Human Birdwings Flight a Hoax!

Many of you have no doubt seen the rather incredible YouTube video showing Jarno Smeets flying with a pair of homemade, motorized bird wings that made the rounds about a week ago. If you haven’t seen the video, here it is below:

After the video became a huge viral hit, Smeets became rather closed mouthed about the whole thing as various sources (such as Wired and Gizmodo) published articles about the wing design or questioning the validity of the bird wings in flight. Even the public got involved as most folks noticed the flyer’s center of gravity wouldn’t allow for flight as well as the wings not actually showing any load – something I noticed right away.

Now Smeets have come forward to point out the video was simply an elaborate hoax (or in his words, “an experiment about online media,”) and, better yet, Jarno Smeets doesn’t even exist but the front man is in reality Dutch filmmaker and animator Floris Kaayk.

The video in itself is interesting I have to say but I also notice a disturbing trend of hoax videos making the rounds as truth and, when the light of reason shines on the subject, the perpetrators always come up with some excuse that it’s a social experiment of some kind. I can’t say I’m an expert in “social experiments” simply because I grew up with a set of values that forces me to use the word “lies.” In my day, we wouldn’t consider filmmakers like Kaayk a “social scientist” but would call it like we see it: Kaayk is a charlatan and a liar…