Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The "stick figures" revisited

Forgetomori has posted an intriguing follow-up to the already-infamous "stick figure aliens" saga. While unable to conclusively debunk the alleged Fresno, CA security camera footage, Forgetomori points out that the Peruvian video of the "being" near the edge of a forest very likely shows a piece of vegetation in the foreground. Indeed, when one watches the stabilized footage (below), one notices that the anomaly's movement is conspicuously synced with that of the camera. Keep in mind, too, the decidedly poor quality of the video, which tends to blur the culprit bush in the lower right of the screen.



Far from a deliberate hoax, the Peruvian "forest" video seems to be genuine and undoctored -- but, alas, not evidence of anything unusual. (To see how a stain on a window can look vaguely paranormal, click here.)

At least, that's my take. Friend and film-maker Mike MacDonald, on Twitter, argues that the object in the Peruvian video has yet to be debunked.

As I'm now bowing out of the discussion, I encourage readers to post their own ideas.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Video quality is way too shitty to allow one to come to any sort of solid conclusions.

If it is vegetation then it may be a case of pareidolia where we are seeing a walk cycle where there is none.

Weird video for sure.

Anonymous said...

OK...here then is my opinion on the stick figure videos.

When videos like these are given the slightest bit of recognition, beyond describing them as segments of bad videos that seem to show something moving about but are entirely undiscernable as to what that something is, I feel sick. To suggest that they are possible aliens captured on video is beyond the pale. It's a real shame.

I suppose fun is fun and everyone likes a scary story so I'm just an old crabby guy who can't take a joke. I'll just put on my tin foil hat and pout in the corner for a while!

Growing more and more weary of all the crap...

Michael

Anonymous said...

it's just soooo obvious it is a static piece of vegetation, extension of the bush on the right side...

Tristan Eldritch said...

I think these videos are pretty much a waste of time. As Gareth says, the quality is so poor, you could be looking at almost anything. And, with a shape as basic as a stick, pareidolia is bound to have a field day. I think the Fortean community isn't doing anthing for its already somewhat embattled reputation by taking videos like these seriously. Hell, even if they're real, I would've expected the Unknown to look a bit more exciting or something!

Anonymous said...

While I had noted Kentaro Mori's investigatory article earlier (in comments on the first post here about Whitley Strieber's opinion about these videos), after viewing the stabilized "jungle" video several more times, I still cannot clearly see the figure walking to the right as simply pareidolia, or an artifact of vegetation combined with the camera operator's forward movement.

It still seems to be a figure who at the very end seems to be walking on legs. This is why I can't rule out CGI. But it is rather perplexing. As I said before, the overall effect is compounded by the general visual lack of focus of the video itself. As such, the "evidence" is next to useless to come to any firm conclusions. Pretty weird, though!

Anonymous said...

I think it is the tail of some monkey walking in the bushes

Anonymous said...

It has a wishing bone shape. But the legs of the wishing bone don't move. So how does it move?
Also: who is the person in the foreground? And what is he wearing? It looks like some sort of overall. Why would anybody wear a white overall in the jungle?

This is a weird video even without the moving shape in the background.

So somebody saw something moving in the background and here we are: ALIENS!

This has all the hallmarks of a hoax, or at least a big imagination.

(The formula for these things is always the same, do I need to spell it out?)

Mac said...

This has all the hallmarks of a hoax, or at least a big imagination.

Like I wrote in the post, I actually *don't* think this is a hoax -- much to my surprise. But neither do I think it depicts anything out of the ordinary. The "being" probably wasn't noticed until later, not even necessarily by whoever made the tape.

The parallax illusion that makes the foreground object appear to be in the background is subtle, so it's easy to miss.

Unknown said...

It's the large, white tipped tail of a lemur or something similar, held high in the air as it walks. The tail is disproportionatly long compared to the rest of the body hence there isn't much of the animal's body to see, but you can see it just down the bottom as it walks along. Once you realise this it's actually really hard to see it as the stick figure alien it was originally suggested as.

Anonymous said...

Holy crap, I think you've got it!

Example pictures: http://jon-atkinson.com/Lemurs.html