Koi UFO Video 103 : Pi in the Sky (skywriting)
[DEBUNKED] Koi UFO Video 103 appears to show a list of numbers being written in the sky.
Copies of this video appeared online in 2012 with titles such as "UFO MAKES WRITING APPEAR IN SKY 2012".
As discussed below, relevant video shows skywriting was done as part of an "ephemeral installation" (or, in short, a type of art project) above the San Francisco Bay Area on 12 September 2012 by Californian artist Ishky collaborating with art and technology network Zero1. A team of five synchronized AirSign aircraft equipped with dot-matrix technology followed a flight pattern that wrote the first 314 characters of pi’s infinite sequence.
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
This video appears to show a list of numbers being written in the sky.
Screen shots from this video are included below for ease of identification.
2. Stories and claims relating to this video
Copies of this video appeared online in 2012 with titles such as "UFO MAKES WRITING APPEAR IN SKY 2012".
3. The real background to this video
This video shows skywriting done as part of an "ephemeral installation" (or, in short, a type of art project) above the San Francisco Bay Area on 12 September 2012 by Californian artist Ishky collaborating with art and technology network Zero1.
An article on the Cnet.com website on 13 September 2012 entitled reported the following regarding the
"Many denizens of the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley noticed a long series of cloudy numbers in the skies around noon on Wednesday, September 12. No, their coffee wasn't spiked with hallucinogens."
"The ephemeral event, known as Pi in the Sky, utilized five aircraft with dot-matrix skywriting technology to write out a thousand numbers of the beloved mathematical constant pi (3.14159..) at a 10,000-foot altitude. If that wasn't impressive enough, the numerals of pi written in the sky each stood nearly a quarter-mile tall, stretched for a 100-mile loop, and undoubtedly caused mass inspiration and confusion all at once."
...
"A quick search on Flickr and YouTube reveals that many people found themselves confused by the numbers in the sky, with theories ranging from a phone number, chemtrails, secret code, and other conspiracy theories."
"California artist Ishky collaborated with art and technology network Zero1 on the geeky endeavor, billed "as largest physical expression of pi ever created" and part of the 2012 Zero1 Biennial, a massive Bay Area event that celebrates the convergence of contemporary art and technology."
The website of the relevant artist, Ishky, states:
"Merging art and technology, Ben Davis brought together a team of artists, programmers and scientists giving life to a compelling vision that a community of millions directly experienced. The conceptual work, Pi In The Sky, explores the boundaries of scale, public space, impermanence, and the relationship between Earth and the physical universe."
"Pi In The Sky has two unique interpretations, one within Earth’s atmosphere and one well beyond it:"
"At 10,000 feet altitude a team of five synchronized AirSign aircraft equipped with dot-matrix technology will follow a flight pattern that forms the infinity symbol and write the first 314 characters of pi’s infinite sequence around the San Francisco Bay Area. Each number will measure more than a quarter-mile in height".
The "Pi in the Sky" event had an official Facebook page and a website giving more details. That website links to a video on Vimeo which shows how "AirSign USA creates the first 314 characters of Pi’s infinite and non-repeating sequence in a 100+ mile arc over the greater Austin area (Fall 2013), San Francisco Bay Area (Spring 2013) and New York City (Summer 2014)". A very similar video showing the Airsign USA team in operation can be found on Youtube:
Airsign USA has a website offering various forms of aerial advertising, including skywriting.
Incidentally, several of the Youtube pages for relevant videos include comments from eyewitnesses that said that they were able to see the airplanes from the ground. For example, the video below has a comment posted by GregFernandezJr includes the following:
"i understand. in this video you cannot see the planes because they are too far away, and they are black or blue in color. with my own eyes i could see them, but while i was driving i could not, nor could i while filming. with a better camera, perhaps it would have been caught."
4. Relevant online discussions
Relevant discussions on the AboveTopSecret.com forum include the following:
2012 (December) discussion entitled "Skywriters "Pi in the Sky" work now being described online as showing "UFO" writing"
