Social Service Wrong (Again)

Much has been wondered about the very strange Evan Fairbanks video. Simon Shack aka "Social Service", who is the creator of the September Clues series of videos, has given us:

911 Amateur Part3New

911 AMATEUR part3NEW

I have long been quite curious about the reflection of the towers and the airplane seen in a windshield near the bottom of the picture. This reflection was covered up by logo graphics in several airings of the clip, and cropped out completely in others. Reflections in windshields are a little tricky to composite, because windshields are curved. The reflected image also has to be curved.

Lately, I have been unable to find a version of Fairbanks which shows the reflection. I seem to remember a version in which the plane path is straight, and I've commented about it on the Dynamice Duo radio program with Jim Fetzer. However, the version Shack now offers does have the reflection, and the path is curved.

In 911 Amateur, Shack is suggesting that the entire reflection was put in, and that the perpetrators screwed up in doing so. Says Shack:

"The frontal view of a windshield will NOT allow to observe objects behind a car"

That's wrong. Go try it yourself, as Shack suggests. If you're fairly close to the ground, you will absolutely see objects above and behind the car. The Fairbanks reflection in the car windshield is 100% real, except for the composited plane. The perpetrators would have never put a reflection in the windshield that didn't belong, how silly. The reflection of the towers was already there, so they had to put the plane in.

This is the best look I've had at the reflection. As I said, I'm unable to find this particular version in the archives. It does appear that they did a nice job of curving the reflection. Certainly do-able. I could do it. Hmmm.

I do remember seeing a version of Fairbanks where the plane path was not curved. Is my memory mistaken? Perhaps.
Hmmmm. I wonder where Simon got this ABC version.

So, here is a request to Simon Shack, or anyone: If you have a link to this ABC Connie Chung interview of Evan Fairbanks in which the Fairbanks footage is played naked, without a fig leaf graphic covering the reflection, please forward it to me.

In the meantime, I continue to wonder. The Fairbanks video is surely a fake, but not because there's a reflection in a windshield. If earlier versions have a STRAIGHT airplane, THAT would be a smoking gun. But the real dead giveaway in Fairbanks was spelled out by Fairbanks himself:

"It disappeared like a bad special effect"

-Evan Fairbanks