What stikes me as odd right off about this picture are the light "blobs" that appear on the ground below, as if there are spotlights coming from the bottom of the planes. I don't see how they can make sense. Even if these are from exploded ordinance they don't make sense because I would expect that to be so bright you'd get blow-out of any detail whatsoever similar to the lack of detail on the right side of the airplanes. Speaking of which, that loss of detail look weird too because it's not uniform. If there's something bright enough to cause detail blow-out of the left elevator and fuselage, why not the left wings?

And if it's not merely visible light based night vision, and is infrared, what makes the entire length of just one side of the fuselage or elevator warmer than the other?

This image is weird in many ways. Maybe cough up some dough for spaceimaging.com or equivalent and see if you can get a shot of Baghdad that matches up with the river shape (and it's width and narrowing) and buildings around it. Should be easy to do and conclusive to show this is a fake.

I think the fake is a fake. That is, the screen shot of the image window with the CBS name all over it, is a fake - in my opinion. I challenge the original poster to prove it was actually on the CBS web page.

The reason why I think the fake is a fake, is because the fake is not a good one. There are a lot of problems other than the ones mentioned. There's also a serious and obvious problem with the crediting of the picture. If CBS really had this on the web page, and they were claiming it was authentic, they certainly would not be able to credit the image to themselves. The screen shot credits the image to CBS themselves which is impossible. A CBS cameraman is not going to be on board an airplane above a squadron of B-52's - most likely unless it is also a B-52. The government has no reason to allow a CBS cameraman to be in a B-52, let alone with the kind of equipment necessary to take an infrared shot - from a frickin B-52.

So I consider the JPEG at http://www.two--four.net/Closet/CBS.jpg a fake until proven otherwise.

> I think the fake is a fake. That is, the
> screen shot of the image window with the
> CBS name all over it, is a fake - in my
> opinion. I challenge the original poster
> to prove it was actually on the
> CBS web page.

*I* am that poster, Chris. They took that image offline.

Now, let me explain a few things to you.

To begin with, I cannot escape the impression that you *will not* be convinced. I could easily be wrong about that, and we'll see.

In the meantime, I don't know you, and you don't know me. But I'll tell you this: I've got a reputation for integrity online going back nine years now, and nothing would be further from my mind than to cook up that image. I find *reality* to be absurd enough, as it is. And what's more is that I'm just too busy for nonsense like that.

But I'll tell you what: you could go Google up this Usenet Message ID:

I posted that to rec.aviation.military with my Forte Agent installation at 5:11pm Eastern time on the 21st. My archive of the group lists eight posts in the whole thread. Three of them are mine, and one of those explains how I got to that image at the CBS Nes website. And if you go look at it, you will see at least one poster who got to it by that route.

Now, that's the best that I can do for you in terms of the history of this thing at their Website. And you don't have to believe it, but I'm going to lose sleep over it if you don't, because there simply isn't anything else to be done for it, and I think a *reasonable* person would understand the implications of a memory-hole move like their taking it offline.

A "challenge" like yours is un-meetable. It is what it is, and it ain't what it was, anymore, because they took it down.

I captured that whole java window with Paint Shop Prop. What you see is what I got in that capture.

> The reason why I think the fake is a
> fake, is because the fake is not a
> good one. There are a lot of problems
> other than the ones mentioned. There's
> also a serious and obvious problem with
> the crediting of the picture. If CBS
> really had this on the web page,
> and they were claiming it was authentic,
> they certainly would not be able to
> credit the image to themselves.

That's an excellent point, but that's exactly what they did.

Believe it or not.

Very interesting. That is one very strange-looking formation. I'd be interested to know if any Air Force readers believe B-52s would ever sortie in this fashion.

Being an Army type might imply a lack of knowledge but here goes. You can see B-52s in a nice tight, overlapping formation when doing a fly-past at an airshow, maybe. During an operation, separation distances would vary but anything closer than 1km would be too close. It would appear that someone was inspired by WW2 photos of B-17s over Berlin and swapped out the -17s and added -52s. Made by the same company, doing the same job, what's the difference?

Cheers

The B-52's appear to have been taken from another photo, turned into negative images, and then colored green. This is obvious if one considers what appears to be shadowing over the left elevator and part of the left wing that would be shadowed by the fuselage.

There is one thing that I find particularly strange. Shouldn't the exhaust ejected from the engines cause some blurring behind them?
Also, shouldn't bombers show some markings on their fuselage?
It looks to me like someone pasted a photo of a model kit three times over an aerial photo of God-knows-where and made some coloring with some program.