Spotting Hoaxes - How Reliable Are Photos Anyway?

In a word, NOT!. Photographic editing capabilities are continuing to advance. What a few years ago would require a sophisticated photo lab can now be done by anyone with a computer and Photoshop. With digital imaging even the lack of EXIF data is not definitive. There are ways hoaxers can even edit that!

However you can at least use technology to rule out all but the best hoaxes. It takes time though, and if someone is good enough even your best efforts will fall short. Take a look at the picture below of a large bird reported to have been spotted in Ohio. One witness said it stood so tall he saw it reach DOWN and snatch a woodpecker from the TOP of a telephone pole! (All we need here is a bit of embellishment and a few terrified locals and we have the next big creature report!)

Actually this was done here, a poor job at a paste up, but done to show a couple things to look for. I intentionally used two good quality pictures and did not attempt to hide a couple obvious problems. In most cases paranormal hoaxes use pictures which are already somewhat blurred or dark, which makes hoaxing even easier.

The first obvious flaw is easily spotted. Note the shadows on the roof from the chimney. The position puts the sun above and behind the photographer. The bird is stretching its neck around the chimney, yet casts no shadow. That would be enough right there to qualify this one as a hoax. But there is yet another test we can put it to.

This is a blowup of the roof line and the bird's neck. Often when a paste up is done pixels are misplaced. Note the ones circled on the neck. These are residuals left over from the paste process. They are caused when compression is not compensated for in the paste process. Often they are not as noticable as these as someone actually making a hoaxed image will go in and remove them. But they are usually there, and a careful examination of the image will reveal them.

Another problem is evident along the tree tops where green meets blue. The original is well defined however on the paste up there is quite a bit of mismatched color in ajoining pixels. This is especially noticable anywhere there is a high contrast area in the picture. It too is caused by compression and is the result of layering done improperly.

I am not really artistic, nor am I particularly good with Paint or Photoshop, but I was able to crop and layer this image in less than 30 minutes. Imagine what someone who is skilled at this could do if they set their mind to it.

The next image was captured in a house where haunting activity was noted. This one is not Photoshopped, and I can tell you the humidity did not play a part in it. If you compare the ghost to the ceiling it is evident the ghost only stands about 3 feet tall. If you look carefully you can make out a face in this four legged creature. So what is it?

It is fake, that's what it is. Actually it also serves as an example of paraedolia as well. It is me. It was taken using a long shutter speed and a black light source. No flash was used. So why is only part of me visible? I was wearing cotton jeans which were reactive under the black light. My shirt was not, nor is any exposed skin. Thus the only thing seen is my jeans. I stood in one spot a couple seconds, then jumped to another position and held that before leaping out of the frame. Thus the four legged creature with a bit of motion blur!

This just shows that seeing is not always believing, and that we need to be cautious before we accept any evidence of anything claimed without first examining it carefully.