A few days ago, the media treated us to a flurry of headlines about a supposed UFO in Jerusalem, the most dramatic being the Daily Mail‘s “Are aliens here? Shining white ‘UFO’ spotted over Jerusalem shrine?”, the Daily Telegraph‘s “UFO hovers over Jerusalem shrine“; and Fox News’ “UFO Hovers Over Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock Shrine“. CBS at least added a question mark: “UFO over Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock?“. My personal favourite, though, is a cheeky one from Aquapour: “Jerusalem Dome Of The Rock UFO Videos Impress Pope“; only half-way through the story is it made clear that this is a reference to UFO investigator Nick Pope rather than to Benedict XVI.
The headlines failed to make clear that the only evidence for these claims were some videos on YouTube, and that the only named person who has come forward claiming to have seen the unearthly entity is the man who posted the original video: this was a certain “Mr Eligael Gidlovitch of Tel Aviv” (some reports name him as “Aligal Gidliovic”, “Eligael Gedalyovich”, or as “Eli Gael”); he has a YouTube channel here, and he was lucky enough to capture a second UFO a couple of days later (“This ufo was higher in the sky and moved above the old city for long time”, the blurb tells us).
The Jerusalem Post has poured cold water over the story:
…HOAXkiller1 is leading the pack of debunking videos, with some 350,000 views on Sunday evening for six separate pieces, showing the original photo available on Wikipedia Commons that was the backdrop for the rather primitive work done in an attempt to make it look like part of a video shoot.
Besides close-ups that showed the background image was actually a static image on a screen and pointing out the faults in the attempt to show flashes of light, an effect called “motion tile” was also used in eligael’s video to enable the deception of an authentic video camera shot.
Motion tile mirrors a bit of the edges of a static image “to hide the black edges created when they added fake camera shake to the video,” HOAXkiller 1 explains. “The camera movements are fake. That is why the mirror lines follow the movement of the camera.”
HOAXkiller1’s YouTube channel is here. Fox News is also having second thoughts, suggesting the videos may be a viral marketing ploy to tie-in with the film Battle: Los Angeles.
A site called All News Web (“The World’s Only Inter-Galactic Daily News Service”) claims to have broken the original story with this article, and the piece’s author, Michael Cohen, warns that there is a conspiracy afoot:
Was the third clip deliberately inserted into this event to discredit it and why is media presenting this clip as central to the story?
UFO enthusiasts claim that a government coverup of UFO activity has been going on for years. These goings on seem to confirm this to be the case.
…the UFO in Jerusalem was one of the four ‘stars’ seen around the world since December 2008 that herald Maitreya’s open emergence. He also confirms that the Rider on the White Horse was a blessing from Maitreya to show the immensity of what the Egyptian people are doing, and that he is with them in their struggle for justice and freedom…
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Hey I still had fun with this one and gained loads of free hits. But no one took me up on my offer of going nuts and suggesting the most bizarre conspiracy theory possible. Shame….
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