alt Hacker News>Nearly all UFO claims went away once high quality cameras in smartphones became ubiquitous.
If only, but no. Thanks to equally ubiquitous video and image editing and now AI and the profit potential of social media there are more such claims than anyone can count.
The sitting president of the US is even intentionally stirring the pot releasing obvious AI photos of himself walking with aliens while the government is releasing "evidence" that isn't any more credible than the stuff you find on Reddit and Youtube. A significant number of Americans already believe the government has confirmed the existence of aliens and UFOs on Earth thanks to "whistleblowers" like Grusch and the Tic-Tac stuff, even though the government's official position has never changed, and most of that "evidence" has been debunked, and Grusch et.al have yet to provide anything conclusive.
Far from going away, the whole thing has become normalized and I feel like we're going to reach the point where more people believe in interdimensional space elves than believe humans ever landed on the moon by the end of the decade.
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> If only, but no. Thanks to equally ubiquitous video and image editing and now AI and the profit potential of social media there are more such claims than anyone can count.
That's a more recent development. UFO sightings surge when the technology aligns with them: when the camera is blurry or you're not expected to carry one, or when faking with editing or AI is trivial. But there was a long middle when everyone had access to phone cameras yet editing/faking was hard, and UFO sightings by civilians became rare.
Same with the Loch Ness monster, the Yeti, Big Foot, etc. These monsters were apparently very shy during the phone camera era, but I bet you with AI image editing they will overcome their shyness!
Most common video seems to be a balloon filmed sideways from a fast flying aircraft, with parallax giving the illusion that the balloon moves very fast.