How to spot fake, manipulated or manipulative videos

If a picture says more than a thousand words. Imagine what 24 pictures per second can do… More than ever the media, politicians and influencers rely on video to spread their message, collect likes and followers, or to bait you into clicking their ad-driven websites. In this article I’ll try to share some red flags to make you more alert and spot manipulation.

Introduction – Why this article?

In the passed 20 years I’ve enjoyed watching thousands of videos of UFOs. In retrospect -despite many red flags- far too many times I caught myself believing certain videos because I ‘wanted to believe’ them. They were the proverbial ‘smoking gun’, proved what I wanted to be true, fitted the narrative so good it clouded my judgement. (Confirmation Bias)

This is why I developed a reflex to be extra weary of any videos that seem just a little too convenient for a certain Youtube channel, influencer or politician to share and win great audiences with it, because it fits their narrative so well.

With a lifetime of experience in graphic design and a solid understanding of video-editing I began to recognize these same techniques they use to fake UFO videos in e.g. politcal or random viral videos. Even trustworthy media outlets occasionally share videos which are either completely fake, cleverly cut, 10 years old or clearly manipulated just to fit or exacerbate certain narratives.

It’s one thing if someone ‘just’ makes money of it, it’s deceitful but I can live with that. It’s another thing if manipulated media (just like the example shown above) are used as propaganda to instill hate, fear or even violence.

The great list of Fake Videos Red flags

I’ll often refer to UFO related videos to make analogies, but these red flags apply to all kinds of video.

Image quality related issues:

• Excessively Poor quality
  A common tactic to hide important details which would otherwise reveal poor editing and/or cgi skills. Sometimes you can even see added ‘VHS’/Tape effects to digital video… Which is obviously a dead giveaway.
• Excessively good quality
  It looks professionally filmed, the people look a little too good, the timing, framing and composition… You may not realize it, but could be watching a scene from a foreign B-movie, a music video or amateur cinematographers. I remember one case of the media using a ‘tragic image of a little girl walking alone in a warzone’, but it ended up being a scene from a music video. It was a clear case of ‘too good to be true’ footage.
• Filmed a (security cam) screen
  This is typical for ‘paranormal’ videos. A security cam picked up something bizar (a ghost, a time traveler, a special power…), but in stead of sharing the actual ‘Recording_date.mp4’ from the security system, some idiot films a screen playing said footage. With a shaky smartphone, slightly out of focus and in low resolution, of course. Next time you have the second coming of Christ on tape and he appears to be a time traveling lizard, the least you can do is share the
• The shaky cam and zoom CGI effect + Excessively zooming in and out
  You’ll know it when you see it. It’s this extremely cheesy way of zooming in and out, putting the main event in and out of zoom/focus on the exact right times to add more drama. It can be categorized in the endless amounts of ‘shaky cam‘ effect libraries. I have a pretty shaky hand myself, but come on…
• Are we dealing with a Deepfake?…
  Deepfakes are a relatively new artificial-intelligence based technology where the (head and) face of a celebrity or powerful politician is moving according to the face of an actor. It’s dangerous technology to say the least, as these are damn hard to spot. However, to the trained eye, there are some things to keep in mind. Norton.com wrote a long list of tips to keep in mind, especially for deepfakes… But as the technology gets better and better, it will get harder and harder to spot. My tips: mind the teeth, the eyes, and of course: the actual voice!

Context related issues and red flags

• Video has no (credible) or anonymous source with no further information
  Sometimes shocking footage just ‘leaks’ and the source needs to protect itself (e.g. political scandals). But imagine you just filmed something important or very unlikely, and you are the only source… wouldn’t you like to get credit? Or at least get paid (copyrights)? Give some additional information? Often, when there’s no source, it comes from an amateur (computer graphics) artist who wants his 15 minutes of fame by misleading people.
• Only one video emerged from something incredible or profound
  Something happened with many bystanders, or passing cars… in broad daylight in a city… and there’s only one video?
• No sound
  Often in real UFO videos you can clearly hear voices tremble. There’s fear, true amazement, people shout it out to their family “Yo Brandine come quick! you gotta see this! – wife enters- oh my Gooooood… what is thaaaaat? Are you recording this?!…).” etc…
• But sound can also be a dead give-away
  No excitement for something that should excite, or the opposite: Overly excited people, the excessive use of the word ‘bro’ and/or ‘dude’ often indicates we’re dealing with faked footage.
• Important parts before/after the video are cut off
  When Bradley Manning leaked tonnes of documents and videos on the Iraq war on Wikileaks, news agencies got caught using edited clips. In video it’s easy to make anyone to look like the good guys or the bad guys. All you have to do is do some cutting. And suddenly the initial attacker becomes a victim and vice versa.
• Video ends at completely random/incomprehensible moment
  I’ve seen this way too many times in the UFO scene… Why would anybody stop filming or point the camera somewhere else while something profound is still going on?
• Re-uploaded old/out of context clips
  It’s hard to spot, but often political influencers re-upload videos of completely irrelevant events to support a cause. Any mass-protest video can be used to say “look, there were over 100.000 people at our protest”. A lot of stuff happens in the world every day and has happened in the past. So it’s not so hard to take a clip of an event (ever) happening in e.g. Estonia and pretend it was somewhere in your country if it fits a certain narrative. I always try to look at car models, license plates, or billboards in the surrounding area to get an idea of location and time.
• The moment someone starts filming
  Especially in the paranormal/UFO scene, I’ve seen tons of situations, where someone just so happened to be filming some electricity wires… the roof of their house, their visit to the grocery store… riiiight before dramatic events happen. This is -in my opinion- always a dead-giveaway. As far as I know there is only 1 known home-video of the first plane hitting the WTC on 9/11.
• Perspective is key
  A crowd of 50 people can be made to show as a huge crowd from a low angle and the right positioning. Someone small can look tall, any crowd can look as (un)interested, peaceful or violent als the reporter chooses to.
• Look at the surrounding people, the random bypassers.
  What/Who are they looking at? Are they also involved in the spectacular events? Does their behavior fit the narrative or is it contradictory? E.g. who are they considering ‘victim’ or ‘attacker’

More red flags, specific on the UFO & paranormal topic

• Video leaked first and exclusively on a paid channel (ad-driven youtube channel or heavy-ad-loaded website)
  Always remember: Your attention is worth hard cash. So yeah, most channels eventually get desperate and will start faking stuff in order to try and keep their audience entertained. It’s just impossible to keep releasing unique or rare footage every week. Whenever I discovered a credible UFO video on the channel of a soccer-mom (with 200 vids of her kids and just 1 UFO video), that’s when I know it’s worth my time.
• The video might be real, but the UFO is just a dishonest Illusion
  It wouldn’t be the first time I’m looking at an Indoor ceiling lamp reflected on the window… When we’re looking at space station UFO’s, intense reflections in and out-of view will render moving lens glare… Slowed down dust or bugs flying too close to the night vision LED’s of a camera… It’s easy to pick up FOs and pretend it’s a UFO even though the uploader knows damn well he’s fooling people. But hey, a million views is a million views…
• Always give it a few days before sharing like a maniac.
  ‘smoking guns’ often tend to be markeing stunts or pranks and their origin is revealed a few days later after it’s gone viral. So save your credibility and wait a little before sharing something untill you’re really sure it’s not complete BS.
• Actual UFO’s ≠ Aliens (necessarily)
  Many satellites, shooting stars, space debris, comets, asteroids, unknow human aircrafts can be considered a UFO. it’s not automatically ‘alien’ and should always be considered final resort after all others are ruled out. If you’d ask me if there is footage of actual alien crafts out there; I’ll say 100% yes. But I can count them on one hand. It’s damn hard to rule out all the other options first.
• Stills in space… from Mars, the moon, the sun… will occasionally show anomalies
  These camera’s have their limits. and the conditions in outer space are quite extreme (radiation, particles…)
• Keep an open mind but stay skeptical
  When so called ‘near-death experience’ people, or alien-abductees end their mind-blowing interviews with: “You can read the full story in my book, sold on amazon!”, there’s a great chance it’s all baloney by someone trying to make a quick buck.

And last but not least…

Just google any name(s), or location of suspicious footage and add the word ‘hoax’, ‘debunk’, ‘fake’, ‘factcheck’… You’re very likely to find out someone’s been pulling your leg…. but then again, there have been examples of factcheckers dropping the ball too and dismiss certain facts as ‘fake’ too easily because it’s convenient for them. Who checks the fact-checkers…