Conffederate
Confederate

April 05, 2006

Insurgent Helicopter Hoax?

Drudge is running a link to this AP story, which claims the pilots of an American AH-64 Longbow attack helicopter were shot down, and their burning bodies pulled from the wreckage.

My PC's video isn't working right now, but the video is downloadable at the SITE Institute, where they have two still photos captured from the video that make me immediately suspicious. The timestamp on the video states that the date of the film is March 19, 2000. In addition, the still photo on the right seems to show an airborne helicopter with what appears to be (in the one grainy still photo can I see) skids on the undercarriage.

Current-issue UH-60 Blackhawks that are the predominate utility and MEDEVAC helicopter of the U.S. Army have wheels.

I'll update this after I have had a chance to look at the video later today, but I suspect this may not be authentic footage.


Update: The SITE video is not the same film of the crash as reported in the AP story.
Bareknucklepolitics.com has the correct video. It is of very low quality, but despite that, it is not being disputed by the U.S. military. Without anything else to go on, I'll assume that the downing of the helicopter is real.

Second Update: It now appears that the U.S. military is doubting the authenticity of the video footage, even while a stateside defense contractor says the tape looks authentic. The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this discrepancy is that the Army is aware of forensic evidence from the recent crash that does not match up with the footage shown in the video. The contractor would not necessarily have access to this information.

Variables such as the condition of the downed helicopter, the terrain of the crash site, and even the condition of the human remains collected may very well provide the military with evidence suggesting that the footage was either staged, or was footage from a previous crash.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at April 5, 2006 12:53 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I saw the footage on Australian SBS earlier tonight and it was presented as real. It would on SBS which is generally anti American. (Its multicultural, you see.) I'll be watching how you go on this. I expect we get a lot of staged fottage from those stringers. Manybe its real, maybe it isn't like you say. What I can tell you for sure is that it is not fake but ture. Good for you for jumping on it with a skeptical eye.

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