New Sandra and Woo comic: MH370 until proven otherwise
└ posted on Sunday, 13 August 2023, by Novil
For those who haven’t noticed yet: I have published a new Sandra and Woo comic about UFOs. Here’s the whole article below the comic:
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I tried my best to create a new comic without an artist, re-using art from older comics.
UFO footage feat. a Boeing 777, presumably from a General Atomics MQ-1C Grey Eagle drone (Video on Archive.org):
UFO footage feat. a Boeing 777, presumably from a NROL-22 spy satellite (Video on Archive.org):
20 reasons why these videos are remarkable, despite the outrageous content:
- The coordinates in the satellite video are close to the point where MH370 was last seen on 8 March 2014.
- The airplane is clearly a Boeing 777. No other airplane of that type has been reported as missing. The video was posted ca. two months after the disappearance of MH370. So there’s a very high probability that the footage is supposed to show MH370.
- After MH370 diverted from its original flight path, it’s more than reasonable to assume that the US military observed it with its spy satellites, drones and fighter jets in the vicinity.
- Above all, both videos show a remarkable amount of realism and attention to detail:
- Flight path
- Contrail
- Camera movement
- Mouse movement
- Spherical movements of the UFOs
- The two videos are in sync.
- The drone video has a higher framerate than the satellite video, as expected.
- The drone video shows details like the hot pitot tube of the drone.
- The satellite video comes in stereoscopic 3D.
- The clouds in the satellite video move in a realistic manner.
- The clouds in the satellite video are realistically illuminated after the explosion.
- The coordinates in the satellite video are updated quickly during mouse drags.
- Creating these videos with this remarkable attention to detail with hardware and software available in 2014 within two months would have required considerable expertise, time and dedication.
- An animator with several years of experience attempted a recreation of the drone video and noted that it would be “nearly impossible” to recreate such a realistic version.
- Creating these videos based on pre-existing footage of an airplane may have been easier. But no such footage has been found so far. The two versions of the satellite video also make this considerably harder.
- It’s possible that the videos were created by an US agency such as the CIA, who would have had easy access to classified footage and expert animators. But what would have been the purpose of such a psy-op? The videos were posted on a minor YouTube channel in 2014 and then quickly forgotten.
- It’s possible that the satellite video was actually leaked much earlier, only four days after the disappearance of MH370, as indicated by the comment of the video uploader RegicideAnon: “Received: 12 March 2014”. This would make the creation of the video an extremely challenging task.
- [Update: 13 August 2023] A third video that contains scenes from both videos was uploaded to Vimeo on August 2014 by a different user and is still available there. Interestingly, the satellite footage occupies a bit more screen space in it. We therefore know that the YouTube video was cropped for some reason and isn’t the original video either. This also means that the dates on Archive.org are correct.
- [Update: 13 August 2023] A disinformation campaign seems to be in full swing on Reddit’s UFO boards and 4chan’s /x/ board. A high number of posts try to discredit the remarkable footage with easily disprovable arguments. While trolls can never be ruled out, these could also be state actors from an US agency.
- [Update: 21 August 2023] The disinformation campaign on Reddit has reached unprecedented levels. While I was skeptical before, I now believe that the footage, except maybe for the portal effect at the end, is real!
- [Update: 18 August 2023] A Reddit user claims that the calculation of MH370’s location based on satellite data was flawed. However, these new calculations haven’t been confirmed yet.
- [Update: 20 August 2023] The drone shakes a little as it enters the airplane’s air turbulence. Another detail that the creator would have needed to think of doing.
12 reasons why we currently can’t rule out a fake either:
- The videos have no provenance!
- If an experienced animator had access to such classified footage, adding the fantastical elements (UFOs, portal, disappeared airplane) within two months seems to be well in the realm of possibility.
- Some experts remarked that the airplane’s thermal coloration in the drone video doesn’t look as expected.
- Refutation: Examples from other airplanes show that the thermal coloration isn’t out of the ordinary.
- Other experts pointed out potential issues with other minor elements of the drone video. However, nobody has so far been able to point out a major mistake.
- Debris of MH370 was found.
- Refutation: The validity of the debris has been disputed by some experts. The debris could also have been planted as a cover-up. The airplane could also have been returned after some time and then crashed for real.
- The portal in the drone video looks fake, like a bad CGI effect. If a (near-)perfect match could be found in some (old) CGI library, it would immediately discredit the footage as fake.
- Refutation: We have no example how such an effect may look like.
- The original leaker, irrespective if it was RegicideAnon or someone else, did the bare minimum to present this unprecedented footage to the world. This certainly seems odd.
- We don’t know how such classified military data may actually look like. A member of the US air force working with such systems on a daily basis may be able point out obvious flaws.
- [Update: 13 August 2023] A scene from the Taken TV show from 2002 shows remarkable similarity with the MH370 footage and could have been taken as inspiration by the hoaxer.
- [Update: 18 August 2023] A Reddit user claims that the sub-pixel placement of the mouse pointer in the satellite video looks artificial.
- Refutation: This could for example have been caused by the usage of the remote viewing tool Citrix by the operator.
- [Update: 18 August 2023] A Reddit user claims that the airplane’s contrail shakes more than the airplane after stabilizing the video.
- Refutation: This would be something to get right relatively easily for a 3D artist. Other users have also questioned if the argument is actually true at all.
[Update: 18 August 2023] A Reddit user claims that the airplane was downsampled from 30 frames-per-second to 24 fps, while the UFOs move at 24 fps natively.- Refutation: Many other Reddit users and I personally don’t see the claimed “jumps” of the airplane at all. This seems to be part of the mentioned disinformation campaign!
- [Update: 19 August 2023] A near match for the portal effect in the drone video has just been found in an old VFX library. The effect is called Shockwave Fire Burst – Expl001 Hd and was originally included in the Pyromania! CD ROM from 1998. The effect was e.g. used in the game Bionicle from 2003.
- [Update: 20 August 2023] Refutation: Further analysis revealed that the match isn’t as good as originally claimed and only accounts for one frame. While the shapes do have some notable similarities, it would have required several distortions to arrive at the shown result.
In any case, these videos are either real or the best UFO fake of all time. (UFO footage that’s impossible to debunk because it’s so blurry/featureless doesn’t count.)
More info:
“The effect was e.g. used in the game Bionicle from 2003.”
Bionicle reference <3
I remember that game being rather rough around the edges. Bionicle Heroes, on the other hand, was pretty fun. Shame we never really got any official games after that. There are a couple fanmade games in the works though.
[Update: 20 August 2023] Refutation: Further analysis revealed that the match isn’t as good as originally claimed and only accounts for one frame. While the shapes do have some notable similarities, it would have required several distortions to arrive at the shown result.
A very similar explosion effect was also used in Duke Nukem 3D, released in 1996, as the mental blast attack of the octabrain. It can be seen here: https://youtu.be/vN9sB5xK9cg?t=22 .
It’s reasonable to think that it is an old version of the POND5 effect, as the newer one is in HD, but it wouldn’t have been feasible in 1995, when duke Nukem 3D was being developed. In fact, the explosion in the drone video matches more closely the Duke Nukem 3D images than the HD version of the effect available on the web. The portal effect in the MH370 video looks like it has been rotated 90 degrees clockwise and flipped vertically from the Duke Nukem 3D effect.
When I saw the video the day you published the Sandra and Woo strip, it looked familiar, but it didn’t fell on me that I had seen it in Duke Nukem 3D – even if I have been playing that game for almost 30 years!
[Update: 21 August 2023] The disinformation campaign on Reddit has reached unprecedented levels. While I was skeptical before, I now believe that the footage, except maybe for the portal effect at the end, is real!
In the last times, we have seen the USA government tring to revive the UFO conspiracy theories. Sometimes with quite lame attempts, like the congressional hearing of last month (a guy goes under oath in front of the most powerful men of the country, and all he says is “a friend of a friend told me that there are rumors”? With no evidence at all? Are you kidding?).
You know, the “appearance” of alien remains near the Area 51 in the 50s gave people a plausible explanation for the sights of strange aircraft being developed in that defense base. The Cold War was at its height, and the last thing the Department of Defense wanted were soviet spies around its R&D laboratories. They did not initiated the UFO movement, but as soon as they saw that it was useful, they started feeding it with vague statements and the “we do not confirm or deny anything” phrase. All this was shown by papers declassified under the Obama administration.
Well, it seems that the Department of Defense has realized that the UFO conspiracies are useful after all. Maybe because we are entering a second Cold War (the “enemy” being the China-Russia axis this time). I don’t know, and perhaps it won’t be clear for several decades. But it’s the simplest explanation.
But there is more. After the congressional hearing, a Spanish scientific publication made a world map of al the registered UFO sightings. You know what? 99% of them were in continental USA. In fact, you could actually trace the country’s frontiers and coasts with the sighting site dots. This has two possible explanations. Either the aliens are aware of our geopolitics and somehow manage to avoid being seen on non-USA territories (including the Canadian and Mexican borders!), or Yankees are so obsessed with UFOs that they see things where there is nothing. You choose. Applying Occam’s razor, I conclude that the second is more likely. Way more.
All this sounds like a conspiracy theory in it self. I do know. But think about the “elite’s” motivations. In one case, the USA government has a clear motivation to protect its military R&D facilities and provide easy explanations for those times when prototypes are seen by civilians. Speculative, yes, but well grounded in the current geopolitical status quo. In the other case, there are some quite vague arguments like “they don’t want us to know because they are reptilians” or something in that line. Once more, apply the Occam’s razor.
Antonio Rodríguez wrote:
That’s because it was about reports to an US organization! Of course almost all of those come from the USA.
Novil wrote:
As far as I know, it was an European study based on data collected all across the world. It’s a pity that I don’t have the link at hand. If I find it, I’ll post it here.
As anecdotal evidence, here in Spain you hear a lot more about sightings of UFOs in the USA than about local cases. And sightings in other European countries (France, Germany, Italy, even the UK) are almost unheard of (remember the UK wheat field “signals”? They were revealed as an elaborate prank by their very authors). Even Spanish conspiracy theorists mainly use American pictures and videos as “evidence”. I can’t put that as a proof of anything, because it could be media bias. But even that bias would be difficult to explain: televisions and newspapers should be interested in focusing on cases closer to their audience.
Once more, Occam’s razor. Are we alone in the universe? Probably not. Have we been visited? It could be. Distances of millions of light-years are too great for relativistic travel, but there may be physics we don’t know. Would a civilization from far away travel to the Earth such a long way just to make a light show, and make no contact at all? Very unlikely. Are there more simple explanations to the sightings? In most, if not all, cases, definitely yes.