![[1340] MH370 until proven otherwise](/comics/2023-08-12-1340-mh370-until-proven-otherwise.png "[1340] MH370 until proven otherwise")
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:
- Reddit post with an in-depth analysis of the videos
- Reddit post with many links containing additional information
- Larisa: Have you already heard? The guys from reddit.com/r/ufos dug up some UFO footage from 2014.
- Sandra: What’s it this time, a sky lantern or a bird?
- Larisa: Three spherical UFOs zapping Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 into another dimension!
- Sandra: That’s a new low, even for those featherbrains.
- Larisa: Well, take a look at the videos first.
- Sandra: I’ll debunk those faster than Snopes alternative facts by Donald Trump!
- Caption: 10 hours later…
- Sandra: I’ll be sleeping with my lights on tonight…
- Larisa: You can find the videos below the comic. And don’t forget to short aviation stocks!
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I think reusing old art worked great in this case! I’d certainly love to see more of this format.
Regarding the UFO, I’d also like to jump into conspiracy territory by saying that a motivated entity with access to the Archive.org database (eg. a national government) could easily backdate a video or page if they wanted to. Not sure what they would hope to accomplish, but it’s technically feasible.
Pennomi wrote:
There were a few people on Reddit who remember having watched the videos earlier than this year. The earliest date is not known to me, though.
Could those UFOs be missiles launched mistakenly at commercial plane?
They kinda looked like they were following the plane in target fashion, there was an explosion after they hit?
@ Evilbob:
Seeing the trails behind the UFOs I was thinking missiles as well. Especially after seeing the “portal” that just looks like an explosion (shockvawe) to me.
But while I am by no means expert on anti-air missiles, the way they fly around the plane just does not seem right to me. Even with my casual knowledge, I believe missiles tend to head for their target as quickly and directly as possible and explode immediately when they are close enough. I can’t imagine why or even how the missiles would circle the plane.
Pennomi wrote:
I added the following update:
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 reduces the possibility that the dates on Archive.org were tempered with and the videos were actually uploaded to YouTube years later.
Evilbob wrote:
* Those would be the strangest missiles the world has ever seen, encircling the target in an elaborate pattern for several seconds before hitting it.
* The UFOs also don’t emit any hot air. Their contrails rather seem to be cold, and also seem to be in front of them, which rules out any normal means of propulsion.
* But even more importantly, the airplane doesn’t explode but just disappears from one moment to the next. No debris of any kind is visible.
[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.
Well, the major point is the lack of motivation and the multitude of governments, even private corporations and people having this technology. There is simply no reason to keep UFOs secret, quite the contrary, there would be good reasons to warn and alert people. Even if you would decide to, it would be difficult to keep everyone involved in line. And several different countries – China, Russia, America, France, England – would all have to decide to keep their findings secret.
Reasons to be skeptical:
1. Debris of the aircraft washed up in several locations that would be expected based on ocean current patterns consistent with maximum travel time before ditching into the ocean.
2. NROL-22 reportedly does not have a visible light camera on it, its primary purpose is radio wave interception.
3. A satellite can’t scan and pan at that speed, communications lag prevents it.
4. The three UFOs, at that size, move in a manner that is inconsistent with human technology known then or since.
5. The aircraft and UFOs vanish instantaneously. This is inconsistent with known science.
6. There is a flash of light at the moment of vanishing. This reminds me of Hollywood logic, like people falling over the moment they are shot in movies but not in real life. It’s the sort of action and consequence telegraphing that makes sense to do in movies that have an audience but is unlikely to happen in reality. (This is a pretty weak point but I include it because I think not many people will make it.)
Thanks for your input, Korakys. Counter-arguments:
Korakys wrote:
The debris didn’t have any marks that certainly identified it. Its condition was also not as expected after years in the ocean.
The airplane could also have been returned at a later point, after which it crashed for real.
Korakys wrote:
We don’t know exactly what US spy satellites are capable of. It was also brought forward that NROL-22 could only have been used as transmitter.
Korakys wrote:
See above.
Korakys wrote:
UFOs almost by definition don’t adhere to our current knowledge in the natural sciences, which is also incomplete as we don’t even know the nature of dark matter or the reason for the inconsistency in our Hubble constant measurements.
Korakys wrote:
See above.
Korakys wrote:
UFO reports regularly refer to flashes of light or UFOs with lights. So this is consistent with UFO history.
Both videos look very much like manufactured, somewhat amateurish even
And adding: 1st video seems like its based on heat signature, with absolutely no heat sources eg its still picture that’s moved manually on screen
Bottom one: you may note that clouds are staying dead still in both of cloned videos
raven0ak wrote:
This is false. I also put in my description “The clouds in the satellite video move in a realistic manner.” If you can’t even be bothered to read the basic information about the case, then please don’t engage in the discussion.
what is X-COM doing?!
What was the original comic that this art was re-used from?
Well… concerning the UFOs, all I see is a (most likely real) plane flying between clouds, which is circled by some (IMHO easy to add/fake) dots, and then a quick disappearing, which IMHO could easily be done by waiting until the plane is out-of-view, and then cutting out a part of the video.
As for the revival of Sandra and Woo, could you please PLEASE *PLEASE* post a few stories featuring Woo and the forest animals now? I’m sick and tired of several years of “Sandra and her human friends” stories by now. Really. They are fun to read once in a while, but your comic became famous because of the animal component, and I think you are on the best way to ruin it.
There might be a meta aspect to this strip, assuming the videos themselves were a reuse of earlier media with some UFO stuff added!
Reacting to Yellow’s comment, I loved the human/city stories too: to me it’s more about the humor than the choice of setting.
I think the weirdest part of this is that it languished in obscurity for nine years. Whether it’s a hoax or real–though I’m going to need stronger evidence to believe that aliens are visiting Earth and abducting planes–a video purporting to show the abduction of a plane that mysteriously crashed two months ago should have gone viral, especially if it has no obvious signs it was faked.
GriffinAndRoxy wrote:
[1264] Larisa’s Life Advice, Part 3 b – The Last Airbender and Larisa from the last panel of the following strip.
Yellow wrote:
Yes, if original footage without the fantastical elements could be found, it would of course discredit the videos.
Yellow wrote:
No, it didn’t.
BorgLord wrote:
Even UFO enthusiasts dismissed it as too outrageous back then and didn’t give it a proper analysis. Recent developments like Mr. Grusch’s appointment in the US senate made people re-visit old material.
I can think of a way to fake both videos without much trouble. You’d need a graphic engine, create 2 fixed cameras, and create a flight path for 4 objects(the plane and the 3 lights).
Set one camera to show an inferred display, while the other one is set to be an aerial cam. Set the animation in motion and record the 2 cameras. Not all that difficult for someone with moderate skills when I think about it.
They’ll line up because they are all made by the same person, presuming this theory is right. Plus it’s too similar to a TV shows effect from like 12 years before, which is why I’ll consider the video a fake.(Art copying life is fine, life copying art is suspicious)
I’ve seen footage by Edward Current of a UFO added to building 7’s collapse on 9/11 that literally convinced some of the crazies. He’s just a rando on youtube, barely active for years now, and he tricked many. I am disappointed, but unsurprised.
As for the rest, yay comic! What happened to that other artist?
@ DreamlandLividity:
They wouldn’t
No military weapon would behave like that because it’s stupid and pointless.
Nor would they be going that slowly, they are designed to get to the target a rapidly as possible and destroy it. See the various airliners that have been taken out by military hardware.
Nor would a drone behave in that way – again because getting that close is pointless and dangerous.
Personally I think this is constructed horseshit: but since that view is a waste of breath in the face of conspiracy theorists that seem to think that you have to prove its fake rather than prove its real.
I don’t plan are having the argument: however fun it is.
The idea that military satellites may have recorded exactly what happened however is entirely plausible: because there is not the slightest chance they would admit to it, especially since it would mean explaining why they were scanning that part of the planet.
But it may well be true they know more than they are telling.
There is one major problem I have with this footage, why were the drone and satellite following the plane in the first place?
Madcat: come on! If the plane in the video is flight MH370, it’s entirely expected for the military to have their eyes on a plane that went entirely off-course and stopped responding on the radio.
If aliens visit Earth it would be TEN THOUSAND TIMES more one-sided than Conquistadors, using Navy Seal weapons, against the Natives!!!
That satellite was launched in 2006 with a four-year projected lifespan, and MH70 was destroyed in 2014. That’s a bit of a stretch. It’s in a highly elliptical orbit, meaning it spends most of its time slowing down and falling back over some designated spot and a little of it hurtling round the other side of the Earth.
It’d be quite an achievement to get a video like that from the 1,138 km perigee, because of the speed it’d be moving. Also it’d be 3,958 km away, and there’d be a lot of atmosphere in the way.
From apogee of 39,210 km, it’d be even harder.
With an exhaust temperature of 625°C, we’re looking for a 3226.4 nm wavelength.
129 or 134 inch engine. We’re seeing multiple pixels. Call them 660 mm pixels. 660 mm at 4000 km is 9.5 microdegrees. You’re going to need a 23.84 metre camera aperture.
From apogee, it’s a 233.8 metre camera aperture.
That’s more than three times the LENGTH of a fully-assembled Atlas V or Falcon Heavy.
This proposition is taking the mick.
JWST ain’t a patch on that thing.
Even if you build it like JWST, you’d be up there for years adding bits to it and bolting them all together. We’d see it crossing between us and the Sun. It’d be on the transit-finder website.
Also, signals intelligence satellites are RADIO receivers, not CAMERAS.
[…] submitted by /u/Bean_Tiger [link] […]
Hurrah for Novil! Yup, it’s a good comic. It’s not like Sandra redecorates often.
How’s the Summer Machine comic coming along? And the programming job? Any entertaining “terrible work orders” to talk about yet?
Additional pro argument:
Additional contra arguments:
[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.echo751 wrote:
Of course it’s possible to create the footage in a 3D engine. But as said it would have required significant expertise and time to get all the details right.
Madcat wrote:
Why wouldn’t the US military take a close look at a rogue airplane after the terror attacks from 11 September 2001?
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.
So it’s just as I noted below: “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.”
The question remains who would go to such lengths to create multiple extremely realstic UFO hoax videos.
—
See my comment added below:
Further analysis revealed that the match isn’t as good as originally claimed. While the shapes do have some notable similarities, it would have required several distortions to arrive at the shown result. However, since there’s no reason why a portal to another dimension should so closely resemble an old visual effect, this is the best refutation theory so far.
@ Novil:
why aare my comments not showing?
I mean, I’d imagine bored people. Deep fakes exist of things like recent presidents playing DND. I do not think these people have in fact played DND recently.
Okay, was it the mention of said recent president’s names that stopped my comment from showing? Or the mention of four chan existing?
Because those were the only things I changed. And sorry for the multi posts, but since my comment wasn’t showing…
Frame 1083 and 1132 of the plane are identical.
https://imgur.com/gallery/lgCOIiV
Nick/Tyrong wrote:
Yes, if a comment contains the word “Trump” it goes straight to the trash folder.
[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.
I also added another pro argument:
[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.
[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!
“I don’t need it to be true to appreciate a good story.”
That’s my advice in this case. Rather than being fascinated about whether this is true and the world is at the hands of mysterious aliens, relax and enjoy; there’s absolutely no need to be stressed about it (since it won’t help), or to decide now whether it’s true or false: it’s perfectly fine to conclude that it’s a bit hard to tell, and to let that be your answer.
I’m not getting my hopes up, but if evidence does come one day, hoho will there be some fun times!
Definitely looking forward to more declassified military documents though. Quite possibly because they really happened, the stories in these are always realistic. Being real is not mandatory, but indeed a reliable way to get realism.
Get the code crackers from this one in on this. Theirs is a hardy bunch that can dig deep enough to shovel out the truth here. This isn’t the First mass vehicular poof either, true or not. The Philadelphia experiment warrants comparison to this and others for a reference check.
One important reason not to suspect aliens/UFOs: MH 370 didn’t just disappear at any one discrete time. It had been out of communication for hours by the time of its last satellite ping. It was already lost. So UFOs have no explanatory power as to why it was lost.
As for your 20 reasons:
1. I can’t find any legible coordinates in that video. The point where MH 370 was last seen was around seven hours of flight from where it ended up.
2. There are countless videos of Boeing 777s
3. That is indeed not(!) reasonable to assume, even if for some reason the US military had eyes in the region (indeed there is no reason to assume they could even get a drone there in time or that they even knew where to look). The most likely source would be incidental footage of some sort. Even if the US military had had reason to track the flight (they didn’t, for quite some time there was chaotic communication by all involved, there was no coordinated effort for hours after the disappearance), they would have to rely on incidental footage to even locate the plane. Contrary to popular belief, Earth is not entirely filmed by high-resolution satellite cameras at any time.
5. The drone passes the contrails, it would have to be in the satellite shot (what we see is a cropped and panned version, obviously, there would have to be the unedited version which might show a drone)
7. Why would it show that, though? From what I’ve seen, it shouldn’t be in the shot (unless I seriously misjudge the direction of motion here)
Addendum: Those coordinates deciphered on Reddit (along with the supposed identity of the satellite) may be along the flight path but they are quite far from where the plane would have been later. The identification of the satellite seems suspect as it wouldn’t have (reason to have) the capability to take a video like that (seems more in line with a Topaz-line satellite like NROL-25 (or possibly NROL-23’s Intruder satellites)).
The footage of the plane is flawless because… it’s footage of a plane. The CGI is the ufos and the vanishing, which are not particularly impressive.
Glad to see you still making your comics, even with limited resources.
Btw, any news yet if S&W will continue, or was Powree leaving final nail to coffin?
I hope this series continues anyway, the characters are very lovable. At least as good as the Friends series!
Finding a similar effect in an old sfx package would not neccesarally refute the video; This is because the old sfx file could turn out to be a spot on representation of a Trans-Portal.
This doesn’t prove or disprove anything, but on my first watch of the video, the way the portal forms and the plane disappears through it reminded me immediately of one of my old favourite platform games, Abe’s Oddysee.
Indeed, I think the weakest point of the video — already pointed out by others, and likely part of why ufologists dismissed this back in 2014 — is that it seems to follow film logic rather than the laws of physics. The portal seems more what we would imagine cool alien technology to look like than what it would (probably) be in real life, if it existed.
As for Novil’s question:
well, given all I’ve seen by this point in my life, it really does not surprise me that there is someone somewhere who would waste (or invest, depending on your p.o.v.) months of their life on a prank like this one.
Nice to see you are still alive.
On the topic those videos don’t convince me in the age of deep fakes and AI mchines that can create CGI for the masses. Not to mention the way the camera moves in particular with the mouse visible is a hughe sign that someone is controlling a render engine rather than a camera …
Points like who would go to such length to fake something and similar statements are mute. Because in the end someone always does. And in regards to UFOs there are even some players with money out there that have vested interest (see various UFO cults).
In the end always remember it is hard (sometimes impossible) to proof a negative. And requesting to proof a negative is what most of the “questionmarks” when someone points out weakpoints in videos like this come down to. You can belive that UFOs exsist and that this video is proof just like you can believe in any of the myard religions on Earth and whatever proof those offer. But in the end it is just that belief.