SIGNALS OF A HOAX: UFOS AND RADIO CONTROL
(originally published Feb 2012)
Like CGI, RC has forever blurred what is real and what is not in the world of UFOs. Radio Control (or Remote Control) is more prevalent and accessible today than ever before. And in recent years there have been astounding advances in such remote signal technology. Its cost is no longer prohibitive. CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) has today made our ability to trust any UFO video on sites such as YouTube very difficult. In the same way, because of RC, we cannot be certain that UFO sightings made today are ‘real’ or not. RC vehicles likely account for many UFO sightings, whether they are intended as hoaxes or whether they are simply misidentified as extraterrestrial vehicles when seen in flight.
Regular readers know that I am not a skeptic and that I am convinced of the reality of the visiting alien. But I am also a critical thinker and know that the compulsion to hoax is often a dynamic that is ignored to the detriment of UFO proponents. We have to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. We must be aware of emerging technologies that may impact on the veracity or truth of reported UFO sightings. Just as Kodak and Polaroid ignored the digital revolution, the UFO research community was slow to realize the enormity of the use of CGI and Photoshop imagery in purported UFO films and photos. Similarly, we are now in danger of ignoring the potentially enormous role that RC technology increasingly plays in ‘things UFO’ and how hoaxes are made.
KIDS ON RC
Rather than focus on expert RC engineers and industry professionals and their incredible capabilities, I have opted to highlight amateur attempts at UFO radio controlled flight. All of these filmed “UFO experiments” are ‘homemade’ or are done by small operations, teenagers or younger people. These short video clips may provide insight into the true nature of many historic UFO sightings and footage. Perhaps found within these films are the solutions to past UFO mysteries and to those that will no doubt be encountered in the future:
Stunning 12 Second Clip of a Fake Flying Saucer
(Appears like a tailless circular craft zipping impossibly through the clouds):
Saudi Teen Creates UFO More Convincing than CGI
(Advance/begin at :51 seconds and compare to similar ‘genuine’ UFO footage):
Balloon RC that Could be an Answer to Socorro
(Note footage from 1:39 if Zamora’s red insignia were emblazoned on its side):
RCs and UFOs
Advances in radio signal and digital technology (combined with advances in ‘craft’ flight stabilization) have enabled even the average kid to do this:
Note about one-quarter of the way through this brief video of an RC, that it is capable of silent hovering and of extreme vertical takeoff like a shotgun (and like many UFOs are purported to be able to do).
Today’s RC capabilities are indeed amazing, but even the technology's beginnings were impressive. The first known public use of remote radio control technology was in demonstrating the maneuvering of a small boat at a distance by Tesla in 1898. During WWII (and afterward with the advent of the transistor), this technology was further perfected for military, aerial and industrial applications. But by the early 1950s, “remote control” model vehicles and hobbyist aircraft (often self-built) were in the hands of many high school and college-age males with a geek sense. By the 1960s (as recounted by a mid-1960s alum of New Mexico Tech) students in Socorro had constructed an unidentified aerial ‘vehicle’ controlled by radio signals that jammed operations at White Sands!
From that period on, RC was perfected by hobbyists and hoaxers while ignored by UFO “investigators” as a possible solution to some sightings.
Today there are whole ‘underground’ online communities that bring together RC hobbyists with a special interest in fake UFOs. When the angle and light is just right, the “RC UFOs” are indistinguishable from the “real UFOS.” This may require us to reevaluate film and photos from the past, and to be far more vigilant in the future.