While Unidentified Flying Objects have been reported since man first looked up at the sky, the modern phenomenon of the “flying saucer” has only been in the public’s consciousness since 1947, the year of both the Kenneth Arnold sightings and the Roswell incident.
Interest ever since has always been fairly strong, enhanced at times by world events or popular media. But it wasn’t until the advent of the Internet, and more specifically YouTube, that thousands of clips of UFO footage have been available to view on demand.
For entertainment purposes (rather than any deeper conspiracy theories), we’ve trawled YouTube for UFO clips, and have pulled together a list of ten of the very best hoaxes, “unexplained” footage, fakes, and “mysterious” home movies. So, put on your tin foil hat and press play now. As always, be sure to let us know your favorites in the comments below.
1. New York UFO Sighting
This promo for a sci-fi TV channel employs a classic premise for fake film clips. It's the old tourist recording a video set-up trick and keeps minimal focus on the UFO, to great effect.
2. UFO Haiti
Since revealed to be a "social experiment," which we guess is a fancy name for a hoax, the original video (not embeddable) racked up over 10 million views before the creator admitted to the LA Times it was made with special effects -- something suspected by many owing to the uniformity of the trees. And the fact it appears to depict a freakin' flying saucer.
3. Green Sphere UFO – Original Hoax – CGI
TheFakingHoaxer is a master of the art of CGI UFO clips. What we like about this "green sphere" effort is how the UFO's form factor is not the norm, making it a more believable clip.
4. UFO Caught on Live TV News! Turkey!
This is really nicely done, apart from one small detail. Shouldn't the people be running away from the saucers rather than towards them? Have they not seen Independence Day?
5. 2 UFOs visit the Space Shuttle – by TFH – CGI
More outstanding CGI from TheFakingHoaxer, this time backed up with convincing dialogue too.
6. Mexico City UFO footage – 1997
Mexico, and Mexico City in particular, seem to be some kind of sky highway for UFOs. Perhaps they're all visiting Jaime Maussan. Whatever the reason, this flying saucer clip from way back in 1997 got a lot of folks very excited.
7. UFO OVER PARIS
These aliens are different. In addition to moving away from the traditional disc-shaped craft (let's face it, that was getting really old) they decided to drop in on Paris rather than the usual hotspots of Mexico City and -- God forbid -- Phoenix.
8. OVNI en Mexico
Another Mexican entrant to the top ten, this OVNI (Objeto Volador No Identificado) has been created with CGI by a clever computer whiz to show off his skills. At least, that's what he claims...
9. Huge UFO Over Shanghai China
We really enjoyed this clever spoof that mixes real footage of crowds in Shanghai reacting to the Human Spider scaling a building, with CGI footage of a huge alien craft. It's all pieced together with a news report format and voiceover. Nicely done.
10. UFO Triangle/Pyramid Over the Kremlin, Moscow
This footage of a sinister-looking black pyramid hovering over the Kremlin was backed up by similar, if shorter, footage captured during the day. It was convincing enough for major news outlets across the world to pick it up and run with it in December 2009.
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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Redemption
Tags: hoaxes, List, Lists, spoofs, ufos, videos, viral videos, web hoaxes, youtube