Dutch Artist Admits Faking Viral 'Human Bird Wing' Video

Velcroman1 writes "Dutch filmmaker and animator Floris Kaayk in collaboration with media production company Revolver fessed up to creating a 'media art project' that took the world by storm in recent days — a video of inventor Jarno Smeets taking flight by flapping his arms. But like the wax melting from Icarus' wings, the truth is finally emerging. Kaayak admitted that he didn't expect the media attention his project would generate, with over 8.9 million views across the world. He made the project in collaboration with Revolver and Omroep NTL, sources in the Netherlands who have spoken to the filmmaker said prior to the show. They admitted their hoax Thursday evening on the Dutch television show Wereld Draait Door."

Comments

Not Surprising.

[biohazard35]

Honestly, people have been trying to use bird wings to fly for hundreds of years. There wasn't really much chance of this being real considering that every design that used human flight via wings (excluding gliders of course) have failed.

Re: Not Surprising.

[Dyinobal]

Ya I'm surpised anyone fell for this at all. Anyone who even knows a tiny tiny bit about anatomy of either humans or birds knows we just don't have the muscles for anything like that.

Re: Not Surprising.

[Kufat]

To be fair, the troll who made the videos did claim that motors were providing 95% of the net power. That made it a good bit more plausible.

Re: Not Surprising.

[anchelo123456789]

Has already been done: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus Much more impressive in my eyes as it did really work. And of course they crashed jus like Daedalus. I would love to have the opportunity to fly this thing just once in my life.

Re: Not Surprising.

[MrEricSir]

The part about the Wii remotes was a major red flag. Most people are very bad at lying, and this guy committed the newbie mistake of adding in to many extraneous details to the story.

Besides, who would build a giant flying machine for thousands of dollars and base the electronics around a $20 IR camera known for rapidly draining batteries? Doesn't seem practical or safe.

Re: Not Surprising.

[ColdWetDog]

Uncanny valley sort of thing. I agree with the ILM folks (hey, isn't that a smart thing to do?) - the wings and wing motion were just not fluid enough. Also lousy focus and jerky motions are easy things to do to hide GCI bits.

Avatar it's not.

Re: Not Surprising.

[Isaac-Lew]

Icarus crashed, not Daedalus.

Re: Not Surprising.

[houghi]

Avatar it's not.

So it was very realistic with great acting and no obvious view of CGI and even an original storyline?

Poor schlubs

[Cazekiel]

Can you imagine how insanely stupid the participants must feel? "YEEEA!" tears in their eyes, stumbling on speech, inspirational music... only to have their act be completed debunked by the most basic physics. I find that particularly amusing.

Re:Poor schlubs

[joh]

Why stupid? They got half the Internet viewing a video and discussing if it is real or not. That was well done and they obviously got everything out of it that they wanted and then some. If they had included some visible motors and a fake battery pack (hey, 2000 Watts for 60 seconds is just 33 Wh, less than the 45 Wh of an iPad) and put more work into the flapping of the wings, it would have more convincing, but still.

Harmless fun, cleverly done, I'd say.

Can people fly?

[tick-tock-atona]

I bet the conversation went a little like this..

I can't believe I fell for this!

[cvtan]

You guys made me click on a link to FOX NEWS???? Arrghh!

This is awesome

[sideslash]

The world needs to be reminded periodically not to take itself so seriously.

Human Powered Plane

[phriedom]

Like this maybe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross