Nope: Neither picture was 'shopped at all. See my post just above
You seem to be under the impression that I’m saying the crash didn’t occur. I’m not.
The photos do not prove that the snopes photo was not manipulated.
This photo was taken from the approximate position of the crash. You will note that the sign is across the road from the crash site, and that the sign is facing[/u[ the crash site. The first snopes photo (‘Claim’ photo) has the sign facing away from the crash site.
These two photos show the crash site. Note that the sign is not visible in either photo.
The sign was not physically moved. It was digitally moved. I think it’s reasonable to assume that if the sign had been in the position shown in the ‘Claim’ photo, then Racer would have duplicated the shot. He didn’t. That he commented on it indicates that the sign is not where the ‘Claim’ photo shows it to be. Again: The sign faces the crash site.
And then there is the statement, made twice, by Meadow Lake Airport managment itself:
Let me try to make this perfectly clear: I AM NOT SAYING THE CRASH DIDN’T HAPPEN. I am not saying snopes is incorrect that the crash did happen.
I am saying the photo was digitally manipulated for comic effect. I’ve pointed out details from the physical position of the sign to the lighting. Racer states that the sign had been ‘moved’ for the photo. The persons responsible for knowing such things at MLA have stated on the airport’s website that the ‘Claim’ photo was altered.
Yes, a PA-28 did crash into a tree. Yes, there is a sign nearby that offers flight instruction. But the ‘Claim’ photo was manipulated to put them together in the same frame.
I posted a nitpick, but you’re nitpicking a nitpick!
No, I’m not under such an impression, and I’ve never been. This fracas has all been about the sign all along. You, on the other hand, have been and remain under what I consider to be the wholly mistaken impression that the sign (perhaps also some other element as well, but at least the sign) had been inserted or moved from it’s actual position or otherwise manipulated in at least one of the three photos that show the sign.
However, once you have carefully read and thought through all of what I’ve written on the sign issue throughout this entire thread – particularly my most recent post to which you are responding, and now this very post – I believe that logic will bring you to agree that I have provided a strong logical argument that no manipulation occurred at all, and that not even the sign was moved or manipulated in any way at all.
I repeat my claim for clarification: All the photos are entirely genuine with no image manipulation of any kind. Not one single thing has been changed in them. All the photos are genuine and nothing has been doctored, photoshopped, or otherwise manipulated in any way.
Employ the fundamental basics of photo interpretation and analysis as well as the basics of advertising, and I contend that any “reasonable person” and careful observer would agree that there has been no manipulation of any kind in any photo.
You write:
Johnny, I have pointed out at least twice that: “It’s also clear that the sign in question is double-sided, with the same content on each side.” If that is true, then you have no case left at all. I deny that any persuasive evidence has been brought out by anyone, not even the airport web site, establishing that there is no other side to the sign. A statement is not proof of it’s own truth.
On the other hand, there is strong photographic evidence that the sign in question does have two sides, and when one combines: (a) the size and shape of the signs on the opposite side, with (b) the fact that a close-up of the sign shows screws or bolts along the perimeter that would make zero sense and even be ridiculous if the sign wasn’t double-sided, along with (c) the claim that any competent advertiser would put the same content on both sides of the sign so that people driving to the airport from either direction would be able to see the pitch, and you cannot escape the conclusion that there were no manipulations of anything – not even the sign – in any of the three photos in which the sign appears.
All of the photographic magnifications of the sign prove that the sign is double-sided, with the same content on each side. If you look at the blow-up, it’s almost too obvious to have to have to actually state it explicitly! The 6 screws or bolts around the perimeter edge of the “American Aviation” sign would serve no purpose whatsoever if there wasn’t another sign of the exact same shape and size on the other side. There’s not enough detail for an amateur like me to know for certain if the “Learn to Fly Here” has similar bolts or screws, but for the exact same reason, you can’t say there isn’t some perimeter bolts on that part of the sign. And that’s where the “reasonable person” standard comes into equation. The “American Aviation” sign has two sides of the exact same size and shape. Therefore, reason and common sense dictate that the people who commissioned the sign wanted it to be read by people driving by in either direction. Since it is also reasonable that whomever commissioned the top sign wanted it to be read by people driving in both directions, the commissioner would want both the “American Aviation” sign -and- the “Learn to Fly Here” sign to be read by people driving in both directions. Thus, logic tells us the sign has two faces with identical content.
Let’s continue our logical deductions, by carefully examining the physical position of the sign-post in all three photos that include it (I’m giving the three photos new names to disambiguate them, starting with “Sign_Photo_”):
Sign_Photo_A: Racer Photo_002 - Sign in middle-near distance: We’re viewing sign side: Alpha
Sign_Photo_B: Snopes Photo School1 - Sign in close foreground in front of crashed plane in tree: We’re viewing sign side: Beta
Sign_Photo_C: Snopes Photo School2 - Sign in close background behind crashed plane in tree: We’re viewing sign side: Alpha again.
In Sign_Photo_A, the post is seen on the right side of the main highway, and about 20 feet away from the edge of the main highway. The sign’s also on the far/opposite side of the small access road. Side Alpha faces the viewer.
In Sign_Photo_B, the post is seen on the left side of the main highway, and about 20 feet away from the edge of the main highway. The sign’s also on the near side of the small access road (i.e., on the other side from the plane). Side Beta faces the viewer. * The objects in this photo are completely, totally, 100% consistent with the objects in Sign_Photo_A!* Every single object – including the sign – is in exactly the same real-world location as it is in Sign_Photo_A.
In Sign_Photo_C, the post is seen again on the right side of the main highway, and about 20 feet away from the edge of the main highway. The sign’s also again on the far/opposite side of the small access road and the plane, as it was in Sign_Photo_A. Side Alpha faces the viewer again, as it did in Sign_Photo_A. Once again, every single object – including the sign – is in exactly the same real-world location as it is in Sign_Photo_A -and- Sign_Photo_B!
At this point, geometric logic deduced from all three photos – taken by two different photographers, recall – in which the sign appears has proved that the sign post is in the exact same position relative to the main highway, the small access road, the tree, and the plane in all three photos. Again and again, logic and geometry combine to prove there was no photo manipulation of any kind.
Now I have to point out an error I made in my previous post. At one point there, I linked-to and discussed the other photos Racer took. These included very different views which featured other things. Here’s your response in the section at issue:
To your credit, I did mis-describe the first of those two of Racer’s photos that didn’t show the sign. I was wrong to describe that image as depicting the tree in which the plane crashed. It clearly was not! Instead, it shows a tree further along to the right (from the point of view of that photo) from the tree in which the plane crashed. I got the wrong impression from the text of one of Racer’s posts. I apologize for my error.
But it doesn’t hurt my case. There is still no reasonable doubt that all three photos in which the sign appears have not been altered or manipulated in any way.
Continuing my current reply, let’s move to where you wrote:
No, sir, you are simply mistaken. The sign was not digitally moved in any photo in which it appears. The reason you can read the same content on the sign in question no matter which side of the sign you’re on is that the sign has the exact same content on both sides. Once you can get that straight in your mind, you will recognize that all three photos in which the sign appears proves that none of them have been altered at all. Start again with the first phase of my logical deductions which geometrically demonstrates that the sign post is in the exact same real-world position in all three photos. Once you’re clear on that point regarding the post, add in my reasoning showing the high probability that the sign shows the exact same content on both sides, and you’ll be forced to conclude that neither the sign nor anything else was manipulated in any of those three photos.
You continue:
Sorry, Johnny. An assertion is not proof of it’s own truth or accuracy. I still strongly contend, based on all the reasoning and photographic evidence I’ve described in this thread, that whomever wrote: “The famous photo has been altered” on the meadowlakeairport.com site was simply mistaken, just like Racer (whose photos proved the sign had not been moved) and yourself, as long as one accepts real-world geometry, logic, and the basics of advertising.
Let’s try continuing this way: Assume for the purposes of discussion that the sign in question was, in fact, a double-sided sign with the same content on both sides. Would granting that assumption – however temporarily – be enough for you to agree that no image manipulation was needed whatsoever to produce all three photographs exactly as they appear?
If yes, then we at least have a fundamental basis for moving forward: I’d just have find some way to persuade you that the sign is, in fact, double-sided as I believe it to be. But if even after granting that hypothetical assumption you still insist that at least one of the three photos showing the sign was manipulated, then we have to go back to basic geometry and start again…
Let me conclude with this note for now: Earlier tonight, I telephoned the pilot of the crashed aircraft in question, but I got that person’s answering machine. I left a message asking for the pilot to email me so we can discuss just one specific question: Did the sign in question have two sides with the same content on both sides, or not?
I’ll post whatever reply I get…
So let’s assume the pilot responds. In that case you’ll have the word (whatever he says) of someone who definitely had other things on his mind, vs. the word of someone who runs the airport. And you have already dismissed assertions.
Take a look at the American Aviation sign in the snopes photo. Does it, or does it not, appear to have shadows in it?
If it does appear to have shadows in it, where do they come from? In that photo the sign is in shadow. On the other hand, you can see sunlight behind the sign in snopes photo 2. Assuming for a moment that the shadows on the sign can be cast from a direction where the sun isn’t and while the sign itself is in shadow, how could the shadows be seen on the face of the sign if there is another sign behind it?
I do not dispute that the sign is in the same place in all of the photos. By ‘moved’ I meant that the sign was digitally moved from one side of the post to another.
So we’re down to this: Is it double-sided?
In your court you have alleged screws holding the signs together. I’m on a 15" laptop, and I don’t have the resolution to see screws. What I see can just as easily be grommets. In my court I have the word of the airport’s own website, and shadows that shouldn’t be seen on the American Aviation sign in that position or if there is another sign behind it.
Ambushed, I was a skeptic earlier in the thread, but I think Middle Field Airport’s take that the photo is faked trumps all that verbage you (and earlier I) wrote. They would certainly know. If someone here wishes to visit that lonely place and look at the sign, it would be even better proof. But barring that, its over: It’s a fake. Done and done, asked and answered.
Amen! I strongly agree with your logic and reasoning thus far.
But then you go on in that post to write:
Sorry, Pleonast, you were on the right track until that paragraph. When we view the photo you’re referring to, the photo I call Sign_Photo_B: Snopes Photo School1 - Sign in close foreground in front of crashed plane in tree, in which we’re viewing what I call Face/Direction Beta of the sign, the arrow end is pointing left and tilting slightly down on the left end. Another way to put it is that the left/arrow end is slightly lower than the non-arrow end.
If the sign actually is double-sided, with the same content on both sides as I claim, then if we rotate the perspective in our minds and “look” with our minds at the sign from the other side (the perspective I call Face/Direction Alpha), we should see the arrow facing right and also tilting slightly down. We should see the right/arrow end to be slightly lower than the non-arrow end. That’s basic geometry.
So, if my argument that both sides are identical is correct, then logically the two other photos that show the sign: Sign_Photo_A: Racer Photo_002 - Sign in middle-near distance: viewing sign side: Alpha and Sign_Photo_C: Snopes Photo School2 - Sign in close background behind crashed plane in tree: viewing sign side: Alpha again, must logical show the arrow facing right and also tilting slightly down; i.e., slightly lower on the right side. That is, the right/arrow end would be slightly lower than the non-arrow (left) end.
And that’s exactly what they show! Look at them again if you need to.
Q.E.D.
Honestly, Pleonast, you were right all along until that last paragraph.
FWIW, the ‘Learn to fly here!’ sign and the arrow are probably two signs.
If some anonymous person’s bald assertion – contrary to all available photographic -AND- geometric evidence along with basic advertising sensibility – is all it takes to move your bead from the skeptical side to the believer side, I would be less eager in the future to consider yourself a skeptic.
I’ve seen all kinds of places and things with authoritative signs asserting things that are flatly false. One place that springs immediately to mind is Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. On different visits over the years, I encountered several signs or text describing the exhibit that contained significant errors. When I called over a docent or whomever and explained the problem, that person investigated, confirmed that the text was incorrect, and then edited out or otherwise repaired their error.
Lots of authorities or presumptive authorities issue the occasional erroneous statement as if it were the final, authoritative factual truth. You might want to seek out your newspaper’s or other media sources’ corrections section, for example (don’t bother with Fox News, of course, for they don’t make any errors: Just ask 'em!)
I’ve never before encountered a skeptic who took some anonymous person’s bald assertion as the final, incontrovertible truth of a claim, even when it seems that the person in question should probably know the accurate facts…
Yes, I have. I require evidence instead. And all the photographic evidence, all the geometric evidence, and all the advertising rationale comes together extremely forcefully together in unison to tell us that the sign has two sides with the same content on both sides.
It is the argument that there is only one side to the sign or that the other side does not contain the same contents for which there is zero actual evidence (other than an anonymous, bald assertion, to which I grant very little credibility).
The photographic evidence is obviously debatable.
The geometric evidence is not in dispute, as I’ve already said.
The advertising rational is an assertion by you, an anonymous person. In my opinion, the sign is poorly placed to be read from the side in question.
If it’s a double sign, then there must be four thicknesses of aluminum at the bottom; not two. Also, what about the shadows on the plastic sign?
It was the assertion of someone who lives there. I don’t see how that doesn’t trump all the hand-waving you’ve been throwing out.
Making a fake photo of those signs is not difficult by any measure. See here; I made this in about 25 minutes, 15 of those minutes was googling for signage that would fit in. My fake is not as good as the original fake, but given a camera and some time, I could make one that would be indistinguishable from ‘real’. I’ve worked with Photoshop for more than a decade – hell, I’ve even worked on Photoshop – and a fake sign is just not hard to fabricate.
It does. Clearly.
But that is totally consistent with the rest of the shot.
I’m sorry, Johnny, but there are quite a number of unjustified assumptions in that paragraph of your questions.
Before I go on to explain why that photo is perfectly internally self-consistent, let me first point out that no one can draw any conclusions involving shadows in one photo that would allow any comparison with shadows or lighted areas in another photo. This is because we have no way of knowing when the different photos were taken – not the time of day or even the date – so we cannot use the shadows or sun position in one photo to argue about shadows or sun position in any other photo. Thus, your statement: “On the other hand, you can see sunlight behind the sign in snopes photo 2” represents an invalid premise because it makes an unjustified assumption that the sun would necessarily be in the same place in more than one photo. While I would agree that it would seem likely that a single photographer took both photos shown on Snopes at the same time and date, there’s no independent evidence for that, while the evidence of the internal consistency of the photo in question is quite compelling. Every element of the photo looks exactly like it should if the photo was untouched and unmodified.
Side Note:
There is some admittedly merely suggestive evidence that the two photos on Snopes were not taken by the same photographer, though I have to note that it doesn’t carry much probity and weight. Upon examining all of Racer’s photos, the evidence is overwhelming that they were all taken by the same camera on the same date and within a short period of time. However, if one examines the data associated with the two photos on Snopes using the same technique I used on Racer’s, the most you can learn is that the characteristics of Snopes photo 1 (the small file) are slightly different from Snopes photo 2 (also the small file), in that, as currently posted on Snopes, they have two different resolutions/pixels-per-inch. One was 72 pixels-per-inch, while the other image didn’t incorporate that datum at all.
The ironic thing is that, even assuming that difference is significant, it can be used to argue your side as well as mine, Johnny. I could claim it tends to show they were taken by different photographers, but you could claim the reason for the difference is that one was digitally manipulated while the other was not. All I know is that I’d be damned if I was going to leave that whole side issue out after all the effort I put in to trying to determine those details!
Anyway, here’s why the photo at issue in this post is internally consistent, thus invalidating your argument about shadows: Throughout the entire photo, every piece of shadow evidence tells us the sun is at “our” back and to “our” left. But what’s not seen in the photo but is the source of the largest shadow in that photo is that there is something off-stage-left on Earth behind and to the left that is casting the large shadow to appear in the entire bottom 20% or so of the photographed area. I’d say it’s one or more metal buildings of the type seen in what I call “Sign_Photo_C” (Snopes Photo 2). But there would be one major difference: Unlike those in “Sign_Photo_C”, the building(s) making the large shadow we see in what I call “Sign_Photo_B” (Snopes Photo 1) is that those building(s) is/are probably hangars, which are taller than most metal buildings and therefore cast larger shadows.
Thus, the shadow area must cover a large area at the bottom of the scene. The left upper corner of the big shadow starts at what looks like an underground telephone access post (green, rectangular, upright box about 3.5 feet high). It also includes an angled area of the opposite side of the small access road; roughly 2.5 feet on the left diminishing in a triangular shape until it’s only about an inch at most in visible size on the far right. The upper edge of that big shadow reaches from the phone access box, across the bottom foot or so of the tree in which the plane crashed, across the rest of the bottom 20% of the photo all the way across the highway.
Note in particular the visually interesting fact that the shadow in question doesn’t reach very high above the ground where the tree with the plane in it is. But past that tree (i.e, deeper into the background), the sun once again shows strongly on the ground.
This tells us that everything in the foreground – the entire rectangular shadow-shaped area that contains the entire bottom 20% of the image, including the sign – is in deep shadow(s) caused by the presence of one or more tall hangar buildings.
That being the case, mental geometry once again tells us that we should see the sign in shadow if the sign actually exists and has two identical sides. And that’s exactly what we see!
There’s no reason whatsoever from the internal evidence to suspect – let alone believe – that the photo has been manipulated. My strong opinion is that if someone manipulated the photo just to make it funnier, they wouldn’t have taken such extreme care to make certain every single element of the photo was exactly where it should have been, in exactly the right color, in the exactly correct size, with all the exact tiny details such as 'shopping in screws or bolts around the perimeter of the sign, and each and every object with exactly the right shadowing.
If that photo was digitally manipulated, it was manipulated to look exactly like an untouched and unmodified photo taken at that time, date, and position would look.
Quite true. I agree that we’re having a genuine debate over a genuine issue.
Thanks for putting that behind us.
No, it’s not an assertion of any kind. It’s an argument. My argument is as follows: If you’re going to pay to dig a hole, insert a post, and put up a small-ish advertising sign that stands at exactly 90 degrees relative to the road so that only people driving by in one and only one direction can read it, it’s flat stupid false economy. You can put the same ad on both sides of the sign so that people driving both directions can read it for a small additional expense(again, because we’re certain the sign is exactly perpendicular to the traffic flow, making it impossible to read from the other direction). That way, for a small additional sum, you can increase the number of eyes that see your ad by 100 percent! (maybe more and maybe less; it depends on the traffic patterns).
Now, if the sign was placed such that it was parallel to the highway, you would only need the sign to have a single face, facing outwards. But if you’re intent on placing it perpendicular to the highway, it’s quite stupid to put the ad on only one side.
Why? I don’t grasp your reasoning there. It seems to me that if it was a double sign, there would be two, not four, thicknesses of aluminum at the bottom. I don’t understand how you get to four.
I addressed that above. I was busy for quite a while gathering all the data necessary to answer your challenge on that regard. You posted your questions during that time…
Not so! Not so at all!
If the pilot only took off from or landed at that airport only once or a few times, then that person might have been distracted by the accident and not know if the sign is double-sided and has the same info on both sides or not.
However, my research reveals that the pilot in question was and remains a regular pilot there. The real-estate company that owns the plane and for which the pilot works is still in business. The pilot insisted that the accident would not deter him or her (the pilot’s first name is Terry, so I don’t know the pilot’s gender yet) from flying again from that airport in any way. He/She’s a regular, and thus very likely already knows if the sign is double-sided or not. If he/she does not know, I’ll ask that the person drives by and looks, then reports back.
Furthermore, I’ve emailed the airport’s management, asking the same question. If the pilot doesn’t respond and no one checks that email address or, if they do, the person who reads my inquiry won’t respond, I’ll try something else.
Hey, that’s good research! Congrats on that.
But that’s exactly what I would have expected from the fact that the arrow is tilted in the photographs that we both already agree are real. If they weren’t two separate signs, then the fact that the arrow is titled would prove quite conclusively that all the photos were faked.
Please re-read my comments above on how often people who would seem to know (like people who “live there”) make flat, presumably expert assertions that turn out to be completely wrong. If all we had to go on was that anonymous person’s bald, unevidenced assertion – that is, if we had no other evidence to work with – then and only then would that bald assertion “trump” my position.
As I said previously, I’ve never known a skeptic who simply took someone’s word as the final, inarguable answer, especially when one has evidence that is not of a merely verbal nature that certainly at least appears to show that the assertion in question is false.
Surely you grasp that all that is entirely irrelevant. I certainly accept that image manipulation is powerful and so easy. But you know what’s even easier? Much, much easier?
Snapping a photo with a camera and not modifying it at all!
Given the fact that the image in question is internally consistent on its own merits and shows nothing that has been proved to be false or internally inconsistent (as I’ve shown elsewhere in this thread), it seems to me that those who claim it’s faked have the burden of proof. But I don’t want to start another subsidiary argument on the burden of proof, so I’ll just keep arguing my position and you and Johnny L.A. should keep arguing yours until the issue is satisfactorily resolved between all parties to the debate…
Here’s the problem I have with the theory that there are two signs back-to-back on the single post. Those two signs can not be touching each other, then mounted on the post, because the post would be covering the front of one of the signs. There would have to be one sign on each side of the post, which would mean that there is a space of a couple inches between the signs. The back of sign facing away from the camera in this picture would be very obvious on the right side of the signs, since the signs aren’t facing directly at the camera. The photographic evidence is that there are not two signs separated by a couple inches.
It’s conceivable that there are two signs on one side of the post, with the post covering the side facing away from the plane, and that the strip was photoshopped to make the words more visible. There is a black line at the bottom of the white sign that aligns with the post.
My God, you guys, get a room already… 
Or rename the thread!