite interesting about this image is that numerous experts verified this photo, though skeptics long contended that without any background image reference there was no way to determine scale. Their assumption that it could easily have been a model was proven correct. Chalk one up for those evil mongrels, or villains or whatever the skeptics get branded. I appreciate their diligence but wish some would not froth so much at the mouth, the way that conspiracists also can't help from getting all worked up most of the time.
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Finding out that both these iconic photos were faked was a series of landmark disappointments for me. I wonder sometimes if it's even possible to take a picture of a UFO.

What's a fascinating twist to it all is the great gift of skepticism: it's ability to reinvent reality. When I was looking for the original article that identified great details about how the Petit Rechain photo was faked in an interview with anonymous 'Patrick' I found this article instead, examining whether or not the confessed hoax was also a hoax.
Is the Petit Rechain UFO Photo Hoax a Hoax Itself? | Martin J. Clemens

Here's the original article I read documenting the case:CAELESTIA Triangles over Belgium (addendum)
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Excellent. My first ufo book I got on Xmas, 1979 had the Trinidade photos in it. Always thought they were legit. Ha.
 
Let's face it. We're fascinated by lights in the sky. I can watch planes flashing in the evening all night long while waiting for iridium satellites to flare overhead. I love those rare moments of space debris rolling across the atmosphere's edge in a ball of flame. It's no wonder people call stuff in, though these two appear to have set the media ablaze themselves.
 
Creepy_Green_Light said:
My personal favorite is the Morristown, NJ UFO hoax/experiment. Fooled Bill Birnes, amongst a lot others. Watch the other parts besides the one I'm posting if you haven't seen it. Quite fascinating...

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Hadn't seen this until now. Many thanks. I especially liked the below video in the sequence - at 6:30 begins the 'UFO Hunters' sequence with Byrnes - it really is a lesson in how we are easily fooled and allow our beliefs/hopes/wishes to cloud our 'seeing', even our judgement. It's also a cautionary tale on how misleading these ufo shows really are. Very thin soup, indeed.

How We Staged The Morristown UFO Hoax - Part 3B: More Reactions
TEXT: "Uploaded on Apr 14, 2010: Part 3B: Some more news coverage of the Morristown UFO, including a spot on UFO Hunters."
 
Glad you enjoyed. Loved how they said they couldn't be 3 independent points of light. That they were fixed on one object because they were moving perfectly together. I wonder how many other eyewitness claims (where the person is hell bent on what they saw) is completely wrong like in Morristown?
 
Tyger said:
Hadn't seen this until now. Many thanks. I especially liked the below video in the sequence - at 6:30 begins the 'UFO Hunters' sequence with Byrnes - it really is a lesson in how we are easily fooled and allow our beliefs/hopes/wishes to cloud our 'seeing', even our judgement. It's also a cautionary tale on how misleading these ufo shows really are. Very thin soup, indeed.

How We Staged The Morristown UFO Hoax - Part 3B: More Reactions
TEXT: "Uploaded on Apr 14, 2010: Part 3B: Some more news coverage of the Morristown UFO, including a spot on UFO Hunters."
Click to expand...
Lol. I like how he said one of them took off to the south very quickly. It's statements like those that makes me go back in my head and think, "jeez, what if 90% of every eyewitness account is erroneous?"
 
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I didn't know that the Phoenix Lights was revealed to be similar flares and balloons - and that one witness claims to have seen the flare trails through his binoculars. Had not heard that. What of Symington, then? :confused:

As the whole Morristown event unfolds you see those who are correctly identifying the event - and then the police letting the truth be known - but clearly are not being believed. That then gets touted as the 'authorities' trying to fool the public - when they were saying the full-on truth.
 
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Glad to see some activity on this discussion. I'm still collecting cases on this. The trick is that many of these are one-hit wonders, that may get a news story, followed by an explanation of the hoaxer getting caught or confessing. Hoaxing is an interesting topic to me and I've enjoyed learning more about the concept of "ostension," but these kind of hoaxers are unlikely to ever confess if they are faking to spread belief.
 
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