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 New Species! The Blurry Mammoth
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard

3192 Posts

Posted - 02/08/2012 :  13:59:10  Show Profile Send BigPapaSmurf a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Link to article

Those Paragons of journalism over at the SUN UK have posted a new video of a living wolly mammoth, the quality and length of footage would make any Squach hunter proud.

"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History

"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini

Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 02/08/2012 :  16:00:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Oh good. I'm sending this one over to Monster Talk.

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 02/08/2012 :  16:58:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I think four things:

1. It's a real-enough pachyderm, an Asian Elephant.

2. It was filmed in the foothills of India or Nepal, not Siberia.

3. The footage is blurred precisely in order to obscure points 1 and 2.

4. Give me a break!

Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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The Rat
SFN Regular

Canada
1370 Posts

Posted - 02/09/2012 :  07:21:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit The Rat's Homepage Send The Rat a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by HalfMooner

I think four things:

1. It's a real-enough pachyderm, an Asian Elephant.

2. It was filmed in the foothills of India or Nepal, not Siberia.

3. The footage is blurred precisely in order to obscure points 1 and 2.

4. Give me a break!


Occam's razor is on your side. I thought at first it might have been some kind of CGI, but if so it's a good one. You can see white water where the flow hits the legs, and the white moves with the 'mammoth', so they would have thought that through.

From the article: "The third theory is the sighting shows a bear eating a huge fish." Possibly. Take a look at where the 'trunk' meets the face, it looks a bit skinny.


Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.

You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II

Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 02/09/2012 :  08:43:32   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
This was posted at the Monster Talk facebook page by Blake Smith, one of the people who does the Monster Talk podcast:
Blake Smith
OK - for those of us who are really interested in Cryptozoology in a meta-sense, in a psychology/sociology sense, reading the discussions here and at Cryptomundo on this "mammoth" video is very informative. It is TOTALLY comparable to the Patterson-Gimlin film. Some people see a mammoth. Some people see a bear with a fish. Some people see tusks - some people don't. Some people see bear ears, some people see mammoth ears.

In the PGF people see muscle movement and all kinds of details that may or may not be there. One person's muscle is another's granulated blob of film artifact.

This video is posted by The Sun. This would be like breaking news from The Weekly World News. My only direct interest is whether or not the thing is CG or an actual animal. (I'm still leaning way over toward CG - but I could be wrong.)

Will we ever get a direct answer? Very unlikely. Most of these hoax videos just sort of fade away unanswered.


Based on other comments of his, he's leaning toward CGI. But others see a bear.

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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Fripp
SFN Regular

USA
727 Posts

Posted - 02/09/2012 :  09:32:40   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Fripp a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Forget about the mammoth. Check out the story in the right sidebar with the pic of Hitler in lederhosen, leaning provocatively against a tree. It looks like a shot from a vintage Honcho or Uncut mag. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

"What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only 2-meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! You have any idea what this is going to do to my credit?!?!"

"What? Oh, oh, 'just rebuild it'? Oh, real [bleep]ing original. And who's gonna give me a loan, jackhole? You? You got an ATM on that torso LiteBrite?"
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 02/09/2012 :  13:05:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
As someone who prides themselves on their ability to spot this kind of thing, I say it definitely looks like CGI.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 02/09/2012 :  21:14:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The bear hypothesis is interesting, and I can kinda see it as that. But the movement stepping through the water seems more ponderous than bears I've seen.

I can also (barely) make out a short tusk. I really think this is simply an elephant wading across an Asian river. I certainly can't rule out CGI, but I don't see it. But, at least, unlike Bigfoot, this is almost certainly not a guy in a suit.

By the way, for those who claim to see mammoth ears (I could make out no ears in the blurred and grainy video), what a mammoth should have are very small ears, compared to all modern elephants, an adaptation to cold climates, probably. Asian elephant ears are midway in size between mammoths and African elephants. Then, again, I distinguish no ears at all.

The blurring, I think, is deliberate, to hide details of the purported animal and its environment. Blurring would be useful to obscure either an Asian elephant in Nepal, or the flaws in a GCI critter.

Ever notice that all cryptozoologists are completely incompetent with video and film cameras?*



* I took the same videography course those guys did. Here's a still I captured of Elvis.

Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/09/2012 22:09:01
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 02/09/2012 :  22:27:53   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Ha!

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 02/10/2012 :  01:31:42   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by HalfMooner
But the movement stepping through the water seems more ponderous than bears I've seen.
That "ponderousness," that plodding walk is partly what makes me say CGI. It's a repetitive animation, made easier to execute by the lack of legs. It doesn't even have to be all that detailed of a model because of the distance and slight blur effect they've added. The color also seems somehow unnatural to me. My gut tells me it's a fake.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 02/13/2012 :  19:39:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The man who shot the original video has come forward and...it's a hoax.
Ludovic Petho filmed the river scene during a 10-day solo hike in the mountains as part of a video project he's working on about his grandfather's escape from a Siberian POW camp in 1915 and his walk across Siberia to Budapest, Hungary. The footage may end up being used in a documentary film — but there's one big difference between the video he shot and the woolly mammoth video.

"I don't recall seeing a mammoth; there were bears, deer, and sable," he said in an interview with Life's Little Mysteries. "But no woolly mammoths. I had no idea my footage was used to make this fake sighting." Petho noted that his original video had been available on YouTube since July 2011, depicting an exactly identical scene — minus the faked woolly mammoth, of course.
Seems like somebody found his footage and thought it would make the perfect setting for a digital mammoth.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 02/13/2012 :  21:05:41   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by H. Humbert

The man who shot the original video has come forward and...it's a hoax.
Ludovic Petho filmed the river scene during a 10-day solo hike in the mountains as part of a video project he's working on about his grandfather's escape from a Siberian POW camp in 1915 and his walk across Siberia to Budapest, Hungary. The footage may end up being used in a documentary film — but there's one big difference between the video he shot and the woolly mammoth video.

"I don't recall seeing a mammoth; there were bears, deer, and sable," he said in an interview with Life's Little Mysteries. "But no woolly mammoths. I had no idea my footage was used to make this fake sighting." Petho noted that his original video had been available on YouTube since July 2011, depicting an exactly identical scene — minus the faked woolly mammoth, of course.
Seems like somebody found his footage and thought it would make the perfect setting for a digital mammoth.


Oh, rich! No wonder nobody else in the room saw the elephant that I thought I saw.

Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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