The great NJ UFO hoax revealed - Gullibility of people and the media

April 2, 9:19 AMAtheism ExaminerTrina Hoaks

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On January 5th of this year, the Morristown area of New Jersey was all abuzz about the UFOs that appeared in the night sky. But as it turns out, it was the plot of two skeptic who could not understand why so many continued to believe in things for which there is no evidence.

Chris Russo and Joe Rudy had long puzzled over why so many people from all walks of life were so gullible. They noted that people believed in "such irrational superstitions as psychic ability, spiritual mediums, alien abductions, and the like. Despite the lack of evidence to support these notions, we were baffled. How could so many people in an age of science still buy into dogma that is no more or less ridiculous than the notion of an elderly obese man delivering presents to every child on Earth in one evening?"

They discussed how they not only pulled off the hoax but how the media covered it in an article. They said that they hatched their social experiment in part to question the credibility of so-called UFO "experts." Their goal was "to fool people, bring the charlatans out of the woodwork to drum up controversy, and then expose it as nothing more than a prank to show everyone how unreliable eyewitness accounts are, along with investigators of UFOs."

They set off into the woods between Hanover and Morris Plains to launch their experiment. The went with a helium tank, five balloons, and flares. They filled up the three-foot balloons and tied about five feet of fishing line to them. One end of the fishing line was taped to the balloon, the other end was taped to a flare. They started the flares and then launched the balloons 15 seconds apart.

After filming the launch, they left the scene. They sat back and watched the media coverage of the event over the next few days. According to the report, there was extensive coverage. One media report carried a quote from a man who said that "the object 'didn’t appear to be manmade.'”

Reportedly, there was one family, the Hurleys, in particular who all the media scampered to for interviews. "Paul Hurley, a pilot, along with his family, made appearances on just about every major news station, describing the strange lights that they saw in the sky."

The pair did this four more times. Each time, there was intense media coverage. They even got in on the fun by releasing the video they shot and posting it on YouTube. Further, they made appearances in the media discussing what they had "seen" and providing their video to drive it home. (Continues below video.)

For them, the "icing on the cake" was when "the popular History Channel show UFO Hunters featured the Morristown UFO as their main story one week. Bill Birnes, the lead investigator of the show and the publisher of UFO Magazine, declared definitively that the Morristown UFO could not have been flares or Chinese lanterns."

The summed up their report of their hoax thusly:

"This begs an important question: are UFO investigators simply charlatans looking to make a quick buck off human gullibility, or are they alarmists using bad science to back up their biased opinions that extraterrestrial life is routinely visiting our planet? Either way, are these people deserving of their own shows on major cable networks? If a respected UFO investigator can be easily manipulated and dead wrong on one UFO case, is it possible he’s wrong on most (or all) of them? Do the networks buy into this nonsense, or are they in it for the ratings? How can a television network that has pretensions of providing honest and factual programming be taken seriously when the topic of one of their top rated shows deals with chasing flares and fishing line? In fact, we delivered what every perfect UFO case has: great video and pictures, “credible” eyewitnesses (doctors and pilots), and professional investigators convinced that something amazing was witnessed. Does this bring into question the validity of every other UFO case? We believe it does."

 They have video of the coverage here.