Koi UFO Video 112: "Ball Lightning" UFO over Canberra (2016)
[DEBUNKED] Koi UFO Video 112 appears to show a large ball of light appearing in the night sky above Canberra, which slowly fades away.
This video obtained approximately 485,000 views within its first 14 days online and featured in various press articles, including on websites of various high-circulation British tabloid newspapers (including The Daily Mail and The Sun). Some commentators on the video suggested it showed a UFO, while others suggested it showed ball lightning.
In fact, the video was a hoax. The hoaxer released a video admitting the hoax within a few days of uploading his original video. The new video was entitled "How i accidently created a hoax". It explained that the creator of the video had bought the Adobe After Effects video editing/compositing software the previous week and he ended up creating a hoaxed video by compositing a daylight shot of Canberra with a night shot of the same area, with footage of northern lights being added to the sky. The "vortex" in the video was a particle simulation created using the free "blender" software package. Additional image manipulation (e.g. shadows and highlights) were performed using Photoshop.
Media coverage of the admission of the hoax was more extensive than usual. I would estimate the number of relevant articles at about half those that covered the original "UFO" video (which is a lot better than usual...) . Similarly, while the number of views of the video admitting the hoax was rather high relative to most such confession videos, it still only received about half as many views as the original "UFO" video. I would be prepared to wager that the "UFO" video will circulate on Facebook and elsewhere during the coming year/years whereas the video admitting the hoax is considerably less likely to be remembered.
Sections below:
2. Stories and claims relating to this video
3. The real background to this video
4. Relevant online discussions
1. The relevant video
Koi UFO Video 112 appears to show a light appearing in the night sky above Canberra, which slowly fades away.
Screen shots from the video are included below for ease of identification:
2. Stories and claims relating to this video
This video was uploaded to Youtube on 3 January 2016 by "Johnson Thompson" with the title "Strange Lights above canberra 03/01/16".
This video obtained approximately 485,000 views within its first 14 days online.
That relatively high number of views within such a short period appears in part to be due to amount of press coverage, including on the websites of several British tabloid newspapers.
For example, the website of one British tabloid newspaper (the Daily Mail) included an article on 5 January 2016 entitled "Mysterious spherical light filmed lighting up the sky above Canberra sparks 'extraterrestrial' claims on social media" which included the following:
"In the video the sky is illuminated by lightning and a greenish red hue, when suddenly a bright white orb shines in the centre of the dark sky and appears to burst into nothingness and fade away.
An outline of the orb can be seen in the sky for a few seconds before it completely disappears.
Suggestions have been made that extraterrestrial activity could been linked to the incident some going as far as to say that the footage shows a UFO exiting a portal from another dimension".
That article also reported on speculation on Reddit and Youtube that the video might show ball lightning.
Similarly, the website of another British tabloid newspaper (The Sun) included an article in January 2016 entitled 'Is this a UFO exiting a portal from another dimension? Bizarre flash of light sparks 'extra-terrestrial' claims". That article included the following:
"A BRIGHT orb briefly lit up the skies in Canberra, Australia before disappearing - sparking claims it was a UFO exiting another dimension. ...
Others suggested the video was a hoax but Brad Tucker, an Australian National University astronomer, told ABC: "It's probably not photoshop. Everything kind of fits and it seems right." Others suggested the video was a hoax but Brad Tucker, an Australian National University astronomer, told ABC: "It's probably not photoshop. Everything kind of fits and it seems right.""
3. The real background to this video
In fact, this video was a hoax. The hoaxer released a video admitting the hoax within a few days of uploading his original video. The new video, released on 8 January 2016, was entitled "How i accidently created a hoax". It explained that the creator of the video had bought the Adobe After Effects video editing/compositing software the previous week and he ended up creating a hoaxed video by compositing a daylight shot of Canberra with a night shot of the same area, with footage of northern lights being added to the sky. The "vortex" in the video was a particle simulation created using the free "blender" software package. Additional image manipulation (e.g. shadows and highlights) were performed using Photoshop.
Unusually, the video containing the admission of the hoax obtained a significant number of views. It obtained approximately 250,000 views in its first 10 days online. (Often, follow-up videos showing how a UFO hoax was created only get a minuscule number of views compared to the original hoax videos).
This may be related to the (unusually extensive) press coverage of the admission of the hoax e.g. on news websites in Australia. One article included the following (basically just summarising the contents of the follow-up video containing the admission of a hoax):
"A ‘UFO sighting’ over Canberra which was picked up by media outlets around the world was in fact a video editing exercise, according to a YouTube user.
The video, which showed a peculiar ball of light exploding over Australia’s capital, resulted in a whirlwind of speculation on what could be responsible for the phenomenon.
Ball lightning was one explanation. Unsurprisingly, aliens were another.
But, proving yet again that the simplest solution is probably the best, YouTuber Johnson Thompson said it was an experiment gone wrong that set the viral ‘hoax’ in motion."
While media coverage of the admission of the hoax was more extensive than usual, I would estimate the number of relevant articles at about half those that covered the original "UFO" video. Similarly, while the number of views of the video admitting the hoax was rather high relative to most such confession videos, it still only received about half as many views as the original "UFO" video. I would be prepared to wager that the "UFO" video will circulate on Facebook and elsewhere during the coming year/years whereas the video admitting the hoax is considerably less likely to be remembered.
4. Relevant online discussions
Relevant discussions on the AboveTopSecret.com forum include the following:
2016 (January) discussion entitled "Strange Lights above canberra 03/01/16"
Other relevant online discussions include a discussion in January 2016 on the "Discuss" Facebook page (a UFO discussion group on Facebook).
