Here’s the official photo released from the Air Force One photo-op/joyride (as cleaned up by the LA Times):
In the comments to the above-linked post at American Digest, commenter jaed said:
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Is there anything in this picture to indicate it was taken a couple of weeks ago, rather than a year or two ago?
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Ha Ha Ha Ha… wait…
I know Wisconsin is no New York, but around here, the trees are still flowering, and what ain’t flowering is still bare. Green & leafy forest, we don’t got.
New York also looks pretty barren in this on-the-ground image taken by a panicky citizen on 4-27:
But the official picture looks pretty lush…
So, I’m going Truther on Obama’s ass & saying yonder official photo wasn’t taken on April 27th, 2009.
Go ahead, debunk me.
I’m waiting.
UPDATE (5-12-09, 8:30AM): Curse you, Scott in OC, for feeding my paranoia by showing me this shot of Liberty Island taken 15 days prior:
Yes, it says 12-4-2009, but many parts of the world outside America put the date before the month, most cameras have both settings as an option, and current time travel technology only allows travel forward through time, not backwards.
Also, the guy’s Flickr page says (lower right) that the shot was taken April 12th. And you can bet your ass I got a screenshot in case the page gets “mysteriously disappeared”.
UPDATE 2 (5-12-09, 9:00AM): Ok, let’s crank it up a notch. In the above picture, notice the healthy crowds with the brightly colored jackets. Now look at the official Air Force One photo. There should be crowds standing directly in front of the Statue, and they should be visible as dots. There aren’t and they aren’t.
Liberty Island opens at 9am. The flyover began around 10am.
Off-topic – now I know what it’s like to be inside a Truther’s skull. It’s itchy and I’m tasting metal.
Somebody PLEASE debunk me already!
UPDATE 3 (5-12-09, 9:15AM): After searching Flickr with “liberty island April 2009“, it’s pretty obvious that those trees were nigh barren three days before the Air Force One photo op (that one pic with all the leaves is a souvenir postcard).
UPDATE 4 (5-12-09 11:00AM): For the guy who said “two weeks in spring makes a pretty big difference in the springtime“, here’s a typical April 24th from the above link:
UPDATE 5 (5-12-09 12:00PM): Seriously, where are all the damn people in the White House’s pic?
Here’s December 2008:
Lady Liberty faces southeast, so she gets the light in her eyes every morning, so morning it is. Judging by the angle of the shadow on the right, I’d say about 10am.
Lots of tourists there, on that cold, December morning.
Unfortunately, the White House pic was taken on a cloudy day, so there are no helpful shadows. But neither are there people.
UPDATE 6 (5-12-09 10:00PM): YAY! I AM DEBUNKED!
Thanks, Nathan. I feel sane again.
Close examination of a better quality photo shows both people on the ground and numerous semi-bare trees.
But…
Now the question becomes, why – on a plane where “with the exception of one combat photographer, a standard crew complement performed the mission. . . . There were no non-duty personnel or passengers on board.” – were 3 of the shades pulled down on the plane’s starboard side?
This version looks better to me: http://tinyurl.com/ra3os4 And the cost?
Harvey,
You see too much! The MIB are reassessing your file as you read this post. Clear-minded, unfettered individualism will NOT be tolerated. Fall in line, or fall off the face of the earth!
“The secret of my influence has always been that it remained a secret.”
What? The government lied to us? There is no way that could ever happen.
Yeah, and as SondraK points out, we all sleep better at night knowing some idiot White House aid has the authority to scramble F-16’s!
So they give the public a photshopped photo anyway. Why didn’t they just do that in the first place……oh wait scaring the crap out of NY was more fun and Obama loves spending the American tax payer’s money.
Plus it’s a crappy photo. You got the fuselage of the photo plane in the lower right and reflections off the canopy in the upper right. We paid 337k for this? It would be par for the course for the Obama though. Geeez.
And it speaks about how intelligent he think his supporters are. Which would be Not to the nth degree.
Everyday there is idiot crap like this. From an administration that has borrowed or printed – but spent 12 trillion so far.
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cincinnati_bob says:
Everyday there is idiot crap like this. From an administration that has borrowed or printed – but spent 12 trillion so far.
It’s not an “administration”, it’s a gang of looters. They are in your white house stealing your taxes!
You may be onto something. I did a search and found this pic on Flickr dated April 12 2009 (note time stamp in lower right). While there appears to be some green in the grass, ALL the trees are bare. Unlike the official Scare Force One photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vijayprabhu/3440311154/
Of course this does nothing to explain when, other than April 27, they could have taken the official photo that was presented to the public as overflights of a 747 wouldn’t exactly go unnoticed in a post 9-11 world. On the other hand, Ann Althouse seems to be noticing a bit of fishiness as well:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/05/air-force-1-flight-over-nyc-cant.html
I can’t debunk the whole thing, but with respect to the crowds – there are people in the White House photo (more easily seen here – http://static.cbslocal.com/station/wcbs/img/flyover.jpg), just not as many as the one on Flickr. I think this makes sense, though, since April 4 was a Saturday and April 27 a Monday. Doesn’t quite explain the foliage, though.
Searching for “Liberty Island” pictures taken on or after April 25, 2009, shows several pictures with trees in bloom or budding:
Taken April 27
http://www.flickr.com/photos/syedrehmanshah/3507229650/
Taken April 26
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianstrublephotos/3513103345/
Taken May 4
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pix-el/2481237818/
Interesting idea, but I’d have to say this is debunked.
On the upside, I think
text
is like THE funniest HTML tag I’ve seen in…like…ever!
Preview is my friend.
THIS:
[tinfoil garmenttype=”hat”]text[/tinfoil]
is the funniest HTML tag I’ve ever seen, as mentioned in #11
Hmmm.. I took a look at he original picture linked above (“cleaned up”). AF1 is bright and center stage. Statue of Liberty dim and muddled in the background. I think this photo is very symbolic of Obama’s attitude towards our country.
OK, notice the dark blotch in the lower right hand corner and the glare in the upper right? It’s obvious that this is a diorama behind a plate glass window (some sort of a museum or underground bunker?) that someone took a photo of. The dark blotch is the wall supporting the plate glass and the glare is the reflection of the person standing next to the person taking the picture! Notice how it kind of looks like a hood? A Klan hood? This is obviously a hoax perpetrated by white supremacists to discredit our president!!11!!!
If this is the correct side of the Statue of Liberty there may be something here. I don’t know how old the Google Map image of the area is, but it looks like there is construction taking place where the White House photo shows green grass and trees. (Corner of Caven Point Rd. and Morris Pesin Dr.)
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h39/Advocate7x70/NYCSat.jpg
why is the flag backwards on the top pic???
@pammyV I think the flag is supposed to face that way to show the military is always moving forward (no retreat). On the other side of the tail it would look right. It works the same way on military uniforms. I think…
hmmm…will the White House ever be asked these questions regarding the unsettling photo? where are the news reporters? oh yeah…that’s right…they all work AT the White House now….morons.
Actually, I was in NYC on the weekend of the 18th and 19th, and I can confirm that the trees were bare for the most part. I’m trying to remember if I saw any with leaves, and I can’t. I went through the photos I have of that trip and couldn’t find any trees with foliage. Of course, this was in the city, and I did not get any shots of lady liberty.
Two thoughts:
1: I ALSO happen to be a professional photographer. And I can tell you that if I were photographing AF1, and I had only ONE chance to get a nice shot of it buzzing Lady Liberty, you bet your sweet bippy I’d have framed the photo better than that. A huge part of the inside of the helicopter is visible in the bottom right hand corner, as if the shot were taken hand held, away from the window. A good pro would not have made such an amateur mistake.
And I’m not even mentioning the white balance, the poor exposure, or the filters that a pro would normally use to get rid of that window glare there.
2: I’m not saying this photo *isn’t* fake, but I have to question, why would they do such a thing? Did the real photo look WORSE than this one? (hard to imagine) Did it look uncomfortably like the plane was going to hit a building? It doesn’t really make much sense.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but the one thing that has bothered me about this from the beginning is why would they spend so much money for a photoshoot and then do it on an overcast day? Wouldn’t you want the photos on a bright, sunny day?
I don’t buy the conspiracy thing either.
I do think their photographer is crap. I shoot kids (how many people get to say THAT?) and naturey crap and I am POSITIVE I could have made a better photo.