The Pulse Nightclub massacre one year later

Like so many, I suffer from mass shooting fatigue. Every one I have ever looked at was easily seen to be fake. People are naturally repulsed by human suffering, and yet drawn to its edge. It is the revulsion, our essential goodness, that prevents us from making investigative inquiry.

The amount of planning that goes into each event is extensive. Given the details involved in constructing fake lives for 49 fake people, it is surely the work of scores, if not hundreds of people. As with advertising, the beating heart of fake massacres is behavioral psychology. Add to that script writers, photo manipulation experts, location scouts, drill planners, and Crisis Actors.

It might help the reader at the outset here to understand that while the Pulse massacre of June 12, 2016 was a fake event, no illegal act was committed. No one was killed. Lies were told aplenty, but that is not illegal. No law requires news outlets to tell us the truth. If there were such laws, “news” would quickly disappear, replaced by some other form of entertainment.

You might ask why – why do they fake these events? The answer should please you. If they did not fake these events, there would be no events! People are good. We do not go around randomly shooting each other … not even Muslims do that. (Please note the sarcasm. I don’t have access to emoticons.)  There is violence among us, most of it fueled by alcohol and drugs, but it is of the one-on-one type – bar fights, broken romances, desperation. Add raging hormones, and life is quite a trip.

Our overseers routinely feed our base fears with the idea that there are people among us who randomly murder complete strangers. That scares us and makes us crave protection.  That in turn makes our enslavement that much easier.

Many wonder how so many people can be involved and not confess. For the most part, the professionals involved, police, hospital and rescue people, are just regular people who think they are taking part in a drill. Later their silence is bought. The essence of the fake massacre is the drill. These are done routinely for people employed in the military, law enforcement and medical fields. When drill participants learn later that it was treated as a real event by the news media, they are advised to keep quiet about it under threat of loss of job. Beyond that, given the millions of dollars raised for “victims,” they could as easily be paid for their silence, signing a contract too.

Many talk anyway, in hushed tones to friends and family. No news outlet will ever report it. The information is quarantined, and news people, either too dumb to know or hired actors, know to stay away. So there is never enough knowledge about the true nature of a fake event to form a critical mass. The Crisis Actors most likely sign non-disclosure agreements as part of their employment.  The further up the authority ladders we go, the more likely we will find people actively involved in the planning of the event.


The Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando of June 12, 2016 was fake. Omar Mateen, the alleged shooter, was supposedly killed that night after a long standoff in which he supposedly shot 107 people, killing 49. He took hostages and threatened to strap four in bombs and blow them up. He was insane, I tell you! Insane! He had never acted that way before. He just flipped a switch, went from isolated and lonely Muslim to mass killer. It happens, we are told. Watch your neighbors closely.

Allegedly SWAT teams distracted him with flash bangs and gunned him down.

As with all fake events, the perpetrator is dead. He left behind massive evidence of his guilt, an open-and-shut case. If they did not stage these events that way, if there were to be an investigation and court trial and defense lawyers (I mean – real ones), the incident could not stand up. How did so many allow themselves to be shot? Why did not one angry Pulse patron attack the perpetrator? Did he stand against a wall the entire time? Did no one know to duck?

 


There are numerous ways to approach this matter. I will use one supplied by others, a video which thus far has survived YouTube censorship:

Videos like this are numerous, tedious, poorly done, often steeped rage and anger. I find them useful, but always watch with skepticism.  Any video allowed and replayed on YouTube is approved by YouTube, and so is possibly the work of disinformation agents. YouTube, like Wikipedia, is not our friend. However, those who plan these events know that there are skeptics out here, and so need to offer us grist for the mill. So they feed us. Our job, outside looking in, is to find what is true or useful in the video onslaught, ignoring the rest.

That in mind, fast forward to 1:42 forward in this video, the parade of fake victims. I won’t tell you what you are seeing, as you have to use your own brain and senses. I see no emotion and no blood. The victims are being hand-carried in a city with a massive medical complex complete with ambulances, emergency personnel, stretchers, first aid, bandages … all absent. To where? See the screen grab below:

Video Grab

I inserted the green arrow, which points at the sign on the Pulse night club. These supposed victims are being carried towards the Pulse! Here is a photo of the nightclub:

Pulse Photo

In order for this to be real, after being wounded they would have had to have been carried a block away from the Pulse, and then carried back. This is all without medical assistance, wounds bleeding. Moving a gunshot victim advances blood loss. It is crazy. This is nothing but poor planning by the people who arranged the massacre. (It could be that this video was shot in order to mislead us – even if so, it gives away the game, as such fakery requires planning.)

Boston

It is not the first time they have challenged our basic knowledge of survival with open wounds, of course. They don’t have much respect for our intelligence.

Enough of that. Readers can tour YouTube and Google all the videos they want. That one clip told me all I need to know. There are plenty of other markers.

Numerology

Just a brief review, done with the understanding that while these numbers mean nothing to me, they are apparently important to insiders. Freemasons, Intelligence operatives, Jews (again, I need emoticons!) – whoever plans these events. They routinely sprinkle these numerical clues on events as a way of letting each other know that it is fake.

The important numbers seen most frequently are 8, 11 and 33. There are many variations, so that 62 is a way of saying “8” and 47 is “11.” “33” turns up as 6 (3+3), 9 (3*3), 27 (3^3) and even 108 (which reduces to nine, or 3*3). There are many others, and I don’t know them all. Ignore zeroes, and order is of no importance – that is, 47 and 74 are one and the same in this use.

  • 49 people killed, 58 wounded. That’s 107, you say, so not a marker. However, there was one more victim … Omar Mateen, making the total 108.
  • 80 Fire and Emergency Medical Services from the Orlando Fire Department were deployed. Again, ignore zeroes.
  • The Pulse Club warned everyone to get out and keep running at 2:09 a.m. That is 11 for the uninitiated, and could also be 1+1 and 9, or 119, or 911.
  • Mateen fired his last shot between 2:10 and 2:18 a.m. That is two 3‘s and an 8.
  • Mateen called News 13 of Orlando at 2:45. That reads 1+1 and 4 +5, or 11 and 9, or 911, since it can read both ways. (They do love 911!)
  • The shooting was triggered by an air strike in Iraq that killed Abu Wahib on May 6 (5+6=11).
  • Mateen was 29 years old, or 1+1 and 9  (911) again, or just 2+9=11 if you wish.
  • Mateen was shot 8 times. At least 11 officers were involved.
  • 44 injured people were taken to the Orlando Regional Medical Center. 4+4=8.
  • 12 others went to Florida Hospital Orlando. (1+2=3.)
  • As of June 14th, 27 remained hospitalized, 6 in critical condition.  (Note without exception in these fake events, people die on the scene, but wounded people always recover. All of them. There are never additional dead after the event. It might screw up the numbers.)
  • I love this one, as it is unnecessary information thrown in for unknown reasons: Mateen lived 117 miles (9, or 3*3, or 33) or 188 kilometers (9 and an 8, or two 8‘s if you like) away from the Pulse.

That is about as numerology-littered as I have ever seen in Wikipedia, and I surely missed a few. Understand, however, that numerology by itself never proves anything, and is merely evidence to be evaluated with all other evidence.

Other stigma

This event was loaded with inflammatory symbols. Mateen, of course, was said to be Muslim, and since the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, that group has been a favorite target group for direction of hatred by the American public.

Here’s a sentence from Wiki:

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also conducted an investigation and said it found no evidence of communications between ISIL and Mateen.

They deny what they are really want us to suspect, reverse psychology. In denial our suspicions are triggered. Since ISIL, or ISIS, appears to be an American (and British and Israeli and Saudi front), it is no surprise that Mateen, if he ever even existed, was not connected. I cannot be certain that ISIL exists either. It is, however, all over the news. (Insert your own emoticon.)

According to a police academy classmate, Mateen threatened to shoot his classmates at a cookout in 2007 “after his hamburger touched pork” in violation of Islamic dietary laws.

Stop and think: Mateen was supposedly training to be a prison guard. That training period is also used to weed out bad apples. Threatening to shoot your classmates for any reason is a no-no. It is a signal of a disturbed individual, yet Mateen would pass psychological tests, be hired to security positions, and even be under FBI surveillance for a period of time prior to this event. They stopped following him as there was nothing to report. So says Wiki. That is planted evidence, nothing more.

Mateen’s first wife said he was mentally unstable and mentally ill, and “…disturbed, deeply, and traumatized.” My first wife talks like that too. He was said to be on anabolic steroids, which can cause mood, irritability, aggression, depression and suicidal tendencies. FBI missed that during surveillance as well, or perhaps they were just chasing a ghost.

Finally, we are left to wonder if Mateen was gay or straight. A man who self-identified as his lover said he was out to get revenge against Latino men when he learned he had been exposed to HIV from a Puerto Rican man with whom he had sex. If you can read that and not think “planted evidence”, then you probably need to be seeing other blogs. We need to break up. (It’s not you. It’s me.)

Fundraising

While the events are fake, the money raised from an unsuspecting public is real. The question is, where does it go? I can think of two uses: Payment of employed planners, administrators and crisis actors, and hush money for fake families of fake victims. Millions have been raised so far, and are being doled out to the families of the fake dead, to the fake wounded, and to anyone else who happened to be there that night. Read that as you will, but money can encourage people to stay quiet.

Photographic fakery

If I were to look at a team photo of, say, a baseball team, I would have no problem distinguishing the individuals on that team. Not only are they of different race and hair style, but their facial plates form a grid that our brains are keyed to recognize. Below is a photo lineup of the 49 victims of the Pulse massacre.

Victims

Top row, image five from the left, is “Gilberto Ramon Silva.” A highly unusual number of these victims go by three or more names. I will discuss Gilberto later. I may not necessarily use these particular photos. I have had a difficult time matching names and faces, as we are not always shown the same photos, and most available on the Internet are just lineups, like this one, without names.

Most of these images, I assume, are said to be from Facebook pages, which also had to be faked. Hence a large number of selfies. They are almost all at their best in appearance, hair perfectly groomed, shaven, often, like the guy in the second row down, fourth from the left,  carefully posed to give the best presentation. He looks like an actor would look in a publicist’s photo album.

I  am struck by the oddness of the names, given here in alphabetical order by the very last last name:

Victims list

It could be that in naming victims in fake events, planners are careful to make them unique so that relatives of real people do not receive late-night phone calls that all parents dread. Names like Stanley Almodovar III, Rodolfo Alaya-Alaya, Jonathon A. Camuy Vega, Deonka D. Drayton, Brenda L. Marquez McCool, Luis D. Wilson-Leon, and my favorite, Yilmary Rodriquez Solivan, are not found in any phone book. They are unique.

There is also the matter of physical resemblance to one another. Let’s look at a few of them. Left is Mercedes Marisol Flores, and on the right Leroy Valentin Fernandez.

LeroyAt first glance, they appear to be wearing the same glasses, and “Leroy” looks more like a Leora. Check out that creamy complexion compared to photo in the top row, third in, also said to be Leroy. This is weird. But we live in a time when transgender is heavily pushed, so I supposed “he” could be a “she” or a cross dresser or man trapped in a woman’s body. The photo of “Leroy” I am using for comparison to  is one of many found on the Internet, as with this search.

Set all of that aside. Look at the nose, lips, chin, head shape and eyebrows. They look alike! Her is a gif overlay of the two:

Gif-Leroy-Mercedes

Not all of our victims are as easily spotted as these two, but they are merely differing renditions of the same person. Mercedes has hair, Leroy does not. They are telling us Merdedes is a woman, and Leroy a man, and that is generally enough to satisfy people of low curiosity who are used to trusting authority figures. So they did not change any facial features.

Here is Gilberto Ramon Silva. Something is odd about him, but not readily apparent.

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez flipped

I would not have seen it had I not stumbled on an un-cropped version of the above photo. Here is that photo:

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez flipped fuyll image

“Flipping” in the age of selfies is not unusual, but you would think in putting out lists and photos of victims that they would take a moment and un-flip it. Here it is:

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez un-flipped

I was struck by Gilberto’s resemblance to Peter Gonzalez Cruz:

Peter Gonzalez Cruz

So I ran a gif, and here is what I got:

Gif-Peter-Gilberto

Yes, I am aware of a mismatch on the nose and placement of the mouth, and that the fact that Gilberto is smiling does not explain it. But as has often happened in this endeavor, I find myself looking at the same eyes, eyebrows, and ears. Here are the ears side by side:

Ear Comparison

The ears are of the exact same size (in addition to being in the same position on the head), and the helix, or top curving portion (red arrows), look identical. The tragus, or middle protrusion extending into the ear opening (yellow), are identically placed. The anthelix is the same on both (green). Both are wearing a stud (blue arrow), though Gilberto’s is obscured, perhaps deliberately.

It appears to me to be the same ear, along with the same eyes, eyebrows and head shape on each of these two victims. The nose is different, and this is what makes me wonder if computer software has been used to make this man, who is a mere fabrication anyway, become two men. In that case, flipping the photo of one would enhance apparent differences. It was most likely not an accident, nor the result of a selfie. (If you think you look weird in selfies, it is because of flipping.)

Our friend from above, Peter Gonzalez Cruz, also bears a strong resemblance to Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz.

However, black and white is apparently enough difference that people do not note the resemblance. Also note that Christopher has really odd-looking hair.

Gif-Peter-Chistopher

I am again looking at the same eyes, nose and ears. The mouths are very much alike. Christopher really looks like his head was placed under someone else’s hair. It appears they got sloppy with this one. Here is a comparison of ears:

Ear Comparison 2

We are dealing with a lower quality photo with Christopher, but if you look at the inside of the ear, a shell-shaped part called the concha, they look very similar to me. I was also curious about the black dot on Christopher and so drew the red arrow – was there once a stud there?


So imagine you are in the basement of Langley or some Hollywood studio, and word comes down that a fake mass shooting is in the works. The planners need 49 victims complete with names and biographies. You are equipped with facial construction software, as are most police stations. You can blend attributes, change a few features and call it two people. You can also flip them and call them two people, or vary the photo quality from grainy black and white to well-defined color images. You are told the victims will be largely Hispanic. Get to work making faces. In the meantime another branch is writing bios that will be combined with the faces.

I originally thought when doing face splits of these people last year that I was dealing with real people who had been Photoshopped to make them appear different to be different “victims.” I now think that these are non-persons, computer inventions, that none of them ever existed except in the basement computers. I could be wrong. They could indeed start with real people and monkey with them.

To close out, we have among the victims an old-fashioned monkeyed-with photo of a man, Juan Chavez-Martinez.

Juan Chavez-Martinez 2

Straight lines often indicate Photoshopping. Note his shirt on his left side is a straight line, as is the shadow cast by his lower body. The shirt is odd, pitch black with no nuance.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly can probably see through this photo with ease. It is fake. The shadow does not seem to match the body. The light directly on him is from the front left and is much lower on the horizon than the trees behind, where it is almost directly above. While his legs are crossed, there is a point of light at the bottom that makes no sense. The round shadow on the grass behind him (above the wall) would, I suppose, be his head, but that merely emphasizes light from the front.  Most importantly, the neck bears those telltale signs of Photo-shopping. Use of a black shirt allows for the entire head, v-neck up, to be inserted on another body. I suspect that is what they did, but if so, it is a very good job.

Below is the same photo analyzed in Luminance Gradient, a particular aspect of a program called “Forensically,” free for use (in beta) for anyone who wants to play with it.

Juan Chavez-Martinez 2 LG

Here is what Forensically has to say about Luminance Gradient:

It’s obvious use is to look at how different parts of the image are illuminated in order to find anomalies. Parts of the image which are at a similar angle (to the light source) and under similar illumination should have a similar color; Another use is to check edges. Similar edges should have similar gradients. If the gradients at one edge are significantly sharp[er] than the rest it’s a sign that the image could have been copy pasted.

What strikes me is the lines on the shadow, blue on one side, pink on the  other, and unnaturally straight on the right. The V under the chin also shows signs of differing light sources. (The trees in the background, if I read this right, are of two light sources.) The neck looks odd, puffy and rough-textured. The shirt, on the other hand, shows little, if any sign of luminescence, as if the light does not affect it at all. Has it been darkened … to allow the head splice?

I expect to be challenged on this, as I am just now working with these techniques in early stages, trying to determine what images are saying. So I saved this photo for last.

I find this photo to be unnatural, and from that have to wonder … why? Why so much trouble to monkey with what appears to be at first glance a normal photo of a normal man? The answer, as I see it: It is part of a large body of work done in advance to create both biographies and images of the Pulse victims. They are all invented people. This one was Photoshopped to place him in a natural setting. I do not know why they did it that way, perhaps just for variety.


This started out as a two-hour project … several days ago. I did not set out to do all of this work. When it settled on me that I had to read the entire Wikipedia report, my heart sank. I expect, as always, commenters to add more, see things I overlooked, and to point out errors. Always more to learn. Have fun!

My conclusion: The Pulse massacre was fake, no one died, and they used invented people to play the victims, Crisis Actors to play the wounded. There was most likely a drill going on that night that had police, fire and medical people on alert. They all played a part, most unwittingly. All have been enticed into silence.

All of it is same-ol same-ol, ho-hum. Another fake event.

34 thoughts on “The Pulse Nightclub massacre one year later

  1. I wonder if the committee of agent-people paid to make up xyz-names for new drugs promoted on TV are also in charge of making up names for fake-news actors. When they file tax returns, what do they claim as their occupation?

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    1. Steve, an insider reported that, as a general rule, they do not care about what info you fill in the “Occupation” box, it is mostly for statistics. Uncle Sam is interested (laser focused) in your “dinero” and couldn’t care less if you were to input “Serial Killer” or “Martian”, etc. etc.

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  2. I wonder how much everyone that participated got paid? If someone laid on the ground pretending to be shot they got $1000, any medical or law enforcement got $5000 a piece and promotions. Seems like someone in these fake events would have come forward by now, unless it was $100k or million dollar hush money. I can’t stand my local newspaper or evening news running stories about these events. Dam goons even in my own small town neighborhood. btw Mark, Fantastic work!!!

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    1. Great catch, Annette! This would then lend itself to theories that the BP oil spill was faked … use for same actors is only slight evidence, but evidence nonetheless.

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      1. I am absolutely convinced it was faked, just like Fukushima. I live on Galveston island, next door to Louisiana. Not a drop of oil showed up on our beaches.

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    2. I had forgotten that, but I did read that paper. I just skimmed it again, and thanks. He focused on big trailers often used on movie sets, and some other odd equipment. We did not cross, that is, what I did here and what he did, while arriving at the same conclusion, are of different pathways.

      Re Gulf oil spill, that I had completely forgotten about, probably because it made no sense to me that they could do a gigantic hoax on that level. I heard a guy this week (Greg Quinones behind a pay wall at Gnostic Media) speak of it in terms of the idea that we are awash in oil and always have been, so that the oil companies have always had to create the impression of shortages. That made sense.

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      1. It’s never made sense to me that “we” can’t figure out for sure if oil is plentiful or peaked out. “We’re” certainly a tolerant bunch when it comes to suffering fools gladly if the mainstream fiction is really true…

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      2. Looking back, it is easy to see that oil companies wanted to divert attention from themselves as they manipulated us and the price we pay for oil, so they invented “OPEC” to take the heat. Each country that is a member of OPEC is also under the thumb of the oil giants, still centered around the name “Rockefeller” after all these decades. That charade of boycott and shortages and gas lines was a huge psyop. It fooled me, in total.

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        1. It fooled us because we were waiting in long lines worried there would be no gas when it was our turn. So many lies, so much manipulation .

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  3. Some more numerology. Event on June 12 (612), 2016 (216), and started at 2:02 am. A couple of palindromes.

    And from the dates of publication of references 3-8 on the Wikipedia page:
    June 1, 2012
    December 1, 2014
    August 1, 2012
    August 3, 2009
    March 1, 2011
    April 1, 2012
    Perhaps there’s a rational explanation.

    Also, Barbara Poma’s brother was John Poma, and her husband is Rosario Poma.

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    1. Thank you. In my angst as this post kept growing tentacles, I neglected details like the owners of the night club and a closer look at the Wiki footnotes. Up next is another look at Columbine, so I expect another entanglement without exit.

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  4. Finally got to this- I have suspected that there is a government accessible image bank provided to cut and paste together a hoax scenario like Pulse. Months, perhaps years in advance, (note the crummy res on some of the videos/pix) bank deposits of all manner of fictional reaction to all manner of crisis are created and used as needed, just like stock photo/video collections. The spoken content is generic and background particulars are shop inserted to specify locations as hoaxes are activated.
    Dubbing a particular name on a soundtrack takes little effort if the actor needs to be specific, but simply saying that bodies were carried out, wounded were attended to while the news anchor is handed a sheet with the particulars to contextualize the images is not that difficult, is in fact filmmaking 101 level basic.
    The shopped mugshots may have a real template to act as an armature, but given the trendy looks of specific sub cultures, tweaking faces to appear appropriate to the environment (ie, gay night club) is also a breeze. Everyone wears red to Cardinals games- Everyone looks like Ariana Grande at her concerts if they can pull it off. This would make using one actor for several roles forgivable to the emotionally overwrought with an investment in that sub culture. Most others would not look too closely as they have invested heavily in Dodger blue or are all in on Metallica.
    My bottom line: Faces are provided by real people with show biz dreams, naïve to the reach of the deceptions, paid a fee to be used by the image bank for ads, promos, even feature stories for travel or dining or even as a ruse for non-existent casting call potential; these are years old images that have never actually been used and that are then tweaked for use in a hoax. The template model is completely unaware of the use of his/her altered face. Honestly, what actor is deeply insightful enough to question anything under the shallow surface of their narcissism? Military may be used for longer cons, like Willie the Janitor for 911, but a double chinned clown with three day stubble wearing a sequined embroidered baseball cap off kilter playing a “witness” has probably tried his hand at everything from stand-up to featured extra in a reality TV show and will do anything to stay in front of an audience, no questions asked.

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    1. Where I wanted to take this is that the faces were generated by a computer and any manner of face could be constructed … and yet, they look real enough. It would be a powerful program, but would not surprise me.

      They resembled each other too much for my taste. So having a bank of faces on hand for all occasions works for me. To then adorn those faces with the necessary accoutrements of the gay subculture is a matter of adornment with various articles of clothing, jewelry, hair styles … not one of the 49 dead ever existed except for that part of the face used by the computer to piece them into images. (I think Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz is a tell, as his hair looks like it was slapped on his head in a fast change makeup room – almost like a wig. He is the lone black and white photo in this piece.)

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      1. To simplify even further, anonymously harvesting selfies off the net takes no effort. Then swapping Andalucía Heyfitz- Dandolocita’s eyes for Chernobyl Davis-Garcia y Vega’s peepers would leave both aspiring actresses in the dark about the use of their images in these hoaxes, no licensing fee required.

        Back in the day, guys from the Caribbean made it to the major leagues with names like Bobby Avila and Jose Gonzalez. Today they have names like Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes. How about Yonder Alonso? Great name for a power hitter (finally).
        These guys used to take the two most conventional names in their kit and head to the states as Jose/Juan/Pedro Frenandez/Hernandez/Gonzalez. Granted, Latin naming conventions practice polyonymy so many permutations are possible.
        So too, a trace element of actual names in the Pulse vicsim’s record might be a starting point in creating these composite characters. Like facial features, it appears they could be mixing and matching names from multiple real sources to create one fabricated entity.

        McCool?

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        1. Again, thanks for the info. It is slowly coming into focus … the images and names are illusions, each grabbed from a pool of real people, massaged and manipulated, and put out as a real person. McCool?

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      2. Hello again, Mark. Regarding a computer program that generates faces, this is still a little beyond current tech – if we were to assume that the computer itself generated the faces and renderings. Even using Maya, the big-dog CGI/3D application used in almost all motion graphics and CGI rendering, it would take a considerable amount of time to create and render a photorealistic person. And even the best artists at this can’t surmount the software’s limitations – I can always, always spot a CGI portrait. Usually it’s the hair and eyes that give it away. And there’s a huge time constraint because the modeling, sculpting, and rigging of a character isn’t anywhere near automated. I use Maya professionally for my architectural work (arch/viz), and even replicating kitchens and bathrooms takes a great deal of time and effort. While my clients are happy with my work and the photorealistic rendering, I can still easily spot such renderings and see them all the time in the real estate industry, trying to pass them off as the actual house or interior they’re trying to sell.

        All that said, what TPB can do instead is simply use Photoshop. It’s far, far quicker and since you’re already starting with an actual photograph, you don’t need to worry about the software rendering limitations, sculpting, hair, eyes, or rigging of the animation skeleton. You already have photorealism using this method, because you start with a real photograph. In my arch/viz career part of the process to get to print involved mastering Photoshop from top to bottom, and I’d have no problem rapidly “fixing” any number of photos in the same fashion that these events toss at us. If I can do it as a small-time graphics artist, a team of professionals would have no problem doing even better work, though that’s not always what we see. Sometimes they suck at Photoshop too.

        So while I agree with your premise, I disagree that it’s a computer generating the pictures of the “victims” and such. It’s definitely done by hand, in Photoshop and Nuke (the premier animation program these days) for motion shots. It’s faster and cleaner this way, and far, far less expensive. You can run Photoshop on just about any modern computer with ease, whereas using Maya or 3D Studio Max or whatever requires much beefier hardware, more expensive and faster CPUs and GPUs.

        I’m saying it’s likely the simplest answer, and that would be Photoshop, not full-on CGI. Just a note from a graphics professional. I could be wrong, of course. Mathis has schooled me several times on the topic, and I would generally defer to him about face recognition and accuracy. He’s better at faces than me.

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        1. 2023 is the year of my comment. Today AI programs generate “real” looking personae. Today we understand that advanced software is used by military-indy complex; then years later released for additional profit to the public. Meanwhile they have moved on.
          Letting us know by dribbles that we cannot trust “reality” on the TV or news is yet another game to play when you experiment moving huge swathes of humanity through information deception; thence to see how these cultures in socio-pathological petri dishes respond, and fine tune your algorithms.

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  5. If I could sit at my home PC 10 years ago using a free app like Blender and create photorealistic images, albeit not images of people or living things because hair has always been damn difficult, then I have zero trouble imagining that there is much more powerful software available to those holding the reins.

    Beyond that one need only look at recent movies or television shows where Hollywood has proudly displayed its ability to morph actors into younger versions of themselves, pretty convincingly. Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man; Anthony Hopkins in Westworld, etc.

    The moral of this sad tale seems to be that you don’t have the luxury of trusting… anything, really. You can not afford to take for granted that what you see in an image or on a screen is “real”, at all.

    Combine that depressing fact with the proven “real-time morphing” technology that allows for manipulation of live images on-screen (like making Putin look like he’s making monkey-faces or whatever), and you don’t have much choice but to accept that the only things you can have any real certainty about anymore are those things that are within arm’s length. Yes, I think it’s that bad.

    But hey, it’s all theater at the end of the day. If you’re watching the “news” you’ve already made a huge mistake. Hell, if you still own a television you’re making a huge mistake. Nothing that comes out of that box is doing you any good at all in life.

    Personally I take it all as a blessing in disguise. Doubt is a powerful tool, or can be. Doubt motivates us to think in new ways and look for alternatives. Doubt keeps you on your toes. Oh and it’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you. 😉

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    1. Combine that depressing fact with the proven “real-time morphing” technology that allows for manipulation of live images on-screen (like making Putin look like he’s making monkey-faces or whatever), …

      I saw such a demonstration too, but unfortunately forgot the URL.
      It was not Putin, but Bush Jr., who’s face got manipulated in real-time with the grimaces of an actor. The demo showed both – actor and end result. And quite convincing, on “Prime Time News Video” level.

      Doubt is a powerful tool, or can be.

      Emphasis on “can be”. Doubts create cognitive dissonance, which torments Joe Sixpack for a few minutes or hours. Then the next great entertainment event comes along, or a night’s sleep, and all is forgotten.
      This is the intended result of indoctrination, “selective breeding” and entertainment bombarding. It is not that the ignorant do not have the information, they just can’t bear the consequences of accepting them.
      My two cents …

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      1. I’ll have to try to dig up the link, but I distinctly remember both Bush and Putin in the same video.

        Aaand voila: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk

        Skip to around the 2nd minute mark for Putin.

        Regarding your two cents I would tend toward agreement. If one’s mind and thinking are so absolutely saturated with falsehoods and deceit, as most minds are today, then those minds aren’t just going to be resistant to the truth. At some point they will become downright hostile to it. This is why so many people react with outright anger when confronted with the truth.

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        1. Oh, and by definition of the word the ignorant do not have the information needed. They’re in a state of “not knowing”, that being what ignorant means. I have no qualms with the ignorant. How could I? But I do take issue with those who, when given the knowledge they need, willfully choose not to act upon it.

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          1. Propaganda forms a protective shield around the head. If, when you confront someone with an unpleasant truth, their reaction is anger, move along. They are incapable of hearing. In fact, this is a sign that propaganda has done its job, and they are effectively sealed off.

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          2. I should have said “The ignorant would have all the information available …”.
            And yes, they ignore it bit by bit, not ever being pressed to connect the points.

            BTW, the URL that I remember was from a university at which this (or such a) software was created. Not a youtube video. I guess there are more of them around.
            But this will convince nobody who is not already infected with the “virus of doubt”. Soon those are declared sick ( see ODD, “oppositional defiance disorder”), and require forceful medication and/or internment …

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  6. yes it was a fake event,i live very close to where this happened. all our live weve been taught if anyone is hurt dont move them until medical help arrives. the hospital is less than 2 miles away and we see people being loaded into pick up trucks..and trucks that have police on the sides. ive lived in fl. all my life and never seen a police pickup truck. the reason there were no emergency vehicals or helicopters is in fl. we have a law that says you cannot use real emergency vehicals for non emergency events. so they had to load the actors into trucks. ive been told the hospital did not treat any wounded,and there are no death certificates for that day. but they sealed all the records and reports because it would be to traumatising to the parents. and ive worked in clubs and bars as a doorman..this guy would have never made it in. he would have been loade down with auto weapons and carrying boxes and belts of ammo..and explosives..a real giveaway this guy was up to no good. they have made millions in donations and the actors were paid very well…it stinks…

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