UFO hoax Southern UK

[AgeGap]

A few years ago a UFO hoax was set up and televised. The hoax consisted of making a big silver balloon and powering it by electical motors. It was remote controlled. I have recently looking for info on it but have come to a dead end. The net is awash with 'real' UFOs and it is like finding a needle in a haystack. Any links or info please?

 

[EHocking]

A few years ago a UFO hoax was set up and televised. The hoax consisted of making a big silver balloon and powering it by electical motors. It was remote controlled. I have recently looking for info on it but have come to a dead end. The net is awash with 'real' UFOs and it is like finding a needle in a haystack. Any links or info please?

Was this it?

http://www.apra.org.uk/A_Very_British_UFO_Hoax.htm
http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/781486?view=transmission

 

[AgeGap]

It was, thank you.

 

[EHocking]

It was, thank you.

I couldn't find any video of it, but I do remember making sure I didn't miss it. I can remember be a touch disappointed in the reaction of the punters to it after all the effort they went to. But it *was* a very good "UFO". Choosing Avebury, druid and crop circle country, was a smart move - they missed a bigger audience for the flight due to delays in the launch, unfortunately.

 

[Explorer]

What was the point of the exercise? That many people mistake aerial objects man-made, and natural, for alien craft? We knew that already!

 

[walthrup48]

A few years ago a UFO hoax was set up and televised. The hoax consisted of making a big silver balloon and powering it by electical motors. It was remote controlled. I have recently looking for info on it but have come to a dead end. The net is awash with 'real' UFOs and it is like finding a needle in a haystack. Any links or info please?

Join ASKE and request to borrow AVBUFOH from their media library.

 

[Seismosaurus]

What was the point of the exercise? That many people mistake aerial objects man-made, and natural, for alien craft? We knew that already!

To show that such things can indeed be faked. To see how easily people swallow such a thing.

 

[lister]

The thing that I remember most about that show was the massively varying eye witness reports. Some said it was a few inches across, others said it was huge (it was actually about 3 meters if I remember rightly). Some got the wrong shape altogether, and others invented lights and numbers on it.

A brilliant example of how badly people percieve and remember things.

 

[Uncle Feedle]

I have a copy of this, recorded from the original broadcast. The special effects company that built the UFO had a lot of problems making it work.

First, the gas envelope was too baggy and wrinkled and didn't give the required illusion of a solid object. Then they found the electric motors were too large to fit the housings they had made. They intended to power it with a 25hp generator, but found the whole assembly was hugely overweight and had to resort to stacks of household batteries. They then had problems controlling it, although they eventually solved this by adding a cardboard spoiler.
The guys who built the UFO were not at all happy with how things were turning out, and this comes across very clearly!

The UFO looked pretty good on film and from a distance, but wasn't convincing close-up apparently. It made a lot of noise, which rather gave the game away. During the flight, they had seven operators controlling it (including a radio-controlled aircraft world champion), in contact with walkie-talkies. The UFO went off course, then they had communication problems and were forced to end the flight by dumping the helium.

Avebury was definitely a good choice of location. The place is a haven for dowsers and new-age nuts. The production company timed the event to coincide with a meeting of UFO enthusiasts outside a local pub, with a stooge calling their attention to it. The ruse was very obvious to them however, and none of this was ever shown or mentioned in the programme.

There was definitely some selective editing going on to make the whole thing seem more effective than it was, with accounts from the most convinced eyewitnesses only and none of those who saw straight through it. However, it made the news in the UK and Mexico and many people WERE fooled by it.

 

[Southwind17]

The thing that I remember most about that show was the massively varying eye witness reports. Some said it was a few inches across, others said it was huge (it was actually about 3 meters if I remember rightly)

Hey, don't go falling into the same trap now!!!

Some got the wrong shape altogether, and others invented lights and numbers on it.

A brilliant example of how badly people percieve and remember things.

It gets worse. I was severely chastised during my first OP here for placing too much confidence in my memory of a past event. I now accept the error of my ways, and have humbly corrected it, at least in that regard!

I did, however, seek solace from my wife, and she reminded me (I'd forgotten!) of a TV programme we once watched whereby a number of people were asked, separately, with a little prompting, to describe a hot-air balloon trip that they had once taken. Many of the participants were amazed to learn, afterwards, that much of the important detail had been 'recalled' incorrectly, the reason being that they had never even taken the balloon trip! The planting of the idea alone triggered the rapid creation of a real-life event in the participants' minds.

 

[Rolfe]

I was severely chastised during my first OP here for placing too much confidence in my memory of a past event. I now accept the error of my ways, and have humbly corrected it, at least in that regard!

I had an interesting example of that recently. I saw a French and Saunders episode some years ago in which the trompe l'oeil cinematography used to fake the height differences of the characters in Lord of the Rings was cleverly spoofed. I saw it only once.

Recently, in the course of debating a CTer who couldn't seem to realise how difficult it can be to asssess the size of an object in a still photograph, I cited the episode. I described a certain part in some detail.

Another forum member found the clip on YouTube and posted the link. I was startled to see how long it was, over 20 minutes, and in fact the part I'd remembered took up only a couple of minutes of that. The part I remembered I had significantly elaborated on, remembering it as more detailed than in actually was, while I'd totally forgotten most of the rest of it. I also remembered it as "better" than it appeared on YouTube, though that could partly have been an effect of the lower quality video.

I wasn't that far off, nobody would have read my description and then shouted "you were wrong", but when I re-watched it I could see that what I'd remembered was significantly different from what I'd actually seen.

Rolfe.