Why are journalists so stupid? Or is that a question that I’ve asked so many times now that it seems rhetorical? The Melbourne Age this morning carries a story (in the Technology section, no less) that has been doing the rounds for the last few days about a ‘UFO’ that supposedly appeared over Temple Mount in Jerusalem on January 28. Here is the YouTube video of that event that is causing all the conniptions. Be sure to ooh and aah like the people on the soundtrack won’t you? ((We’ve see ’em in Mississippi like this, but never like that!, drawls one of the voices who I’m sure I recognize as one of the intellectual geniuses from the Paulding Light video.))

Now I’d like to contemplate the following image that anyone can freely download from Wikipedia Commons, and which took me, oh, all of ten seconds to locate.

Pay particular attention to the star shapes on the streetlights, the position of lighted windows and the haze in the air. Seem familiar? Here, let me crop it for you…

And blur it up a little bit…

And stick a blob of ‘light’ in it…

And add some lens flare…

What’s that you say? A bit too ‘Close Encounters’ with the lens flare…? You think?

Well, I doubt even that would have put Mr Tom Kendrick, from wherever-the-fuck, off the scent of this ‘elaborate hoax’ that he apparently thinks is going to ‘fuel debate for many a year.’ Seriously, I’m going to start campaigning for a minimal intelligence test before we let people, especially journalists, use the internet.

Now I know that these are only still images, but it would have been no more difficult, had I wished to waste the time, for me to have made an animated video that exactly matched the one posted on YouTube. THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, Mr Newspaper Pillock! We all have computers with pretty good video and image editing software!

If you read the article in the Age (and seriously, I really don’t blame you if you’d decided to stick your tongue in the electrical socket instead) you would have also discovered that this is the second of two videos of this mysterious UFO. Here’s the other one:

This time we hear a couple of guys talking (I don’t recognize the language) and the ‘mysterious light’ drops from high in the sky down into the scene (it’s hard to tell if it’s ‘hovering over the Temple’, but hey, if they say so…). Then there are a couple of flashes of light and the UFO zips skywards, to the surprise of the onlookers. Needless to say, this would also have been a trivial thing to whip up in After Effects. Quite obviously, the first video was made by someone who thought it would be a hoot to give the second one some corroboration. Anyone with an ounce of brain matter can figure all this out in about three keystrokes.

It’s not really so surprising to me that people indulge in pranks of this kind. It’s fun and amusing. It’s not so surprising either, that when they post it up on YouTube we get all kinds of idiots debating its authenticity. What is surprising is the complete and utter incredulity of people like reporter Tom Kendrick, his employers and all the ‘news’papers who carry these brainless stories. ((Not to mention the dribbling sub-moronic attempt to draw a religious connection:

Sunni Muslims believe it was from the mount that Muhammad ascended to heaven, and it also represents one of the most important sites in the Jewish faith.

And that’s supposed to tie in with space aliens… how? Or is it an angel maybe? Or the Hand of God? Who the fuck left the Stupid Tap running?))

For Christ’s sake people – you look like drooling hillbillies with grass up your asses when you run things like this.

Hyuck hyuck… lookie Bobby Joe… there’n anutha one of them thar UFOs… go get pappy’s shotgun an’ we’ll see if we ken bag us a alyen!