Skinny Bob The Truth Revealed - Paranormal (un)Explained #28

(ominous music) (air whooshes)

(camera zooms)

(static fizzles) (logo bloops)

(air whooshes) - Hey, guys, I don't think

you're ready for today's episode.

(chill music)

Think they're ready for this?

- Nobody's ready.

- I don't think they're ready.

- I'm not. - I'm not even ready.

- You know what time it is?

- What time is it?

It's tin foil time.

- Oh no.

(bomb explodes) - Here we go.

Oh yeah.

- Does this look right? - Aw!

- Aw! - Yeah.

Looks like a little cabbie hat, doesn't it?

- Baby's first tin foil time. - Doesn't even look like a...

- Aw! - That's funny.

(Aaron laughs) (Santino claps)

- I don't like this.

- Aw, guys, we're all protected.

Today (group laughs)

is a special episode. - We're protected.

- Santino brought this to our attention today.

- Yeah, so apparently somebody did suggest this then.

- Mhm.

- So I hadn't heard of it, found it last week,

and there's a lot of controversy that surrounds it.

Heather, did you wanna fill us in

on some of the controversy?

- Yeah, sure.

So some of the controversy is that it's fake, okay?

- What?

- That's the controversy?

- That it's fake,

however, the quality of it is high enough

that usually someone would come forward

by this point to say that it was theirs

and that they did it.

And no one has come forward to admit.

- Well, for how many years too?

- Yeah, 'cause this came out

in the early 2000s, right?

- 2011.

- Yeah, so 2011, and nobody's come forward to claim it yet.

So, could it actually be real?

- It's supposedly leaked from a Russian agency, I believe.

- Yeah, KGB. - KGB, exactly.

It's uploaded by ivan0135, I believe.

Anyway, it's been up for a long time.

He uploaded four videos.

And so this is a compilation of all four

just so that we didn't have

to click through a million of 'em.

- Let's watch it.

- In silence.

- It's a silent film.

Okay. - We have UFO.

- It's a blimp, right? - No, UFO.

- That's the Goodyear blimp. - Yeah, that's the...

- Nope. - I see that

around Georgia all the time. - Wait, when did...

- Oh. - Sea barge?

- It's even shiny.

(laughs) It's on higher. - Oh dang.

Okay, I see that now.

(group laughs)

How'd they get up in the air to film it?

So is this eight millimeter?

Is that what they're saying?

- Supposed to be 16. - Oh, so it crashed?

- Yeah. - And they knocked it down

or something?

Oh no, they killed his buddy.

- Aw!

- Is he moving?

- His hands are moving, yeah.

This is really blurry,

but there's an autopsy table. - Oh, I see his face.

- Yep.

- Oh, so they're chopping him up.

- Oh, he's so sad.

- You're chopping him up in front of his buddy?

(group laughs)

Oh my goodness. - What is he doing?

- Don't think they're the monsters.

- Whoa, his eyes look awesome. - I think we are.

- That's sweet.

- Isn't that the way it always works?

- Oh, he's got little clothes. - He's got clothes.

- Oh, he looks so dapper. - Jinx.

- Aw!

- This little outfit.

- We might have to do a get this fit kind of thing.

You know what I'm saying? - Yeah.

- Andy knows what I'm talking about.

- So this is shadow?

- What was that?

So it's just random footage.

There's a bunch of 'em? - There's two of 'em.

Yeah. - Oh.

- So some people thought it was

like a viral marketing thing at first.

- Mhm. - Play it back.

- Actually, what you might wanna do

is go ahead and Google ivan0135

'cause he has some stuff at the beginning of each video

that supposedly gives you some background information.

- By Google, do you mean go to YouTube and search?

- Sure.

Yeah, Google it

- Can you Google that? - What is it?

- Should I pull it up on here?

- Yeah, pull it up on YouTube so we can all see it.

- I-V-E-N - No, O.

- I-V- - Ivon?

- Is it Ivon or Ivan?

I can't remember now. - I'm sure it's Ivan.

- Ivon. - That's how you spell Ivan.

- I did that as a joke. - I-V-A-N-O-E.

- Ivan.

- Supposedly this was filmed on VHS

off of a projector screen.

So there's not just film grain,

there's also video artifacting on top of it.

- That's the way to do it.

- So they weren't focused on the screen super well either.

- No.

(film whirs)

- Now that would be hard

to replicate eight millimeter footage, right?

- No.

- You can fake that?

Okay.

(film whirs)

Maybe he's just taking a nap.

(Santino chuckles)

- You notice every time we change scenes,

our time code jumps accordingly.

So that was video one. - Now here's the thing.

What's the time code?

Is that the VHS?

- That's in the VHS

'cause there wouldn't be a time code on film.

- Oh, I think it jumped next.

Okay, we're good.

Cool. - Yeah, I don't know

what they would have blacked out

over there because you wouldn't have-

- The date?

- Yeah, but why? - I mean, it's got '07

next to it, so you know, it was 2007

when he filmed it supposedly. - Really?

- Yeah, so, if you've got a month next to it-

- Oh, seven videotapes with material recorded

between '42 and '69.

Okay, so this would've been...

- Due to the importance of these documents,

maintain the anonymity of the sources.

Well, then why did you upload it to YouTube?

- You can't see the sources. - They didn't say

who it was from.

- Doesn't matter.

You'd think if this was that secret,

you would've taken it down.

(film whirs)

You see, I don't know what's blacked out.

It doesn't make any sense.

- It says 25 now.

- Yeah.

So that couldn't be a year. - Is this in the future?

- It's in future. - That's it.

- See, this one's interesting

because you'll notice they're actually measuring it.

If you get all the way to the top right above his head,

there's a little measuring stick right there.

- Oh yeah.

- Wow. - And there's a shadow

over his head too.

So he's standing under it. - Yeah it's actually under it.

So you'd think that'd be date

and time at the bottom,

but did VHS tapes ever have like a serial code

that like went onto the film or something identifiable

that they'd wanna black it out?

- To my knowledge, - How can they black...

- No, but I mean, I could be wrong about that.

It seems to me that anything I've ever seen

on VHS or even on old camcorders,

they would generally give you a date and a time,

and sometimes they give you a time code, but-

- You can't black it out.

- Well, you can in post.

You can't black it out during the thing, so-

- What if in the spaceship wreck,

he's just got brain trauma and his head swelled.

- They all looked like that.

They all got-

- So they all got hit on the head.

- They all bonked their noggins. (laughs)

- Yeah.

(film whirs)

- What is this? - I still don't know.

Oh, is that a Petri dish?

- Yeah, that's what it looks like.

- Might be. - Is it?

There's something in the right side.

Right? - Is it like a star chart,

and that's his home?

(Santino and Aaron chuckle)

- They said it was Zeta Rectal, Reculi.

Rec, rec. - Whoa.

- Hey. - What?

- Whoa. - A what?

- It was in the rectory, right?

That's where... (laughs)

- What?

- Oh, we probing them?

- Yeah, we're all probing them.

(group laughs) They crashed here.

Now it's our turn. - Oh boy.

- Shoe's on the other foot, boys.

So he uploaded these in rapid succession

one after another? - He did, yeah, yeah.

- [Santino] Yeah, just a few days after each other.

- Is that it?

- Did he turn comments off or anything like that?

- No, there's comments on a lot of 'em.

Actually in this one, he...

I think it's this one.

Yeah, in response to posts about the documents.

So he is actually communicating

with people at least for a time.

- So he's the one that called it Skinny Bob?

- Yep. - Okay.

- So has anything happened in the last 10 years,

or did he upload these videos and shut it down?

- That was it. - Interesting.

- And the channel's not monetized either.

So he's not making any money off it,

even though it got a ton of views.

- Edited compilation of the documents we have.

- Your opinion and the conclusion draw from this material.

- Maybe you were looking in the wrong direction.

- Wait, what? - You were the ones

who reject this material.

I don't know why he's getting defensive.

We're just watching it, video.

- Hey, Ivan. - Dude, he's reading my mind.

- No, he can't. - You can't.

- You got your hat on.

- You're wearing the foil, man.

- Oh, that's right.

So it's just coincidence. (Heather laughs)

- I do think the whole like alien hand thing,

it's a little too arty, like art designed

for this whole presentation.

Like if these were documents you actually put up,

when were you gonna get the time to like...

And in what editor did you assemble this?

- Maybe he's wanting to present this

as they palm printed the alien and he took a snap of it.

- Sure, but you think - This is all the videos?

- You would show that (indistinct).

- Oh, I paused it. - Yeah, the process.

- Yeah.

Sources will not be revealed.

- Continue.

- Information that may involve any agency

or people will not be disclosed.

There's not any reference which may link the material

to any organization that's working today

with the material exposed. (laughs)

- Okay.

Oh, this is the video?

- Is it just him responding?

- Oh, it's just a bunch of words?

- No, I think there might be something

right at the very end.

Yep.

- Huh? - Maybe, maybe not.

I can't remember. - The material does not-

- Oh, it's just a answer to all the stuff.

- No one who is out of this can prove...

The revelation of further material will depend

on the events and people.

- On what events and what people?

- I don't know.

- You! - You are the ones

who create your own disinformation.

- I mean, he's not wrong. - I think this guy's

wearing a tin foil hat - Yeah.

- As he's typing it.

- I feel like he's a little confrontational here.

- I think Ivan just needed to take a nap

before he wrote any of that. (Santino laughs)

- Well, that's interesting. - He needed a snack.

He needed a nap. - He needed a Snickers.

- So here's the thing, did-

- You're not you when you're hungry.

- Did he put these two up

and then this one later. - Yep.

Yeah.

And then that one is last, family vacation,

which I don't know why he titled it family vacation.

Yeah, Zeta Reticuli. - Reticuli.

- [Santino] Zeta Rectal, Reculi.

- What's that?

Zeta Reticuli, is that the-

- Well, it's a thing.

- Is that the term?

- It's supposed to be like, what,

a galaxy or an origin, a planet?

1942.

- What are the mutual concerns of the people in the agency?

- I don't know.

You don't know what? - The aliens.

- Listen, this is up to you, Andy.

- Yeah.

- I create my own disinformation.

(group laughs)

- Yes, you do.

So create away.

- I wonder if they met in Antarctica.

- Why Antarctica?

- Why not?

- They met high ranking officers

like Lieutenant Dan. - Wait, on the wall?

- No.

- According to the document. - Like right over there.

- At the pole where the whole center of the Earth is.

- Due to the violation of the agreement

by the officers at the military base

when they discovered that their arrival

was been filmed (Andy laughs)

with a hidden device without their consent.

Hey, it was been filmed, guys.

- Hang on. - Wait, that violates the-

- How do you hide like an eight millimeter camera?

- You don't.

Well, you don't hide a 16 mil at all.

Those things...

- Yeah. - It'd have to be like

in a large briefcase. - This has been done filmed?

- It has been. - Oh no.

- It be was.

- It done been was filmed.

- (laughs) Did yo ought to write this?

(Andy laughs)

What treaty?

- The treaty 23/04. - We don't know

what anybody's talking about. - 23 oh.

- I'm gonna Google. - 04.

- Yeah, I'ma Google this. - Actual Google.

I'ma Google it. - Google Treaty 23/04.

- Oh, this is this one.

- Yeah, this is the one where they have

like just a bunch of kids

in alien suits like walking around.

- So that's why it's the family vacation.

They're all hanging out. - Treaty what?

- Treaty 23/04. - 23-04 or slash.

- The treaty was revised.

- Good, at least they could agree.

- That's a state that-

- Outer space treaty, Antarctic treaty.

- Antarctic, really? - No, these are just things

that are coming up. - Oh, come on, man.

- I don't know - Come on.

- Which one it is. - Don't do this to me.

- But they're the first couple.

- Please.

Why would you say Antarctica?

- 'Cause that's what it says in Google.

It's like the third thing that comes up.

- No, I mean, why would you say Antarctica?

- Aaron knows what's up?

- Are you in psychic communication?

- Because all the governments

around the world have a treaty.

Airspace is gone.

You're not allowed walking around there.

- Huh.

- They got all their flags over there.

It's weird.

I'm gonna subscribe - And be able to do this.

- Just in case.

- Yeah, 10 years ago, I know now you can fake eight

and 16 millimeter footage with filters and whatnot.

You wouldn't have been able

to do that 10 years ago, could you?

- You could.

It would've just been you would've had

to put a little more work into it,

but you could do it.

- Well, that's what they're saying is that-

- And to do that without making money on it though.

- Yeah. - Right.

- The time that would've had to be invested,

the money, and the number of people

that would have to be involved in it,

and then for no one to come forward to claim it.

- Right. - And the weird text

I feel like also makes it a little bit compelling

'cause this guy was obviously getting upset.

- Maybe, or maybe not.

And that's the thing.

Like if you went through the trouble

to fake this and then people started questioning it,

you'd be getting upset,

but not because of the reasons people would think.

You'd be getting upset

because people would think it's fake,

and you'd want them to think it was real

if you were just trolling the internet.

So, but the problem is, like you said,

nobody's come out to claim it.

And it's clearly, there are so many levels of detail

on this thing that it had to be done

by somebody with visual effects expertise.

And because it was 10 years ago, I'm free of this.

You can't pin it on me. (laughs)

I didn't do it.

- Yeah, 'cause you were being born.

- Yeah, I was born.

(group laughs)

Andy was being born.

I was few years behind.

- What if he's just like-

- Oh my God,

- What if he's just like the Joker

where he just does it because he does?

- Oh, that Joker.

I was thinking like Steve Miller Band.

- Oh. - Midnight toker?

I was wondering where that was going.

- And here we go back to the older.

- The youngest old man. (laughs)

- That's where I was leading into.

- With your chicken nuggets and email.

(Aaron laughs)

What is it?

That's the other thing.

Why is the titled family vacation?

- So is there any explanation on this at all

that people have, anything, any clue?

'Cause sometimes there's like people have come

to a little bit of a conclusion,

especially after 10 years.

Has there been anything?

- There's a million theories. - There' a million

Reddit threads. - Either it's fake

or it's real.

- That's the two categories.

- Really, so what do they say?

- It's fake or real.

- Well, so here's- - Or somewhere in the middle.

- Here's where the mystery deepens.

Heather, did you get to the part about the VFX artist

who put up a Reddit thread about this?

- Yeah.

I saw the post that he put

and basically said, I don't understand how this

was filmed without people coming forward.

And then other people saying,

well, that was beautifully written,

but you're trying to convince.

- [Santino] Right, then they start arguing.

- [Heather] They start arguing with each other, yes.

- Yeah, the guy who put it up is Ben Philips, and he's-

- You can IMDB him.

I saw that.

- Yeah, and he is a VFX artist.

He's worked on some stuff,

but the thing that was interesting

was he brought up a lot of interesting

like really valid points to this.

He said, you know, that the technology at the time,

2011 consumer grade, you know, you would have

to be basically a pro because in 2011,

there were really only x amount of software

that could give you 3D that I'm not gonna say

that looked this good, but 3D

that people could get on a consumer level.

The easiest of which of course is Blender.

Now, if anybody who knows what Blender is,

you're gonna know that you could do

a ton of really cool stuff in it, even in 2011.

Ian Hubert's one of the biggest guys who does this stuff.

And in 2011 he was doing stuff of this caliber

and then some.

- Yeah, I got a blender.

- Yeah, not...

Is it a Ninja like a food processor?

- Yeah. - Great smoothies.

- It's really nice.

I used it this morning.

- You throw some strawberries in there?

But, no, Blender 3D, it's an open source free 3D software,

and you can do everything in it including compositing.

Now what people are saying

is that these aliens look too good

to be fake or blah, blah, blah.

Well, when you're dealing in black and white,

pretty much, you can cover a lot of synths

with black and white.

- It's interesting, yeah,

'cause he's kind of blown out too.

- Oh yeah, you're blowing him out, crushed blacks.

You know, you don't have a whole lot of detail

in the footage.

It's all blurry.

There's a ton of film grain

and other artifacting over it,

and the resolution's not high.

So really, I don't see how this couldn't be CG.

I think you could easily do this

if you knew any 3D software. (reporter chatters)

- Sorry, I hit the wrong button.

Okay, that's enough.

All right, you were saying?

- Well, I was just saying

that you could still easily fake this

if you knew what you were doing at the time.

That, I guess, is the question is, who made it and why?

- Right. - Because look at this dude

blink his eyes.

- Yeah, that's part of the argument too

are the way the muscles move.

That is so- - The way the eyelids.

- The eyelids, and apparently in some of them,

you can see the jugular vein, like actual pulsing.

- What?

- That's mostly pareidolia.

The only thing you can really tell from this

is the head movement - Pareidolias.

- And the eye blink. - Hey, that's just

a pareidolias. - Oh, you're seeing-

- It is very fluid.

- Mhm.

- Well, here's what's weird about that.

So, there are a lot of people in the comments,

both on YouTube and Reddit

who have been watching this thing,

they say if you watch it at 1.5 times speed,

it's actually the proper speed

because if you count off seconds,

the second ticker down there is actually off by about half.

So this is playing back in slow motion.

- Okay? - So when you play it back

at actual speed, everything moves a lot faster.

- But is it still fluid or is it jerky?

- Well, it's fluid in the sense

that it looks like anything

when you would fast forward it,

but it looks like if that was the real motion,

then that makes zero sense.

A lot of people try to argue, well, you know,

16 millimeter film would play back

at say 18 frames a second or 14 frames a second,

or there were all these different frame rates,

but if that was the case

and you were filming it with a VHS camera

that, say, shot 30 frames a second,

you really wouldn't have

that kind of a time differential.

It wouldn't make any sense.

So that's an anomaly.

Another anomaly is that, okay,

well, maybe they just slowed it down after the fact.

Well, if they did,

then the projector sound would be slower.

And it's not.

Projector actually sounds right here.

Their movement looks right here,

but the time code is wrong.

So now you're getting into this weird territory of going,

well, how much post-processing

has this thing gone through and why?

Now he obviously had to put it through something

like, I don't know, Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, something

to just be able to put up the text and edit it

and to be able to block out the time code,

but if you blocked out the time code,

that should be a nice crisp black box.

And instead it's blurry black box.

So at what point were these things done?

How many times has it been copied?

Let it play to the end, that time code.

I wanna see what that time code is.

- The 55 one? - Yeah.

- How to drive. - 55:07.

- Oh yeah, that's what I was jumping out

to the how to drive part.

Like what's it talking about how to drive?

(static fizzles)

All right, we're rolling.

Okay, guys, huge discovery just came across this

as I was editing.

I noticed on this video, okay,

it's the alien gray extraterrestrial

Zeta Reticuli UFO footage of, what's his name, Skinny Bob.

Okay, so, the editor, the person who was editing this video,

as you're going through

and it goes to the how to drive section,

the timestamp is at 25 00:27:44.

You go a couple seconds later,

the screen goes black, screen pops back up

with this little Petri dish-looking thing,

and it's the same thing, 25 00:27:44

for like one second, and then it skips to 55:08.

It's ridiculous.

Okay, so I don't know if that is just the camera

or the filter added on top, and he messed up the edit.

I had to share this.

It's just a new discovery, guys, I have passed along.

(static fizzles)

(film whirs)

- 55:08. - Oh.

So, what are we looking at then?

- I don't know but that's not 55 something.

- Yeah, it is. - Yeah, it is.

- 55:07. - 55:11.

- Oh no, that I'm looking at the 22.

- Yeah, you were looking at the wrong...

- Okay, I'm looking at the wrong thing.

- We were on the right place.

- I gotta jump back to it. - Don't yell at us, Santino.

(Santino grunts)

- You young people don't know what a time code is.

(Heather laughs)

- Oops, too many times. - You, youngins.

- I wonder if that thing gets louder

after it's been on for a while to keep from overheating.

- Probably, it's the fan. - I think once you notice it,

it gets louder.

Yeah, 00:07.

- They're both like 20 minute jumps.

- So how to drive?

- Could that be the ship in the air

and they're filming it

and it's just really far away?

- Is this a better quality, not on this screen?

- Only slightly. (Heather laughs)

- So what do they say about what the heck this is?

Is that like a little...

- Just says how to drive.

I don't know what any of this is.

- That a little, you know, little...

- Little one of those?

- Is that- - Yeah.

- Oh. - I think so.

- It's one of those little- - Oh.

- It's one of those. - Oh yeah.

- It's definitely one of those.

We solved it, it's one of those.

- We think it's one of those, guys.

- I wouldn't have thought of one of those.

- Definitely one of those. - Dang.

- What if it's their, you know?

- Yeah. - Yep.

- I think that pretty much does it.

- Yeah, we got it.

- There's an - It's solved.

It's just a-

- It's just a-

- Entire community dedicated to Skinny Bob.

3,865 members on Reddit.

Seven are currently online.

- Yeah.

- It's a community for in-depth

and serious discussion of the authenticity of Skinny Bob

and the ivan0135 video series.

- Huh.

- This is to be treated as seriously as possible.

(Santino chuckles)

- I wonder- - Seriously, Santino.

- I mean, I wanna treat this serious

'cause that looks pretty baller,

but I gotta wonder how many people meet

on that Reddit and they get married.

(group laughs)

- Do they have a name for like the Skinny Bob couples?

- Oh, there's Skinny Bob couples?

- Well, there is a subreddit

- Oh, there's a subreddit?

- For Skinny Bob fun

that is meant for all the informal stuff.

- Hey, that's my kind of jam.

- Skinny Bob flirting.

- That's where you go to meet somebody.

- That's where you go to meet somebody.

- Skinny Bob, swipe right.

- Andy, go check that out for us.

- Will do. - See if you come back

with an alien girl

- Yeah.

- From Zeta Reculi. - Sheesh.

- It's just a bunch of Bobs looking

for their Bobettes, you know?

- Yeah, Bobettes.

- Oh, I like that.

- They're looking for the Bobettes.

- All right, so what if this is like a little touchscreen,

and this is like how they fly their ship

and it's the console?

- Enhance, Santino.

- Enhance. (Aaron and Andy laugh)

I can't tell what the heck we're looking at

with that last shot.

- Their little steering wheel.

- All right, so this person breaks it down.

- That's a shadow.

- I don't know.

- But what do they say? - Chakra Films?

Something like that.

- Oh, this is our reveal.

- Oh. - This is our big reveal.

- We have a big reveal? - Hey, sorry.

- Hey, she found it.

- She did find it, huh?

- This is big reveal.

- That's why we did this. - Are you serious?

There's a big reveal?

- Well, kind of. - What's the big reveal?

- Well, so this is the thing.

- Wait, do you wanna reveal it yet?

- No, well, go ahead.

Tell us what you found, Heather.

- All right.

These videos are fake.

- What? - What?

- It looks decent at first glance

to the uninitiated.

- Initiated? - First, don't be mad at me.

- What am I supposed to be initiating.

- I wanted to meet Skinny Bob - How do I get initiated

- One day two.

This is somebody who's like, it says,

- How do I get initiated?

- The sub already knows this.

So we're going back through. - Maybe they'll tell us

- Digital filters are being used.

Says, "Watch the original video at 1080,"

and the reference, the smoking gun at 29 seconds in.

It's super quick.

So do it a few times. - Oh, the original.

So, let's see.

- But-

- Oh yeah, this isn't what I thought you.

- Oh. - This is something else.

- All right, so this is the original.

- In the original video of Bob,

watch the time code burn-in roll over from 45 to 46.

It's 8 00:45 to 46.

It's really quick.

It's almost there right there somewhere.

All right, notice anything

on the number 46 seconds - Oh, yep.

- Specifically - There's film grain

going through it. - The fake digital effect

of a film scratch on the number six.

It doesn't even run through the center of the number six,

- I hit the wrong button, - Let alone the rest

of the background image.

- Yeah.

- That's a digital film effect,

a fake scratch preset that has been added

to a digital time code overlay,

which leaves the image behind it untouched.

Film scratches don't do this.

- Well, it wouldn't make sense.

- They don't defy physics, Santino.

- It wouldn't make sense for the time code

to have problems if the time code

was put there from the VHS.

- Nor do they discriminate

between foreground background time code or even-

- Oh, right over top of it, okay.

- Yeah.

- I think I read this guy.

He kind of goes on, but he doesn't really...

His only good point was the grain through it.

- Yeah.

- There was a bigger smoking gun than that even.

- Okay. - What?

- There's a bigger one?

- Fill us in, Santino. - There is.

- What? - There's always a bigger one.

- So, go back to the homepage, Aaron.

We have another video here. - Dun, dun, dun.

- Wait what?

Oh ours? - Yeah, on our playlist.

- Oh. - So.

- Dang. - Heather and I

have been researching.

We've looked through Reddit.

- Yep.

- And a lot of people on Reddit-

- Reddit is research now.

- Yeah, well, - Well, I mean.

- They did a lot of work on it.

- Yeah. (laughs)

- And so this one guy actually went through the trouble.

He went through things.

Remember how we were talking?

You actually asked the question, Courteney,

about in 2011 would you have been able to fake film?

- Yeah.

- Yes.

So this guy found the exact film grain

that was used on Pond5.

He did a search between January of 2006 until March,

or sorry, April of 2011, which is when this was published,

and he actually found the exact film grain

and he overlays it and shows you it's the exact markings.

- That's cool.

- There you go.

So there is this search.

He went through 'em.

There's the exact grain

lined up at the time. - Oh, wow.

- Whoa. - All the same markings.

The same lines appear in the same places.

- Look at this.

Good job. - Wow.

- Wow.

So aliens aren't real?

- Whoa, hey, hey. (Santino laughs)

- And there's your VHS filter as well,

the exact VHS lines.

- Good work. - Wow.

- And he even shows, of course, your layer order

of what you would put the thing down as, but-

- Oh, okay, it took me a second

to realize what was going on.

- It gets better than that.

- I thought those were dimensions.

- It gets better? - It gets better.

- What? - So-

- There's a bigger, bigger smoking gun?

- No, I mean, that's the biggest smoking gun.

So when I said-

- There's a slightly smaller smoking gun.

- I mean, that's pretty intense.

- Yeah. - When people say

that it's never officially been debunked, that's true

because technically you would need someone

to come forth and go, "I faked it"

in order to completely...

But I'd say this does a pretty good job at debunking it

because then you would say,

well, if it's really archival footage,

why would you put fake film grain on top of it?

- Yeah. - Why would you fake a VHS?

So, here's where it gets really cool.

Going back to the original Reddit thread

that Ben Phillips posted,

did anything seem odd about his thread to you,

or was it just me?

- Odd about his thread?

What do you mean?

- Just so he presented it all.

In fact, he says, "I'm a special effects,

- Yeah, you can look me up. - Creature effects,

and visual effects.

You can IMDB me, Ben Phillips, I've worked on things."

He goes through all these pains of saying

that in order to do this- - Film and creature.

- Right. - Facts.

- Look, you would just say visual effects.

You wouldn't have to specify.

- But I do the things that were used to fake this footage.

- Exactly.

He says, "I and my team could fake this,

but it would take a crew at the time."

Not so.

If you were that knowledgeable and you did work in VFX,

you could fake this over a couple months

in your free time using stock footage

and whatever assets you had lying around.

It seemed to me, and I'm just gonna come out

and accuse the guy.

- [Heather And Courteney] Whoa!

- It seems to me

that Ben Phillips - He done do it.

- Is most likely the person who made this footage

because everything lines up.

He was working on similar things around the same time.

He references movies like "Paul."

- Oh.

- Actually, IMDB him real quick.

Let's see, I wanna make sure that I'm correct

when I accuse someone. - When you accuse someone.

- I thought "Paul"

was all CGI. - "Paul" was 2011.

- Oh, I guess it is CGI.

- Yeah, it was all CG, "Paul."

It just seems to me that he lines up

because no one ever comes forth officially and claims it.

It's posted without monetization.

It's posted all in one dump and then left there.

- This can't be him.

- All the things that were faked about it,

they would have to be done with such precision,

and you would have to know the craft really well.

One thing that stuck out to me a lot

was that he mentioned,

and it didn't even occur to me when I was watching it,

he goes, you'll notice that the sound effect,

the sound of the projector running

gets higher pitched the longer we're watching.

He goes, that would make sense if you figure

that the takeup reel is getting fuller while the reel

that's feeding is actually getting lighter,

which means you're gonna have a lighter sound.

Now only people who work with film would know that.

- Think about that. - I don't know that

because I've never worked with film.

It logically makes sense to me,

but I've never actually worked with a projector.

So I wouldn't know that inherently.

He would given the time

that he's actually been in the industry.

So the fact that he pointed out all these things

that I would think only the creator

would really want you to know.

Look at all this work I put into it.

- [Courteney] Look at the detail I put into it.

- [Santino] Right, look at all the detail here.

And then he makes all these pains of saying

it doesn't look like any CG I've ever seen.

Really, because looks like CG to me.

(group chatters)

He seems like the most likely candidate.

- Paul Phillips. - Ben Phillips,

not Paul Phillips.

- Paul, Ben. - Ben Paul.

- Ben. - Paul Ben Phillips.

- Little Ben's Paul,

- Bob, Ben, ball pen. - Bob Ben.

Additionally, only a VFX person would know

to add the detail of adding a VHS effect

of scan lines over top of it.

Really anyone who sat around long enough

thinking of how would you fake this

and what would it look like if I did this,

only effects artists and people who work in the film

and just with a backstory, this detail,

you know, the time code, the vignetting,

and the only person who's gonna put that work

into something for no credit or money is a VFX artist.

So anyway, I think it's Ben Phillips.

That's my opinion.

- Ooh. - Good job, Ben.

- You heard it here first.

- You should just come out and claim your video.

You've done an excellent job.

- Yeah, come on outta the closet and claim your video.

- No, don't come outta the closet.

- Oh, different reference.

- Oh, full natural speed. - Full natural speed.

Now here we go.

Watch him at actual speed. - Merchandise,

fans custom made.

- All right, let me turn this off.

- Then you'll see the actual speed.

- All right, actual speed.

- See?

That looks really dumb

and it looks way more computery now, doesn't it?

- Yeah, it does.

- Well, you like speed anything up

and it looks weird. - Yeah.

But that's the proper speed

according to the time code. - The seconds.

- Couldn't there be a wrong time code

on this fake video?

- Well, sure, but my theory is he animated it like this

because if you do something in faster motion,

then you have less frames to render.

And if you're rendering this on your home PC,

it's gonna take days.

So he probably rendered it really fast

and then just slowed it down

and thought nobody would notice the time differential.

Because another thing he mentions in his Reddit

is the arguments of whether this of about frame rate

of whether this is 16 millimeter or not is irrelevant.

I'm like, no it's not, that's super important.

Like frame rate really matters

when you're talking about speed.

- Don't look over here, but look over here.

- If this was an episode of "Monk,"

this would be the part where we'd be like,

here's what happened.

And then we'd do like a black and white flashback.

- Well, yeah, actually, after watching this at full speed,

it's kind of...

- I'm thinking-

- He looks like a little claymation, doesn't he?

Oh my gosh. - He just looks-

- Have we have we ruled that out, claymation?

- Claymation is so cool. - I don't think

it's stop motion.

- Oh, he's stop motion.

- He's not, no. - Look at that.

See the shadowing on his forehead?

- He's cute though. - He's adorable.

- Look at his little stop motion shadow forehead.

- The more I see him, the cuter he gets.

- Oh yeah, dude, he's totally stop motion.

- He's not stop motion.

- Oh yeah. - I don't think.

That's it.

- That looks like the battle for Endor,

Little stop motion creatures.

- The grain.

If that's the right motion, the grain is too fast now.

- Right.

Like if it wasn't my video, I'd be like,

I don't know, this is why I think you don't agree, whatever.

But like if I made it and I really wanted credit,

but I didn't want to give it up, I'd be like,

well, I think it looks really good, don't you?

Huh, you know? - Huh, eh?

- It's the best faked footage I've ever made.

I mean, seen.

Oh. (group laughs)

Why am I doing speech text on Reddit?

Send.

(Heather laughs) - There you go.

Speech to text on Reddit.

- Send.

- So, yeah. - Yeah, it's claymation.

- No it's not.

(group laughs)

- Let me look up claymation alien real quick.

- No.

(group laughs)

- All right, thanks for watching, guys.

What do you think of Skinny Bob

and Phil Phillip, Ben Phillips, huh?

- Yeah, comment, let us know.

- What do you guys think? - Let us know.

- Mhm. - I wanna know.

- Is it actually Santino?

Tell us in the comments.

- Yes. - Was it really me?

- Yeah. - Was it just

Santino's claymation all along?

(group laughs) - Yes, I knew it.

- When I was, let's see, this is 2011.

I would've been 17. - You were 14.

- You baby. - 12.

- No. - Nine.

- Seven. - 17.

- So seven? - Seven.

- Whatever. - Yeah.

- Time is crazy. - Thanks for stopping by.

- How old are you?

- If you wanna watch more videos of these,

make sure to hit the Subscribe button.

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- Exactly. - Yes.

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- [All] Bye!

(chill music)

- Wait, don't take 'em off yet.