In 2009, a YouTube account called Jevgenij2000 was created to upload a single mysterious video
of a supernatural encounter in the Russian wilderness.
It promoted nothing, didn't ask for likes or subscribers, wasn't embellished with eerie music
or a long-winded text preamble about how the world is an amazing place.
It just showed a young girl floating in the woods.
Could such a thing have been faked? Of course!
But if it was, what prompted Jevgenij to come up with such a bizarre premise in the first place?
Well, if he was old enough to stage this in Russia in the late 2000s,
then he might have been a child in Russia in the mid 80s
when otherworldly little girls were a bit of a pop culture staple.
There was the intrepid guest from the future, Alisa Seleznyova,
and the Czechoslovakian TV series "Spadla z oblakov" ("She Fell from the Clouds")
better known in Russia as "Adventures in Summer Break",
in which a group of kids find a strange little girl levitating over a river in the woods.
Her name is Maika, a super intelligent alien android who can fly and replicate objects
using a pair of pins from the buckle of her cool belt?
The government wants to catch her, she's running out of energy,
and needs the kids' help to return to her home planet...
You know, a ripoff of ET, except four years before ET.
Whoa, whoa, let's not think about that now!
I'm just saying Jevgenij's idea for a girl floating in the woods may not have been completely random.
But how did he fake it? Let's focus on what we know.
We know it wasn't shot with a phone because the footage has global shutter and optical zoom.
The file plays at 12.5 frames per second — half the standard PAL frame rate of 25,
but every frame is actually repeated twice, making it just 6.25 frames per second.
Someone has to purposefully mess with a video to make it this choppy.
The camera captures everything clearly, but then swishes away from the scene
at just the right moment to miss the girl's descent to the ground.
Hiding a difficult-to-fake moment with messy camera work is an established cinematic technique.
Thanks, O-Blair-Witch.
This is a professionally filmed video disguised as a home movie,
so professional visual effects are not out of the question.
Now, the tiny foreground branches would make it tough to simply composite a fake image of the girl flying,
and she's not so much flying as hanging at a fixed point in space.
So I think the girl was suspended from a tree, the rig on which she hung was digitally removed,
and the camera's sudden swish tilt disguised a cut to a separate shot of the pair running away.
Let's completely stabilize the position, rotation, and scale of the floating girl,
like some on YouTube have already done, but BETTER, and watch it rotate on an endless loop
until we've achieved a state of pure skeptical enlightenment.
I'm starting to see some meandering artifacts behind her head and whatever that is at the base of her leg,
and when I stabilize the part on the ground, there's like a giant hole in her coat or something.
I know the idea that this group of people rigged up a rope contraption
from a tall tree in the snowy woods sounds speculative,
but again, consider where the video comes from.
It is an important and popular fact that
Eastern European people love rope swings.
I don't know why, but if you give a Russian child a stick and some rope,
they're going to be performing a daring Tarzan swing over the neighborhood within minutes.
Hey this dog's name is Tarzan!
There's no way for us to know exactly what this rig looked like,
unless Jevgenij chooses to answer the various pleas from Japanese TV stations on his channel page,
but even a pair of aerial straps, which are also a Russian thing, could be used to balance the body in this way.
I think. Let's ask someone qualified like, I don't know,
world-class aerialist, veteran Cirque du Soleil performer, and star of the James Cameron produced 3D film
"Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away", Erica Linz. Hi Erica!
> Hey, Captain D!
> Hey, do you think you could do this pose on aerial straps?
> Yeah, of course I could.
> Awesome. Would you?
> No.
> Okay, cool cool. So, what else is going on?
> Um, I mean, lots of things. To be honest, I'm super busy actually.
> Oh, no, of course. That's cool.
> I mean, it's really, really nice to see you. I hope everything is good. I just...
> Yeah, I understand that's... I'm sorry.
> No, you're good. You're super sweet, I believe in you, if you could just...
> Just, uh, we'll just catch up whenever, or > Maybe another time, I...
> No, you're a busy person > Please?
> and I'm going to... > Thanks. Can you...
> I'm... you're gonna turn it off or? > I don't... I don't know how to turn... you called me
> I'll turn it off. > Can you please turn it off?
> Where's the thing? Sorry, it's a little...
> Captain? > Okay I'm turning you off and... I mean not...
hope I'm not turning you off, I just, nevermind...
> Captain D! > Yes? > Now!
> Totally, um, > Ok. Thank you, bye
> Talk... check you later.
Well, there you have it. Even the most obscure paranormal video could be explained through a
loosely interpreted, imprecise version of the scientific method.
But still, it would really be something to be able to fly.