Video of what appears to be an alien body recently found in Russia following reports of UFOs last month has set off a furor among UFO communities and in the blogosphere.
The Daily Mail reported that "In the frozen wastes of Siberia two walkers claim to have found the body of an alien. On its side with its mouth slightly agape, the slender, badly-damage body lies half-buried in snow close to Irkutsk, Russia. Video of the alien's corpse has become a massive worldwide hit with hundreds of thousands of followers after being posted on the internet. The corpse of the badly-damaged creature which resembles ET is two feet high. Part of the right leg is missing and there are deep holes for eyes and a mouth in a skull-like head."
One of the men who allegedly found the alien was quoted as saying, "We couldn't believe it when we saw it. And what was spooky is that there was no sign
of the spaceship. Perhaps that was taken away and the body overlooked."
Having previously investigated (and solved) many videos of unexplained phenomena including UFOs and aliens, I was asked by ABC News to provide an expert analysis of the new video. I highlighted several reasons why the video was suspicious, including the fact that the two men can be heard laughing at one point, and listed telltale signs that the video was staged. I also explained why the alien was unconvincing and described how it could have been fabricated, concluding that "there's probably a butcher shop somewhere missing some pieces."
There's also a plausible reason why no spacecraft is seen: it would have required much more effort to fake. It's one thing to create a two-foot alien body figure, but fashioning a plausible spaceship that carried the poor little alien from his extraterrestrial home to his snowy Siberian tomb would have been far more difficult.
My early analysis of a hoax proved correct. The Siberian alien was created by two Russian teens, Timur Hilall and Kirill Vlasov, who confessed to the hoax after police in Irkutsk, Siberia, investigated. The police also found the “alien” figure hidden in one of the teen’s bedrooms; it was made of several materials, including butcher shop scraps.
This is only the latest of several UFO and alien-related misidentifications and hoaxes over the past six months. In November of last year, a UFO or supposed "mystery missile" was sighted off the coast of Los Angeles. Rumors and myths circulated for weeks about the strange contrail in the sky; it was later determined to have been an ordinary airplane contrail, from United Parcel Service Flight 902.
In January of this year a series of videos showing what appeared to be a UFO
hovering over Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock caused a sensation among UFO buffs. Those videos were determined by both skeptics and analysts from the Mutual UFO Network to have been faked.
Then, earlier this month a 1950 FBI memo was claimed to be proof that aliens and saucers were recovered from a 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Once again, skeptical analysis showed that the "smoking gun" evidence was related to a hoax; the FBI memo was real, but it did not refer to Roswell but instead to a UFO hoax in Aztec, New Mexico.
Of course for many people no amount of evidence—whether presented by skeptics or believers—will change their minds about UFOs. For some, it's easier to believe that aliens are among us than it is to believe that they could be fooled.
Image: A still from the fake dead alien video (YouTube)
Interesting comments on both sides of the issue here. I did not take from this article that the existance of life be it intelligent or not was being denied.
Personaly I do believe life exist on other planets, however I think alot of UFO junkies out there will be gravely disappointed in what they find. Chances are that they will not be bug eyed little green dudes that slightly mirrors our image. More likely life will be in the form of bacteria or the like..
For those of you who take it science seriously you should know that as a scientist you have to be the biggest skeptic this is a safe guard agianst making false claims I.E. The world is flat or we are the center of the universe, or.. We have been visted by aliens...
Proof is in the puddin. You believe cuz you like the idea and want to believe not because legit actual with a doubt acknowledged evidence was presented to you, you believe because you grew up watching movies and star trek..
Wow we should exchange technology with these bucktoothed aliens - we can give them orthodontix and they can give us warp drive.
haha kinda the same as the movie "the thing"? lol silly russians! ;) lol
" For some, it's easier to believe that aliens are among us than it is to believe that they could be fooled."
It's not a matter of "being fooled", it's more about how naive or stubborn is it to believe that in the vastness of the ENTIRE universe, that we are the only intelligent life. And to further believe that of the intelligent life, there isn't possibly a race of being out there that could have the technology to visit here?
At one time or best and brightest believed that the world was flat, thaty too were proven wrong.
I'm not saying that this particular case wasn't a hoax, I'm just saying it's foolish to believe that we are alone in this universe.
oh we're not alone, probability says that somewhere there's bound to be life. However i find it highly unlikely that they would visit us. What motives would they have to be here, we would be like ants compared to them (technologically speaking) and any resources that the planet has would be waay easier (and in higher quantities) other places that wouldn't have locals to deal with. Also why would they send living things to other planets? They would likely send some sort of robot scout sort of thing (similer to the idea of the mars rovers). Then after finding that we have sentient life here would likely send some sort of transmission. Finally I highly doubt that they would send a ship with living things to a planet without getting some sort of "No we won't try to kill you on sight." kind of reply. Think about it Earth is a *very* militerized place and i don't care what kind of technology you have a nuke is going to be dangerous to you and your ship. And thats not even considering that it would take somewhere around 3 years to get to even the nearest star even going the speed of light (which by the way is impossible to go faster than).
Okay granted its missing parts from a butcher shop. But what kind of a head is that? And would it be from a butcher shop? Do I want to know?
I think you've really been short-sighted with this article. Yes, you've highlighted some very recent hoaxes. However, you've failed to even mention UFO sightings over airports in China, as well as Chicago and Mexico. China shut down their airport for hours over this. That is just ONE example of something that is likely not a hoax.
"Of course for many people no amount of evidence—whether presented by skeptics or believers—will change their minds about UFOs."
It's sad that such contrite journalism (Dare I use that word?) is on Discovery.com.
i know we're not the only living creatures in the universe i just wonder what the others will look like?? I don't believe they'll be some super thin skinned hughe eyed non speaking beings and they may not use speach. we function just fine with out em. the blind still read and the deaf speak with their hands so anything is possible..
Oh no! Paul!!!!!!
Why do we think, imagin or perceive that alien are funny looking creatures.
Why it can't be more beautiful, intelligent or so much advance that they
can create the things, precisely more advance that we even perceive or
even they knows that we are stil mot mature to understand, the complexity
of Nature.
¿En qué estás pensando...?
where the neck joins the body looks fake to me.
I just wish to express my utter disgust for these charlatans or hoaxters who manufacture phony
evidence like this for their own nefarious motives.These idiots only make archeologists waste
valuable energy and time discrediting these frauds
I hear in Russia, they ship you off to Siberia for a hoax like this.
Well, I for one, welcome our new hyper-intelligent midget alien overlords. I would like to remind them that I can be quite useful in gathering up others, such as RyoGTO and Pamelas, to toil in your underground sugar caves.
How long did it take for them to say that contrail was UPS Flight 902 again....2 weeks? I'm not saying it was an alien, but I don't think it was a regular ol' aereoplane
saw it while the weather man was doing the weather live and that was no airplane. REAL TALK.... I assume they don't want no panic to take place but I'm possitive anybody watching it that day knows it wasn't a airplane
There's plenty of YouTube videos showing the plane on different days. Not an alien spacecraft unless they like to frequently take trips from LA to Hawaii lol.