YouTube Videos Mystery Solved
In an article in today’s Los Angeles Times, writer David Sarno has done what no UFO aficionado dared: He has found the person responsible for the so called Haiti and Dominican Republic UFO videos (at least the man who is taking credit for them.)
The story is logical. Sarno scoured the web and finally found someone who wrote him back, offering to speak to a journalist about the videos. Soon, he was talking on the phone with someone who identified herself as “Sam” and repeated the CGI expert’s words as he talked in the background. The artist, known only by his last name of “Barzolff” has been in the computer animation business for at least ten years, and is now working on his idea for a feature film about two men who perpetrate a UFO hoax so convincing that it goes out of control.
Accompanying the article is a new video made by the hoaxer at the request of the L.A. Times in order to prove that he is the one responsible.
From Sarno’s feature:
The 35-year-old Barzolff is a professional animator who attended one of the most prestigious art schools in France and has a decade of experience with computer graphics and commercial animation.It took Barzolff a total of 17 hours to make both the Haiti and Dominican Republic videos. He did it all by himself using a MacBook Pro and a suite of commercially available 3-D animation programs, including Vue 6. The videos are 100% computer-generated.The videos, he said, were intended as research for a feature film project he’s been working on with Partizan, the France-based production company responsible for, among others, Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”When contacted to verify the story, “Eternal Sunshine” producer Georges Bermann said it was all true, and that Barzolff was “an absolute genius” who could “make anything look entirely real.”Â
Of course, there are plenty of people who won’t believe this story either.
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Aug 22 2007 
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 am
From inception to creation in 17 hours, legendary status in 24 hours, debunked in 48 hours, admitted hoax in a little over 192 hours, incalculable effects on the collective public consciousness?
2,650,887 views on YouTube, I wonder what percentage will ever realise (or accept) the cold hard facts?
A pyrrhic victory for UFOlogy? Almost certainly………………
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 am
And yet the sad thing is… many people will go on believing this video is the real thing
But this guy is really a master. And this Vue6 software is amazing. You can create all kinds of terrain, insert all types of vegetation, choose between a variety of lighting ambients, it even has wind effects!
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/?page=6
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
This is one of the features of UFOLOGY:This video will resurface in different venues over time. Perhaps 5-10 years from now, someone like myself will become newly interested in UFO’s, search around the internet & come across this video. They will then post it on some UFO bulletin board. A few people will post critical responses, then a few others will swarm in & give support to the poster, saying that we should respect all opinions. Others will say on this board, that this must be true. It just happens time & time again in this field.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I agree misteranderson. It just saddens me that the rule among ufologists, rather than the exception, is that they spend a lot of energy doing attacks and counter-attacks with people that don’t agree with their conclusions or don’t believe in the cases or witnesses they do, even if they have been proven as hoaxes or frauds years ago. Sometimes Ufology feels like a grownups PLAYGROUND where you only go play with the guys that are part of YOUR group.
There should be a peer-reviewed UFOpedia or something, a place where the cases and evidence that is supported by ALL investigators be preserved for further consultation. The France website might be the way to start.
But the problem is, who qualifies as peer in the realm of UFOlogy? How do we pick out the wheat from the chaff?
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
How can someone be called a “genius” when all they have done is cut and paste objects within a commercial off-the-shelf product? The real geniuses are the creators of Vue6 — they are the ones that made the incredibly realistic terrain, lighting effects, vegetation, and even wind effects possible. Without Vue6, Barzolff would be totally helpless.
Not to mention, this whole thing is still getting way too much attention, which is just going to lead to all kinds of Hollywood animator wannabees inundating YouTube and UFO “researchers” with their latest UFO creations — which will only serve to discredit the UFO community all the more because their attention will be on CGI instead of the real thing (whatever that may be). I guess the UFO community doesn’t care about their reputation or credibility.
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I understand your point The-Sage, but as a user of CGI software myself, and knowing how incredibly complex and HARD to use they really are, I cannot help but admire the talent of an artist that makes such visually convincing footage… even if their ultimate effect on the UFO community will be a negative one.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Hey all,
Once again, I do not believe that the UFO community will EVER be taken completely seriously until the phenomenon (or perhaps some unequivocal announcement by a world power) decides that UFOs are a serious object of study. At that point, no one will listen to the shrill cries of “We told you so!”
What they will be listening to is the authorities who used to ignore or make fun of the subject hurriedly trying to explain their confusion, or making up some story line that makes them look as if they were in control all the time, but didn’t tell us because we were “not ready.”
In my opinion, these videos are fun to watch, and teach us that almost no UFO video, film, or photo can be considered “real” anymore. What are Ufologists supposed to do, lobby for the criminalization of computer- generated imagery on the internet? Ask the record companies how successful that strategy can be.
Better to examine media produced before the advent of CGI. If those don’t convince a skeptical public, there is not much else that will, short of what I mentioned at the beginning.
UFO hobbyists can argue all they want about the videos. Not many people care about their opinions anyway. Most of them suspected or denounced the Haiti stuff all along.
P.S. The smarties who created Vue-6 have as much chance as anyone to be recognized for their accomplishments: It’s called the Academy Awards. Also, if it was so easy to use, film studios could pay any geeky kid a pittance to create complicated graphics. Maybe that will happen in the future.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Just a reminder, the kid was called an “absolute genius”, not simply just a very talented artist. He is an artist but he most certainly is not a genius. Like I said, the real geniuses are the authors of Vue6.
I remember a very talented video put together in 1997 called the Mexico City UFO. That wasn’t done with CGI — which proves it doesn’t take CGI or much else to fool the UFO community. If we look at the video the same way we are looking at the Haiti video, we can’t trust any videos before the Mexico City video.