Confessions of a UFO Hoaxer

(June 17) -- A shaky camera turns on, out of focus in haste to capture something of terrible importance. The camera zooms in, and the image emerges in awful clarity: the space shuttle, destroyed and coasting in helpless orbit, the astronauts almost certainly dead. The impact debris coasts alongside the ruined shuttle in a funeral procession of atmospheric flotsam.

The most disturbing thing is that no story is explained. We see the destruction like a live news feed, without context, without explanation, and our imaginations paint the back story with our deepest fears: collision, terrorism, tragic accident.

With no commentary except the occasional audio interruption of the NASA controllers, the video feels like the pause in a historical retrospective, the quiet stillness between scripted voice-overs that lets the audience reflect on the tragedy. A moment of silence for the dead.

The man who created the videos is known online as The Faking Hoaxer (TFH for short), and he has a talent for creating footage that earns the rarest of compliments: It feels real.

In an age where special effects are getting cleaner and more elaborate, this one steals their thunder by slipping past our increasing skepticism with decidedly low-tech methods.

The camera mimics the rushed fumbling of amateur news footage: It zooms in, focuses, zooms out, focuses again. We see it as we've seen so much disaster footage: shaky, perspective changing, nervous and painfully immediate, before it's cleaned up and boiled down. It feels raw.

In one video, a badly damaged shuttle wing rotates slowly in orbit, partly blackened with scorch marks and punched through with jagged holes. The torn wing floats in contrast to the blue Earth in the background. Unlike the fertile oceans beneath, it's become as silent and lifeless as space itself.

In another video, crash footage of Air Force One is displayed on a live news feed, depicting the presidential airplane down in a waterway, sitting silently with massive blast holes in it. While the video pans across the plane, talking heads fill the background with informational noise that doesn't ever completely explain the situation.

The Faking Hoaxer says he imagines the scenarios and then works on them one by one, with very few tools: a Nikon D40 for the photos, a Canon HV30 for video elements, Autodesk 3D Studio Max for 3D modeling and Adobe Creative Suite 4 to put it all together.

Each video is created individually, but how long it takes depends on complexity. "It all depends how long or CGI intensive it is," TFH says. "I can create a simple UFO hoax in less than an hour, but other more cinematic videos can take a few days."

Themes typically revolve around flight: airplanes, UFOs, space shuttles and extraterrestrial exploration.


"I always try to make my videos look real and not CGI, but I am starting to go more cinematic and hopefully this will lead to a short film."

While he seems a perfect fit for Hollywood, TFH is currently unemployed, taking a career break to look for something new and more creative and rewarding. Although his specialty has been UFOs and disaster footage, he doesn't consider it his only talent.

"I have been doing FX for about two years now. I have always been a keen artist, and now I have moved into the 'video art' side," he told AOL News. "It's just part of what I do. It's kind of cool to see what hasn't been seen before in real life."

He's still sensitive of his work being promoted as real, even though the full video always bears his moniker and his "TFH" watermark clearly visible in the videos. In one he even made his full name visible on the wing of the space shuttle.

TFH says that it's partly branding, but also so that the hoax can be easily revealed if somebody tries to promote it as authentic footage. "People have stolen my videos, replaced the 'TFH' watermark and tried to pass them off as real."

Sometimes, people succeed.

Unlike a disaster, which can be easily debunked by simply turning on a television set, others are less restricted by real-time events. UFOs, "classified" films and similar videos can be passed around repeatedly.

While TFH can't control people copying it, he can at least appreciate the reactions. "Most of the UFO ones are my favorite because they create the most discussion on forums around the world," he said. "I saw my 'Midlands UFO' on the MSN website once, but nothing on TV yet."

His most viewed CGI work is the space shuttle destroyed video, but it's not really a hoax -- it was called out as a CGI project.

TFH knows that many of the people who view his work have strong emotional reactions to it, but he doesn't create the videos with that in mind.
"I generally receive good feedback, usually stating the quality of the CGI. I think most people like my work. Maybe the realness of my work and the subject matter is personal to some people.

"I try not to make them look like Hollywood CGI. I hope people respect my work for what it is and makes them think that not all video footage is real."

TFH is sanguine about his success so far. It's a hobby he enjoys and he's good at it, even if it provides manna for conspiracy theorists and more headaches for UFOlogists.

Commenters on his YouTube page are surprised that he hasn't been seriously approached by the production arm of a special effects company yet, but his ability to generate both quality video and new ideas makes it very likely, if not a foregone conclusion.

A disaster with a happy ending.

To see The Faking Hoaxer's videos, check out his YouTube channel.