Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Anthony Lawson's Forgery

Anthony Lawson is trying to discredit the Over-Under Puffball observation.




Link to Lawson's "Puffballs Busted"


Lawson discarded half of the images in Fairbanks, and blended together pairs of images in Hezarkhani.




Link to my "Lawson the Forger"

Friday, November 7, 2008

The $100,000 Fred BS Video Compositing Challenge

Understanding the capabilities, the limitations, and the potential pitfalls of video compositing is a key to solving 9/11. One application is to the molten metal videotaped pouring out of WTC2 just before the whole building exploded into powder.

It is not currently possible to RELIABLY motion track a wobbly, tilting, panning camera shot, in REAL-TIME, so as to composite in a stream of molten metal and make it convincingly appear to flow out of a window, fall down, and occasionally splash onto the side of the building. This describes an ABC news video taken at around 10:27 AM on 9/11. The molten metal is very real, and is one of the huge mistakes made by the perpetrators. Molten metal was not supposed to pour out of the building, and we were certainly not supposed to see it.

An anonymous internet personality known as "Fred BS Registration" or simply "Fred" is the creator of a series of 9/11 videos called "9/11 Octopus". As a logo, Fred's videos sometimes feature the Hezarkhani airplane shot with the sky keyed out to reveal an octopus, so Fred obviously knows about video compositing. Recently Fred has offered his opinion about the feasibility of real-time motion tracking a flow of molten metal. Says Fred:

I do know for sure that Ace tells malicious lies, because he's lied about me on numerous occasions. Ace's claims about being a "video expert" are demonstrably false. His assertion that a molten metal video has to be real because of the impossibility of compositing onto a hand-held camera shot reveal him to be either clueless, or deliberately untruthful.

-Fred BS Registration


source

I hereby challenge Fred to back up his statements. If Fred will come forward, and, using the software of his choice, demonstrate a real-time motion track comparable to what would have been required to convincingly fake the ABC 9/11 molten metal video, I will pay him $100,000.

If Fred is interested, we can negotiate the details. I suggest making a stream of water appear to cascade off a roof, fall down, and occasionally splash against the side of the building. This would need to be created by compositing together a water stream, and a titling, panning, hand held shot of a building. Fred would need to show that no motion track data were entered into the software prior to the real-time demonstration.

I warrant that I have a line of credit in excess of $100,000.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Simon Shack Pushing Video Fakery Falsehoods

Simon Shack, aka Social Service, is the creator of September Clues. In September Clues, he promotes the false idea that the 9/11 videos were created with some sort of 3D animation. As evidence, he points out the Verrazano Narrows bridge, which claims is too large and which appears to move in some videos.

He's recently posted some data points he says point to 3D animation, rather than real video with airplane images composited in.

Simon Says:


(1) : "Are the 9/11 live broadcasts otherwise normal footage with animation planes added on top"

or

(2) : "Are the 9/11 live broadcasts for the most part composed with digital renderings of the landscape"


My reasoning for ruling out hypothesis (1) is :

- no satisfactory explanation for the various 'pastel' color schemes. Top range broadcast cameras have ISO standard automatic white balance settings for daylight conditions.
- no satisfactory explanation for the plastic, cartoon-like texture of the landscapes conspicuously evident even in the highest archive resolution footage available.
- no satisfactory explanation for the 'mask linings' seen around buildings in a wide range of shots. No explanation for observed black/transparent ghost contours.
- at least 4 newschoppers were allegedly in the air, yet all seem to be hovering roughly in the same area (views almost always from Northern vantage points). The few shots we have (ABC) of a chopper sweepingly circling and filming from South never catches any of the other choppers supposedly hovering in the airspace North of the towers.
- virtually all choppers seen in the 9/11 broadcasts simply zap by at sustained speed from one side of the screen to the other. No newschoppers, to be sure...
- some of the alleged NBC chopper shots have the towers swaying alarmingly, causing TV anchors to wonder aloud if the towers are leaning... That pendulum movement is precisely what gyroscopic cameras are designed to impede.
-some of the alleged ABC chopper shots show the chopper landing gear rotating in front of camera lens while the NY scenery remains perfectly static.
- perspective problems with foregrounds/backgrounds (and disappearing backdrops) not reasonably explainable by cinematic dollyzoom special effects. Newschoppers are supposed to and will film aerial sceneries in normal fashion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom

There's much more one could add to this list of observations, but let's try an Occam's razor-style argumentation to rationalize the entire issue :

WHAT ODDS FOR 4 MAJOR (rival) TV NETWORKS TO FEATURE AERIAL/ROOFTOP VIEWS, ALL STRIKINGLY SIMILAR BUT FOR THEIR (bizarre) COLOR SCHEMES ?


Color Schemes

Indeed the color balance from some 9/11 videos is wrong. Some have too much blue, some have too much red and green. By looking at the archive videos, we don't know when these color adjustments were done. Perhaps they were done live, and were broadcast that way. Perhaps the archive footage was tweaked. Either way, the strange color balances are evidence for someone tweaking the color balances, nothing more. 3D animations are not prone to strange color.

Color matching is a common problem in video compositing. Natural lighting will have a particular shade to it, and real objects of any color will naturally reflect that tone. Composited objects often must be color-adjusted to blend into a shot and look legitimate. Perhaps the 9/11 videos were intentionally adjusted so as to help hide color matching problems with the overlaid airplanes. But I doubt it.

More likely, the colors were tweaked after the fact, as the videos were being prepared for the archives, just to serve as a distraction.

Cartoon-like Textures

The textures and details do not look cartoon-like on any 9/11 videos. Video compression will cause adjacent areas of video which are nearly the same color, to become exactly the same color. Perhaps this is what Shack is looking at. I have seen nothing at all in any 9/11 video that doesn't look like video. 

Mask Linings

The "double vision" effect Shack refers to as a "Mask Lining" is probably a ghosting effect. Ghosting is a well-known old artifact of broadcast TV, where an imperfect signal causes an offset doubled image. 

Used correctly, a luma key mask will not create a doubling effect such pointed out by Shack. Even if this doubling effect is somehow caused by pulling a less-than-perfect key, this is evidence for composting, not for total animation. 

Choppers Are Positioned

All of the news helicopters were positioned such that none of them could see the south face of WTC2. This is because making a real-time composite of an airplane going through the wall of a tower is impossible. They carefully planned to position the cameras in such a way as to make live compositing possible, as I have explained

Other Choppers

Yes, what are all those other Choppers? That's a great question. I suspect they were perpetrators, keeping a close eye on developments, and reporting the status of the floor melting and such going on in the towers. 

Swaying Towers

Here Shack just flat makes something up. No 9/11 news video shows "swaying" towers. The NBC shot has the camera at an angle, so that the towers appear crooked. It's quite suspicious that they would leave the camera "Dutch" like that for so long, but it doesn't mean the video is animated, it means the camera was tilted. 

Helicopter Skids Rotate, but Camera Remains Still

Yep. Gyroscopic camera mounts are pretty cool. A rotating wheel has a very interesting property of exerting tremendous force in all directions, within one plane. Moving the spinning wheel within that plane is easy, no more difficult than would be if the wheel was not spinning. But attempting to turn the wheel into a different plane is met with great resistance. This is the principle of a gyroscope. 

TV news cameras are mounted to the underside of the helicopter. It's like a ball, free to spin independently of the helicopter movement. The ball then has an array of spinning gyroscopes, which keep it very still, no matter what the helicopter does. 

Ordinarily, the camera points in such a way that you do not see the helicopter skids, but the camera can rotate 360 degrees around. That's what happened. The helicopter was turning, while the camera was holding still. 

Perspective Problems / Disappearing Backgrounds

Stop it. There are no perspective problems or disappearing backgrounds. The Verrazano Narrow bridge appears large behind the towers in those shots because the helicopters are about 5 miles away from the towers, and the camera is zoomed in . This is exactly what zoom lenses do. 

Alfred Hitchcock made the effect so popular, it's called the "Vertigo Effect". By moving the camera back, while zooming in, the subject can be kept at the same apparent size. But the background will appear to grow larger. 

The "moving bridge" effect occurs when you pan one way, while moving the other way. The subject will stay in the center of the shot, while the background appears to drift. 

The "missing background" is sky. Shack compared one view of the towers looking down, and sees the New Jersey coastline. Another view is from much lower, and is looking upwards, so the background is sky.

Conclusion

I've been over and over this material for more than one year with Shack, Fred BS Registration, and others. In my opinion, they are doing for two reasons:

1. They are giving critics ammunition to make no-planers look stupid. 
2. They are trying to destroy the credibility of the 9/11 tower videos, which in fact show them being disintegrated by nuclear weapons. 








John Hutchison Spews Lies and Threatens Murder

John Kenneth Huchison, of New Westminster, British Columbia, has compounded his scientific fraud by issuing death threats against me. Though his childish writing style (all caps, no punctuation) often leaves room for interpretation, there is no doubt in this instance. 

Hutchison is now claiming to have "SIGNED SEVERAL CONTRACTS" with regard to my $100,000 Hutchison Effect Challenge. This is simply false. I have offered a written contract to Hutchison via email, yet nothing has been signed. No demonstration date was ever agreed to, nor have I ever agreed to pay Hutchison $5000 for a failed attempt, as he demands. If Hutchison ever fails to levitate a steel wrench in my presence, I intend to pay him zero.

Hutchison has now produced a new video showing a classic H-Effect wrench flying upwards off of a table. 




This evidently quells the Peter von Puttkamer ploy. Puttkamer, who allegedly handles distribution of Hutchison's videos, had recently claimed that Hutchison's effect was not working "as strongly" as it once had. In any event, Hutchison now says I "NEVER SHOWED UP" and implies he successfully levitated a wrench, and that I "DID NOT PAY" him.  

Correctly understanding that I have no intention to pay him, unless and until he demonstrates levitation in my presence, Hutchison goes for the scare tactic.  He first warns about  "IDIOT AEIRRIEL LOUISE SERBAN MASTER CYBER STALKER FOUND DEAD IN BURNSVILLE". 

Then Hutchison comes right out and threatens murder:

"ACE YOU WILL BE AVAILABLE WITH MY TRADITION OF 17 CENTURY DUELS"

and 

"LEGAL WORK WILL BE DONE TO ALLOW US TO DUEL BUT WE WILL HAVE OUR DUEL"

Earlier this year, when I first outed John Hutchison as a provable scientific fraud, he similarly threatened me with "FISTS AND WEAPONS".

For the record, I am threatened by John Hutchison. I believe Hutchison is threatening me with murder, or attempted murder, for the purpose of scaring me into calling off my challenge. It won't work. What Hutchison may not know is that I am physically incapable of experiencing fear, owing to some bizarre nerve damage. 


The $100,000 Hutchison Effect Challenge

This agreement is between Alexander “Ace” Baker (hereafter “Baker”) and John Hutchison (hereafter “Hutchison”), (collectively “the parties”). The purpose of the agreement is to settle a scientific dispute between Baker and Hutchison. Toward that end, Baker and Hutchison agree to arrange and document a demonstration of the so-called Hutchison Effect (hereafter “H-Effect”).

Background

Hutchison claims to have discovered a previously unknown energy effect capable of, among other things, levitating solid objects. Hutchison claims to have a laboratory of equipment in his Vancouver-area home capable of producing the H-Effect under his control. Hutchison has produced various videos purporting to depict various manifestations of the H-Effect, including one in which a steel wrench suddenly moves upwards, off of a table, into the air, flying out of the picture.

Baker claims that Hutchison is a fraud. Baker claims that Hutchison’s videos depict ordinary events, cleverly photographed in such a way as to make them appear unusual. According to Baker, the “levitating” steel wrench is an effect achieved with an upside-down camera. The wrench is held in place on an upside-down table, via an unseen magnet, then released and allowed to fall down, thus appearing to fall upwards, claims Baker.

Hutchison denies all accusations of fraud, states that his videos are legitimate, and that the H-Effect has been witnessed by many, including military personnel.

Challenge

Hutchison agrees to demonstrate a levitating steel wrench in the presence of Baker. Baker will, at his own expense, travel to Hutchison’s home/laboratory, arriving at a mutually agreed upon day and time.

Time: _____________ AM/PM

Date: ______________________ 2008

Hutchison agrees to be home at this time, and prepared for the demonstration.

The demonstration is said to begin the moment Baker arrives, and will last not more than 1 hour. Hutchison agrees to allow Baker to make audio/video recordings at all times during the demonstration. Hutchison agrees to allow Baker to observe and record audio/video wherever Baker wants, including under things, behind things, etc.

Hutchison agrees to then place a steel wrench on a table.

Hutchison agrees to allow Baker to verify to his own satisfaction that it is an ordinary steel wrench, allowing Baker to lift it, and examine it.

Hutchison agrees to then allow Baker to stand next to Hutchison during the time in which Hutchison operates any necessary controls.

Hutchison will then cause the wrench to move upwards off of the table, into the air at least 12 inches above the table. This levitation is to occur without anyone touching the wrench, and without any other normal means of lifting a solid object, e.g. by means of an attached string or wire.

After the completion of at least one levitating steel wrench, Hutchison will confirm that Baker was able to make a recording of the spectacular event. Hutchison will ask Baker, “Did you get that?” or words to that effect.

Baker agrees to, at that time, and under those circumstances, stop his recording, access the audio/video file, play it, and make sure that he “got it”. Baker agrees to then say to Hutchison, “Yes, I got it!” or words to that effect.

The demonstration is over when Baker says, “Yes, I got it!”, or one hour has elapsed since Baker’s arrival, whichever comes first.

Judgment

It is anticipated by both parties that the results of the demonstration will be self-evident, and obvious, one way or the other. Either Hutchison can levitate a steel wrench, making it fly upwards off the table, or else he cannot. It is anticipated that, after the demonstration, both parties will be in agreement as to whether or not the demonstration was successful.

However, in the event of a disagreement, e.g. if Hutchison claims the demonstration was successful, while Baker claims it was not successful, then both parties agree to be bound by the decision of a British Columbia Provincial Court proceeding. That is, if Hutchison believes he was wrongly denied his $100,000 prize after a successful demonstration under these terms, he can sue Baker in British Columbia. Nothing in this agreement precludes such a lawsuit.

In the event of litigation arising from a disputed result, both parties agree that the losing party shall pay all court costs, attorney’s fees, and reasonable expenses incurred, in an amount to be determined by the court.

Upon request by Hutchison, Baker agrees to make available to Hutchison a high-quality digital copy of all audio/video recordings made by Baker at the demonstration. Baker and Hutchison agree to stipulate that said recording will be admissible evidence in any litigation that may arise from this demonstration.


Payment

Within 30 days after a successful demonstration, Baker will pay Hutchison $100,000.00 (U.S.) Baker warrants that he has a line of credit in excess of $100,000. In the event of a successful demonstration, Hutchison agrees to make available to Baker his bank account deposit information, for purposes of conducting a standard bank transfer of funds.

If the demonstration is not successful, Hutchison gets precisely nothing.


Further Considerations

Furthermore, if Hutchison is unsuccessful at levitating a steel wrench, Hutchison will give to Baker a digital video copy of the so-called “Boat Experiment”. This digital video shall be dimensions 720 x 480 in size, 29.97 frames per second, and will not contain any duplicated frames. It is to be delivered to Baker no more than 7 days after the demonstration.



Witnesses

Hutchison agrees that Baker will bring one witness of Baker’s choice. The witness will be allowed to observe the demonstration along with Hutchison and Baker.

Baker agrees that Hutchison will be allowed to invite as many witnesses as Hutchison would like, and that the size of his home/laboratory will accommodate.

Ownership of audio/video

Hutchison agrees that, whatever the outcome of the demonstration, Baker will, in perpetuity, own all intellectual property in the audio/video recording made by Baker. Other witnesses who choose to make recordings of their own, will each own their respective recordings.

Baker agrees to publish and make available for download his complete and unedited recording of the demonstration.

Hutchison agrees to never interfere with the publication and dissemination of the demonstration recordings.





Alexander “Ace” Baker ________________________________ date _______________




John Hutchison ______________________________________ date________________