A Fake O'Hare UFO Photograph?

Time Will Tell - Is This An Actual Photograph Of The O'Hare UFO - Or Is It A Fake?
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I. Related Phenomena Hit Chicago, and Downstate Illinois Area!

Odd Light Flashes Over Chicago Prior to O'Hare UFO!
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• Unnatural Red, Green, and Blue Lightning flashes were observed over Chicago on October 2nd, 2006 one month before a disk shaped UFO was observed hovering over O'Hare airport!.

UFO Activity Didn't Stop Over Illinois On November 7th!
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• The eerie Red, Green, and Blue Lightning flashes seen over Chicago, Illinois on October 2nd, were once again observed three weeks later, this time to the south over Springfield, Illinois on the night of November 30th!

• Jerome, Illinois was visited by green, and red flashing clouds. Thunder over Jerome, Illinois accompanied the red, and green colored lightning..

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II. The Recently Unofficially Released O'Hare UFO May Be A Fake
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The photograph above may be the first look at the O'Hare UFO! I read about it first on Billy Booth's About Site (NYTIMES)!

Abovetopsecret.com rightly included a disclaimer which cast doubt on the photograph's authenticity. It just may be that some people are just getting bored waiting for any real images to be published of the O'Hare UFO, and have begun sharing some "artistic creations" of their own.

Below is an animated graphic file (also provided by AboveTopSecret.Com) which suggest to me that the UFO photo above was based upon a readily accessible image available on the Internet. In other words it is probably a fake. Notice that I did not suggest the O'Hare UFO incident was in any way fraudulent. I do however believe we need to be extremely careful about any images that pop up on the Internet. We live in the age of digital imagery, and digital editors.
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The Creation Of A Fake O'Hare UFO Photograph

The animated graphic below shows two source images, and several morph software created intermediate images. The two sources are allegedly authentic images of O'Hare International Airport. The first source image is allegedly of the O'Hare UFO (see upper right hand corner), and the second source image (which appears at the end of the morph series) is apparently portrays a multi-exposure of the landing of a commercial aircraft - with its landing lights on.

The similarity between the two source images is striking. Anyone with even some minor skills in photo editing could have used photo cloning tools to cover up the landing lights in the second source photograph, and then could have used brightness, and contrast controls to darken the image. With zoom, clone, and brush tools a small "UFO" could have been drawn into the upper right hand corner of the first source image.
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*Photo Confusion Discredits O'Hare UFO Sighting - Whether Valid Or Not
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III. Why The O'Hare UFO Photograph MAY Still Be Legitimate

An intelligence service may have covertly accessed the UAL pilot's images (very possible) and created the fake image without the UAL pilot's knowledge. Why? To create a sense of distrust, and uncertainty regarding the O'Hare UFO sighting. This process is called disinformation, and it's a common practice employed by intelligence agencies to create a sense of confusion about sensitive subjects - including UFOs. We'll need to await the actual publication of the O'Hare UFO photographs before we can make any decision about the photograph above. For now I'd label it suspect. Despite my skepticism, let's look at how easy it would be to discredit a real photograph, by making it look fake. See Below for links on Image Credits.
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Means: How To Discredit A Real O'Hare UFO Photograph

• Obtain Legitimate O'Hare UFO Photograph
• Erase UFO With Editing Software
• Add Fake Airliner Landing Lights
  
• Post The Fake Image with Earlier Dates on the Internet
  
• Discover the Fake Image
• Use Fake Image to Discredit the Real Image
• Create Sense of Confusion and Debate Over Entire Sighting
  

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Suspects: Who Have Motives To Discredit A Real O'Hare UFO Photograph

• CIA
• NSA
• Military Intelligence
• Certain Defense Contractors.
  

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Motive: Why Would A Real O'Hare UFO Photograph Be Discredited

• To Create Doubt About O'Hare UFO sighting
• To Cover Up Advanced Alien Technology
• To Cover Up Advanced Human Technology
• Money & Power

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Alternative Means - The Preemptive Strike

• Release A Fake O'Hare UFO Photo Now
• Discredit The Fake Photo
• Thereby Casting Doubt On Real Photos When Released.

Other Motivative - The Irrational

• The Sheer Fun of Creating A Fake UFO Photo (similar to thrill people get writing viruses). Creating a fake UFO photo, or discrediting a real UFO photo might have been done for no particular reason at all other than the thrill of doing it. Not all human behavior is rationally motivated.
  

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IV. We Need More Information to Make a Decision

It is still possible that the O'Hare UFO photograph is in fact the genuine article. We'll have to wait for additional information before being able to make such a judgement. We need to have the individuals who saw the O'Hare UFO to come forward, and confirm if this is what the UFO looked like. Most importantly we need those individuals who actually took photos of the O'Hare UFO to confirm whether the image in contention is one which they captured on November 7th, 2006 at O'Hare International Airport.
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Animated Photo Overlays Using Two Sources & Morphing Which Suggest Duplicity?
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V. An Appeal to UAL Employees Which Photographed O'Hare UFO
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This is a public appeal to those United Air Line employees which photographed the UFO (reports are that at least one pilot photographed the UFO). Please release the photographs which you took. Word has it that you are in negotiation to sell the photographs to a major news publication.

Despite your concern that you will have your career ruined with United Air Lines I implore you to do the right thing, and release the photographs which you took of the O'Hare UFO as soon as possible. United Air Lines, and the FAA have no legal right to encourage you to remain silent.
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VI. Reactions To This Post

I started noticing a significant increase in the number of visitors to my blog, and I soon watched as nearly five hundred people visited to read this post. Very exciting. Most were coming from two links (perhaps more) from the following sites:


The Anomalist.Com

Here's their lead in to this post...

A Fake O'Hare UFO Photograph? JeromeProphet

Less than 24 hours later...is the O'Hare photo doctored from a readily available image from the web?

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A Post At DailyGrail

Here's their lead in to this post...

• Submitted by Greg on Thu, 25/01/2007 - 11:23am. Alien Nation
• In the continuing saga that is the O'Hare Airport UFO sighting, more things worth noting. Firstly, as pointed out in today's news, a photo is being circulated around the Internet which is alleged to be a photo of the UFO. Take it all with a grain of salt until it is confirmed. On the flipside, Rob McConnell of 'The X-Zone' has written an indepth piece questioning the story, which he says has "more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese". It's a magical mystery tour at the moment...
• Update: The image appears to be a fake, based on this explanation.

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VII. THIS POST BECOMES PART OF AN ONLINE DISCUSSION.
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A Discussion about this blog post at HabitableZone.Com

By Lindy

"So let's pick a blogger (JeromeProphet) and shoot in his explanations, and ignore the expert David Biedney, who actually examined the cell phone photograph.

But, after careful examination of this Jerome Prophet on Google, there are no professional references to him, other than that very bad Marilyn Manson video he displays on his site. But, if you actually READ what he wrote, he has done a cursory first examination with the pros and cons.

He actually discusses WHY photographs following the initial one would be faked:

>"Obtain Legitimate O'Hare UFO Photograph, Erase UFO With Editing Software, Post The Fake Image with Earlier Dates on the Internet, Discover the Fake Image, Use Fake Image to Discredit the Real Image, Create Sense of Confusion and Debate Over Entire Sighting

Suspects: Who Have Motives To Discredit A Real O'Hare UFO Photograph
CIA
NSA
Military Intelligence
Certain Defense Contractors."

And he closes with a good argument neither pro or con for this phtograph.
So your title post Photo Debunked Here really holds very little water.
But I noticed your "student" was quick to breathe fire into it behind you.
Not surprised at that either".

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The above reply was to the following post Link

By TB

The blogger (JeromeProphet) at your link should have been clearer on the origin of the stock shot, and a bit better organized. The original photo is from http://www.ishilab.net/~ishihara/blog/media/1/, and is seen below:

I do not know if the photo originated with the owner of that site (it isn't in English) or somewhere else.

This is the UFO photo:

Making a picture like this pass a digital test is easy. You can crunch it through the pixel altering process enough to blur almost anything, including artifacts. Essentially, you convert the picture into a single, giant artifact. Of course, you can also print out your hoax picture, and with enough skill, simply photograph it with your cell phone.

On the other hand...

I did my own overlay, and noticed a couple of things:

The angles of the two photos are quite different, and a lot of tilting is necessary to match them. The UFO in the photo is actually off the margin of the stock picture, and someone would have had to create new background to match it. Not impossible, but no piece of cake, either. Nor, as the morph shows, do the lights in the distance match, and erasing those seems a bit weird. The exact match for the runway lights is not surprising. They never change. I noticed other things that would have to have been done to the photo to come up with the final that would also be difficult, like removing the planes. In addition, the lighting conditions of the sky are completely different, with one typical of a clear sky as dusk or dawn, and the other typical of overcast, with a range of brightness from top to bottom.

If one were going to do a hoax, why not start with a different obscure stock photo and simply lay the UFO in without having to alter all the rest of the picture?

I'm speaking as someone who makes a living, among other things, plugging artificial things into background shots and having to make it look like it was really there. If I ever decided to start farming out UFO photos, I'd be famous.

I'm cutting the UFO nuts some slack on this one, and stating that it is just as likely that this was two different pictures taken from a fixed observation point at the airport (my local international airport has only one small balcony where you can go outside to watch planes take off and land). This does not mean that the UFO picture is not a hoax, simply that it is probably not a processed version of that particular stock shot.

I didn't see the second photo on Lindy's link (below) at the Wikipedia site. Did I miss it, or has something been changed in Lindy's link?

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The above post was a response to an earlier post below Link

By Podrock

"Debunked Here (a link to this post) Link"
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JeromeProphet Note: It isn't my intent to debunk anything. I just feel it is a waste of time to try and debate the merits of the digit images that are floating around at this point. We need the United Air Lines Employees to step forward, and admit to what they saw.
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VIII. Image Source Links
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O'Hare UFO Image Obtained From: AboveTopSecret.Com
GIF Overlay Image Morph Obtained From AboveTopSecret.Com
**Airport Congestion Photo - May Be "Original" Internet Source For O'Hare UFO Image?

*My Is This The Fake (above) Slide Show Uses Edited Images From The Above Sources.

Special Note: The images included in this post are under great scrutiny within the UFO "believers", and "skeptics" community at this time. This is actually a very good sign.