Entry tags:

journalism

Fake it so real you're beyond fake
Donna Kossy, the author of Kooks, wrote that the difference between kooks and con artists is that kooks believe. They'll spend their last dollar on mimographing their guide to male pregnancy instead of buying food. If their sincerity is less than total, they're not true kooks, just a mere con artist.

However, the difference is actually a lot blurrier. Remember the old alleged Roswell alien autopsy video? According to the Times, a special effects artist, John Homphreys, has said that he made the gray alien out of animal parts.

So, case closed, right? It's just a fake and it can be filed alongside the Piltdown man and PT Barnum's mermaid.

However, Ray Santilli, a London-based video distributor who first presented the footage, says that he has, or had, a real alien autopsy film.

Santilli... insists he was trying to “re-create” a real Roswell incident. He claims he bought genuine footage that was badly damaged when it was exposed to the air after 48 years in a can. “John was given very precise images to work with and what he did was sheer genius,” he said.

So, let's get this story straight: Santilli had a genuine film of a real alien autopsy which, however, wasn't usable. That is, it wouldn't convince anybody of its authenticity, despite having convinced Santilli. Santilli therefore (re)creates the film with actors and special effects and offers it to the world as the real, original film, presumably in the hope that this would convince people of its authenticity. Except that he doesn't offer the actual film, just videos of the film, further undermining his credibility.

Assuming, for the moment, that Santilli is sincere, his sincerity is so strong that he will fake evidence. That's where the kook and the con artist overlap. The main difference is which comes first, the lying or the belief.

That's why I think faking evidence, no matter how justified you think it is, is wrong.