An Elaborate Internet Hoax, But A Hoax None The Less

Maybe you've seen the viral video which has been passed around the Interwebs recently showing a man flying like Icarus with fabric wings attached to his shoulders. It looks pretty convincing, but experts in the movie business who regularly generate spectacular images using computers say it's a very good fake ... but it's a fake.

Gizmodo  asked around about the video, which has an associated blog that includes months of setup, technical specs for the wings, and other trappings of legitimacy. But the CGI gurus at Industrial Light and Magic told the tech blog that it's definitely a hoax.

Some of the givaways? Poor quality video, which is often a red flag on internet vids that seem to prove the (so far) impossible. Some of the folks they asked, who happened to be pilots or in other ways acquainted with the basic tenants of physics and aerodynamics, said the wings were just too small to carry the 180 pound man, and that the camera on his head was too steady for someone exerting himself enough to be able to generate the lift required to fly using only his arm strength, let alone not looking around to take in the view. One said it was reminiscent of the animation of the flying monkey from the Wizard of Oz.

But further proof came when the footage was analyzed the texture of the fabric on the wings. Another video shows the team modeling the wings using a program often used by CGI artists, rather than a legitimate CAD program.

So the bottom line is ... its fake. A good fake that impressed professionals in the field, but no less a fake. And it didn't even take the Mythbusters to get to the bottom of it. (Image YouTube video frame capture)

FMI: www.humanbirdwings.net