Close encounters of the fabricated kind

The lack of higher intelligence seems more acute than ever, with at least three fabricated YouTube videos recently posted showing the same spot of light floating above the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with the unconvincing oohs and aahs of those witnessing and filming the “UFO” in the background. The videos have garnered over 2 million views by Sunday.

On January 29, a user calling himself eligael posted a video showing a man with his back to the camera looking toward the Dome of the Rock.

“This morning around 1:00 AM at the promenade of Armon Hantziv in Jerusalm, i was witness (with another guy), an amazing ufo aircraft over Jerusalem old city (mount Moriah) Dome of the Rock,Temple Mount...What is the meaning of this sighting ???” eligael wonders in the description of his video.

Judging by the amount of views and many of the comments, when people want to believe something, they won’t let facts get in the way. The unidentified man and the cameraman attempt to sound amazed in their Hebrew exchange at the small spot of light that hovers above the Temple Mount before shooting up into the sky, joining a group of smaller red lights.

In an attempt to lend reliability to the first video, a second appeared the same day, showing the same view from much closer, with the same soundtrack. The next day, another video by 50nFit made its way to the Internet depicting the same event, sans the Hebrew-speaking men. Here, a group of English-speaking people, one of them apparently from Mississippi, express their wonder over what they pretend to be witnessing.

HOAXkiller1 is leading the pack of debunking videos, with some 350,000 views on Sunday evening for six separate pieces, showing the original photo available on Wikipedia Commons that was the backdrop for the rather primitive work done in an attempt to make it look like part of a video shoot.