This last weekend an alleged UFO video surfaced and made the rounds in both the news and social media. The video was a bit more interesting than most we see but it also received attention because of its location. The glowing orb was “video recorded” over the Dome Of The Rock (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem. The story got even more attention as additional videos popped up on YouTube.

 

The videos depict a glowing sphere that slowly descends over the Dome of the Rock. It then apparently hovers low over the holy site before some type of discharge causes a bright flash. After the flash, the object quickly ascends out of view. The first video to be made public (right) is taken from a balcony a good distance from the site. A second video from the same location was shot by another person, this one with a camera phone.

 

A third video taken from a from a much closer proximity to the Dome of the Rock shows a close-up of the UFO as it stopped in the air before its rapid acceleration straight up. This video features audio of the reaction from American tourists in the background.

Speculation from the blogosphere about the identity of the object in the videos has the usual claim of extraterrestrial spacecraft going head-to-head with more reasonable but also unsupported version involving experimental military drones. The problem with both proposed explanations is that they assume the videos are authentic.

The evidence suggests they aren’t. They are likely the result of a hoax. Take a look a nice review of the various videos offered by Marshall Brain at howstuffworks. The first video shows just how easy it would be to produce a fake version of a video like this. The second video shows why it almost certainly is a hoax. Watch the two highlighted lines. If the video was unmodified, the lines would remain parallel. The lines do not because the background and the foreground (the wall) are probably not from the same video.

There is also some strong evidence from analysis of the third video that suggests both the audio and video were manipulated from what actually may be a still image. Some of that analysis is presented below.