Larry the Tie Guy brings us the UFO footage shot in Gulf Breeze, Florida.  This footage consists of a golden-colored classic UFO-shaped object floating behind some trees and exhibiting an otherworldly speed. Otherworldly?  This one could have been solved easily with a phone call:

Larry, thumbing through phonebook:  Burger King…Burger King…Burg…ah, here it is, 555-6398.

Larry: “Hello, is this the night manager?”

Manager: “Yes, it is, how may I help you?”

Larry: “My name is Larry from Fact or Faked.  I know you guys had a windstorm down there in 1995, did you, by chance, have any damage?”

Manager: “Yeah, man, that wind ripped our BK Burger sign up and carried it away”

Larry: “Okay, thank you.”  Hangs up.  Geez, now I need to find another video for show-and-tell.

The hamburger-shaped UFO was filmed on 23 August 1995 by Mike Hawkins and a friend.  They were driving their car and saw this light in the sky and started following it.  They run out of road and can’t follow it any more.  The video is shown and received with Wows and other assorted exclamations of disbelief. Including a few mutterings of general disbelief from me, but not necessarily regarding the specific footage I was viewing.

As the UFO zooms off with otherworldly speed I paused and noticed some interesting lightplays going on which would have raised my eyebrows.

Bill, Larry, and Jael head to Gulf Breeze and attempt to recreate the video.  Although I’m not sure why.

In the vehicle, Larry explains how Gulf Breeze is renowned for its UFO activity.  Bill brings up other activity including a photo by Ed Walters (why didn’t they try to debunk this one)  Chi-Lan talks about the series of photos of a lighted object that looked like a top with lighted portals.  And sure enough, the hamburger bun object in the video definitely has very lighted portals.  The buns are also quite lighted.

Larry sets us up for the recreation sequences by saying that one of the main theories is that this is a hoax.

Bill gets into it by offering some more detail that “It does look like too clear instead of it being a fuzzy object, it’s brightly illuminated.”  Interestingly during this speech, there is a definite edit-cut around the words “clear” and “instead”.  But no matter.  Bill is apparently used to see all these bad, shaky, jerky, split-second videos.  Little does he know (because he hasn’t talked to our photography expert) that it IS possible to get very distinct and clear shots both with video and still cameras.  I’ve done it myself countless times.

They are off to meet Mike Hawkins who will give a firsthand account of his sighting.  But first we get a nice split-second shot of a Great Blue Heron hopping by the side of the road which goes to show that even in a show like FoF, there can be some redeeming footage.

Red Fish Point at 10:15 am for the witness interview.  Mike shows them exactly where he took the footage from.  Bill asks him what he was expecting to see out here (I think that was the question, they cranked the music and sound effects up around this point).  Mike replies “Military activity, also UFO activity.”

He goes on to say that they didn’t believe that that kind of an object existed because they had never seen it before and they had been sky-watching for years.  He adds that, not knowing what it is, he thinks it might be a blimp but wanted to get a better shot of it and when it went off like it did, it wasn’t a blimp. (because of the otherworldly speed)  He also adds that it made no noise when it “zipped off”.

Bill subtly asks him “You say, Mike, that you were involved or not involved with any sort of a hoax with this UFO video?”  Mike says no, he wasn’t and that they didn’t have any money for props and he guarantees that he didn’t fake it and offers to take a lie detector test.

Mike is thanked for his time and they proceed to start to try to recreate the footage.  Again…why?

One of the theories (one of the drinking words for this series) is that the UFO is just a prop being pulled across the horizon so, at 11:37 am they commence a zip line test.  I’m sure Austin is bummed that he misses out on this.

They attach aircraft cable between two trees (do they need to file EIS before filming?)  Next is the UFO building montage which makes me shake my head as usual.  But not as much as the next scene.  Larry explains, “Guys, up close I know this is very rudimentary but Mike told us during the interview he didn’t have very much money at all and so I took that into account only spent twenty bucks on the materials and I’m pretty sure that once it’s dark and you guys get at your vantage point, it’s going to look great.”  Bill also asked Mike if he had hoaxed it.  Mike says he didn’t and didn’t have much money.  If they don’t believe him about the hoaxing part, why do they believe him about the money part.  Well, because it’s FoF.

In any case, they end up with a black and white cylinder with portals and bands.  The object is attached to the zipline when it gets dark and they prepare for testing.  There is a light inside the object and that light will shine through the white areas and mimic the features of the original video.  The light has a dimmer attached to it so that Bill can remotely shut it off to simulate the UFO disappearing at an otherworldly speed.

Bill and Jael will film, and Larry will control the UFO and they confirm their readiness with each other, but to make it official, they have the traditional countdown and “begin motion.”

During the commercial break they turn the light on inside the UFO.  Since we missed it, they are kind enough to repeat the last minute for us after commercial break and we get to see the light go on and it doesn’t look too bad for twenty bucks.  Larry moves the UFO around and Jael pans back and forth so as to recreate the original video exactly.  To make the UFO disappear, Jael will perform the complicated task of panning upward while counting backward and Bill will turn off the light and the UFO will seemingly disappear at an otherworldly speed.

The light goes out and they conclude this experiment and gather to review the results.  During the review they say how close it matches and it’s not too bad.  Not exact by any means but a variation on the original.  Larry says he has a hard time finding any differences at all which to me simply indicates that he’s watching the wrong viewfinder.

Jael points out a problem and indicates that at a certain point, their UFO is shining a light onto one of the trees.  Well, I think the original was, too, when I frame-by-framed it as it disappeared at an otherworldly speed.  But she has a point in that the light cast onto the tree is a bit more than the original.  However, maybe if they dimmed the light some, or changed the distance and size of the object they could overcome that but they seem unwilling or unable to refine the technique and so opt for other experiments.

Bill also points out the lack of vertical motion.  Was that an issue even?  Bill says in the original video it seems to go higher and then seems to come back down.  I’d say we have to take their word for that, but recall what I said about water and its wetness quality.

What that does, though, is allow them to dream up the UFO attached to a remote-control helicopter experiment.  Jael explains the experiment while Larry is in the background acting like he is constructing something.  Larry explains that he is building an illuminated panel for the helicopter to tow.  Larry flunked art.  The UFO he designs sort of looks like something created through a combination of finger and paw painting.  The panel is affixed to a frame which is lined with LED strips so as to give the lighting effect.

Bill shows up with an RC contraption that looks eerily similar to a crash involving a helicopter and a neon sign factory.  The plan is to get the helicopter about 30 feet in the air with the panel about 10 feet below that so as to keep it out of frame.  Earlier they said they kept the cost down ‘cause Mike said he didn’t have much money.  What they fail to say now is that the T-REX 550E RC Helicopter that they use is a bit shy of a grand.  Yet they do like their RC experiments so let’s indulge them.

Again, the LEDs can be switched off remotely to simulate disappearing at an otherworldly speed and they get ready to experiment.  The helicopter seems to make a fair amount of noise, and Mike said there was no sound, so it appears that the portions they believe are random.  In all fairness, if I was suspecting a hoax, I would just try to recreate it the best I could and not pay any attention to what the witness claimed.  So I have no problem with the cost of the helicopter or the noise.  I do have a problem with them using cost as a reason earlier in the episode, though.

At the count of three (or rather one from three) the BK logo goes on under the helicopter and filming commences.  Doesn’t look too bad.  They agree, saying it matches pretty well.  They move it through the trees and continue filming.  Jael then says that the only problem is that, because it is a panel, ie approximately a 2D representation of a supposed 3D object, it can turn because of the wind and you lose the 3D effect.  The light going out to simulate the otherworldly speed goes quite well.  There are ways to compensate for the panel turning in the wind, and another solution would be to suspend a 3D UFO under it do you didn’t have to be concerned about the turning.  Such solutions are beyond the scope of FoF, though.  Either that or they are ignored so as to proceed to the Bat Signal Test.

They set up a GOBO (GO Before Optics or Go Between) which is where a template with a particular shape is placed over a light so that the projected light takes on the appearance of the template.  For example, cut a star out of a piece of cardboard and place it over a flashlight and then shine the light at the wall.  You’ve recreated a star on a dark surface, thus proving that stars are fake.

Luckily they just happen to have all the equipment and Larry quickly cuts out a template of a UFO using his trusty Swiss Army Knife and, after setting up a big dark screen, they’re ready to go at 9:45 pm.  We get the obligatory countdown which at this point in the episode is the cue for a commercial which then sets up a repeat of the previous minutes including the countdown and then the jump back to the Situation Room at 10:05 am.  Reverse angle shot of palm tree.  Reused from Mermaid episode.

The usual recap of the first methods that each have something wrong with them, though easily correctible.  Finally we get to see the results of the GOBO test which looks very close, though probably cost more than twenty bucks.

Chi-Lan brings up the fact that if there was that big of a screen erected, that Mike had to be in on it.  Yes, because if it were just projected on a screen, then the whole story of chasing it in the vehicle would not hold water (wet OR dry).  Bill says that they wondered the same thing and so, disregarding the video recreation, they fall back on the Layered-Voice Analysis.  Wonder why they didn’t just do that to begin with?  According to the LVA, Mike’s story about seeing it out over the bay, etc, is truthful.  If you trust LVA as a tool, that is.  So that right there rules out most of the experiments they did.

The second part they analyze is the blimp part and when he says “when it zipped off, you know, it wasn’t a blimp” the read out flails “Danger, Will Robinson” er “DI/HR (Deception Indicated/High Risk)”  So this suggests, according to Bill, that, “He wasn’t in on the hoax but that he may have known, or suspected what the object was.”   Just “suspecting” what an object is doesn’t indicate a hoax to me.  Then again, do we really know how well LVA works.  Did they calibrate it to this particular subject?

What do the experts think?

Austin: “ Maybe he wasn’t in on the hoax, I still think the video is fake.”  (based on….?)

Jael: “I think that he knows there’s a possibility that it wasn’t a UFO”  (There’s always a possibility, this proves nothing)

Chi-Lan: “I think that he may not have been in on the hoax but that he was hoaxed.”  (Again, based on WHAT?)

Ben: “You were spot on with your replications.  It can be done.  Did he do it?  Maybe he didn’t hoax it, but he probably knew what it was.”

Argh!  18 minutes ago they were spot on with their replications of the Moon videos and determined that the video STILL was fact.  Now they are spot on with their replications but it was hoaxed.  The only consistency in this show is the inconsistency.

Discussion of this episode is here.