Why I no longer create imaginary aircraft...

[Stargazer]

My friend Alejandro Irausquin tagged me today on a Facebook publication emanating from a page entitled Jets 'n' Props. I don't follow aviation pages as a rule, in great part because of all the moronic comments you find there, but I would readily assume that someone with an incentive to create such a page does a bit of research before posting and has a bit of knowledge on the subject... So imagine my surprise when I see a fake aircraft called the "NF-12A Whitebird," which I created years ago, accompanied by this preposterous caption:

This white paint scheme was applied for thermal testing purposes. The high speeds and altitudes the YF-12 operated at created extreme surface temperatures due to air friction. By painting the aircraft white, engineers could study how lighter colors affected heat absorption and radiation, as part of evaluating thermal control for future high-speed aircraft like the SR-71.
The white-painted YF-12A was a temporary configuration and is a rare sight in photos—most YF-12s were flown in the typical black finish associated with the Blackbird family.

Not only did some guys pick my fake aircraft and thought it was real, but they also went as far as inventing a backup story for it! Now this was not the first time I saw this photo on a supposedly serious page. It had already happened a few weeks ago, but at least they hadn't added a caption!

This is how the image was created by the way, a ridiculously simple process in this case:



Some of my fake aircraft got strange online careers... For instance, my UCAV version of the F-35, the so-called "QF-35D", took on a life of its own after I posted it in 2010 in the form of a fake advertisement.



It all started in 2014 when a site called Geospatial World did an article "Lockheed Martin completes geospatial intelligence capability operation." Someone had elected to use my montage to illustrate that page, regardless of my copyright, and the name "AviaDesign" attached to it (the AviaDesign website contains dozens of my fake aircraft, so a quick internet search could have filled them in on what the image really was, if they had taken the time).



Eight days later, the French Israeli embassy website published an article entitled: "The aerospace giant Lockheed Martin chooses Israel for its R & D", and my "QF-35D" was there again... After that, within the space of a few weeks, dozens of websites from all over the world such as counterinformation.wordpress.com, globalresearch.ca, therussophile.org and many others reused my image to illustrate supposedly "serious" articles...



A very similar story had already happened to me a few years before that, when I invented an imaginary Dacia car called the "Rondo" on a Renault-related forum, just as a joke for the members. A few days later, the Dacia forum guys in Romania had seen my image, had had a good laugh about it on their own forum, but since car-oriented websites typically searched those forums for news to post, my "Rondo" was taken for a real Dacia project and wound up being posted and/or discussed as a "real" car in development on over 60 websites all over the world in the next couple of weeks, with some supposedly serious sites even adding specs, performance estimation, and information about it being presented very soon at the Hamburg car show...



Quite a few other creations of mine have been believed to be "real" by various online pages (often with the captions and/or copyrights removed), so much so that I stopped tracking them after a while, but I remember for instance: the "Bell 459 Marine Cobra" unmanned helicopter; the "Boeing 1717 Twinliner"; the "Convair C-128 Capistrano"; the "Douglas A6D-1 Twin Raider"; the "Grumman OV-1H Mohawk II"; the "Hughes H-3", "Hughes H-12 Hornet" and "Hughes H-18 Hussar"; the "Lockheed Super Constitution"; the "North American Ravage" and "North American Stallion"; the "Northrop P-700 Adder"; the "Airbus C-58A"; the "De Havilland Canada CariTwin"; the "Fokker Dr.II Doppeldreidecker"... and a few more.










This list is by no means exhaustive, but it gives you the general idea... All these images were made for fun, and meant as an amusement for those who know, NOT to mislead the masses of ignorants ready to believe everything they see! At a time when fakes were little circulated among groups of specialists (the early April Fool's pranks from Le Fana de l'Aviation, for instance) they were a lot of fun to create, because you knew other people would be having a great time going "Wait... What?.. Oh! I see! Almost got me fooled here. Well done!" But now the endless repetition of fake information, plus the total inability to refute it once it's been circulated, have made me tired of it all. I have spent a reasonable amount of time in various pages commenting on the fact that these were fake, that I was the guy behind them, that they did not represent real projects... but people will believe what they wish to believe, and the old "I've seen a photo of it, therefore it must be it" syndrome has still bright days ahead of it, despite the fact that AI nowadays totally messes up with reality...

So, you see, there was a time when I laughed when my fake aircraft were taken at face value ("Ha ha! The idiots! Not even verifying sources!") but now I've gotten tired of it all and no longer wish to add to the noise. There is so much real stuff that people ought to know yet don't, so why mislead them some more? It's sad, really, considering the sheer joy I had in creating all this material, but I think it's now the sensible thing to do... I used to do several fake aircraft every week, but I've only done a couple in the past 5 years!

Still, if you do enjoy that kind of stuff, you can still visit my AviaDesign page, which is a bit old now (and has a few links that do not work) but contains the majority of my fake aircraft images. I hope you won't go sharing them on aviation-related pages, though!

 

[Justo Miranda]

80 samples here

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/fake-models.44840/

 

[GTX]

It's a pity because I loved your work in the past. The fact that morons out there can't tell fact from fiction or perhaps don't want to (too many these days seemingly want to live in their delusions or perhaps want to scam others), shouldn't be a cause for you to stop. I understand your dilemma though.

 

[Apophenia]

It's a pity because I loved your work in the past. The fact that morons out there can't tell fact from fiction or perhaps don't want to (too many these days seemingly want to live in their delusions or perhaps want to scam others), shouldn't be a cause for you to stop. I understand your dilemma though.

Agreed. I also loved those convincing (but often hilarious as well) what-ifs.

I too have had people mistake whifs for reality - although not to the degree than Stéphane relates. At first I feel chagrin but then that internal rejoinder: "Why should I feel responsible for confusion over an image picked up randomly on the interwebs?"

Since the early 2010s, my images have always been posted with backstories on what-if sites like Beyond the Sprues. Especially in a time of Google search-by-image, when someone can't be bothered to trace the origin of an image to fact-check their assumptions, then that person needs to be kept away from the grown-ups' table.

As for the thieves and I-don't-do-research folks, there is no hope of a cure anyway. And for swipe-copy-paste-to-make-quick-bucks people ... I assume that a special ring in hell has been reserved just for them!

 

[Stargazer]

"Why should I feel responsible for confusion over an image picked up randomly on the interwebs?"
As for the thieves and I-don't-do-research folks, there is no hope of a cure anyway. And for swipe-copy-paste-to-make-quick-bucks people ... I assume that a special ring in hell has been reserved just for them!

I don't feel sorry for those either, but I'm concerned with those who they mislead.
Not being very knowledgeable on a subject is not a fault!
I'm sure lots of people subscribe to those pages/blogs/etc. in good faith, assuming that the people who created them know their stuff, and I feel sorry that they are lied to because those guys do not take their task of sharing/transmitting seriously.

 

[dannydale]

Ewgh. I had this happen with my old Reno Racer little yellow propfan airplane design I made in mspaint. Also, I fully believe this wouldn't be the problem it is if Facebook hadn't been invented, or if it wasn't made to work as fully automated disinformation and fight matchmaking.

 

[Apophenia]

I don't feel sorry for those either, but I'm concerned with those who they mislead.
Not being very knowledgeable on a subject is not a fault!
I'm sure lots of people subscribe to those pages/blogs/etc. in good faith, assuming that the people who created them know their stuff, and I feel sorry that they are lied to because those guys do not take their task of sharing/transmitting seriously.

That's fair ... and a legitimate concern. People should be able to trust information coming for those who have put themselves forward as 'subject matter experts' or (gawd save us) 'Influencers'. But the fact is, that most self-described experts simply cannot be trusted as reliable sources these days.

Perhaps I'm just making excuses for my own whif activities but I see responsibility lying with those who republish without checking their sources. (Those who intentionally mislead - for clicks, 'likes', whatever - are simply beyond the pale.)

That said, it does give me pause when universities are involved (however distantly). You mentioned GlobalResearch.ca. That website is not directly connected to Carleton University but Prof. Chossudovsky is. Michel Chossudovsky's organization is named the Centre for Research on Globalization. But that GlobalResearch.ca url was seemingly chosen to be intentionally confused with Carleton's Global Research programme within its International Office.

 

[dannydale]

(Those who intentionally mislead - for clicks, 'likes', whatever - are simply beyond the pale.)

They get paid money by the social media platforms for the ad views the controversy generates from their bad behavior. Literally it's ragebait for profit.

 

[boxkite]

It's a pity because I loved your work in the past. The fact that morons out there can't tell fact from fiction or perhaps don't want to (too many these days seemingly want to live in their delusions or perhaps want to scam others), shouldn't be a cause for you to stop. I understand your dilemma though.

This is increasingly becoming a symbiosis.
And let's not kid ourselves: This will continue to grow in the coming years - exponentially. ->

 

[yasotay]

I also have enjoyed your work over the years. It is unfortunate that circumstances have made you have to make this choice. I can understand your frustration.
So thank you for all of the wonderful art and looking forward to continued conversations with you here.

 

[Stargazer]

They get paid money by the social media platforms for the ad views the controversy generates from their bad behavior. Literally it's ragebait for profit.

"Money for nothing and your cheques for free"...

 

[Aubi]

If the GlobalResearch.ca is the same GlobalResearch.ca I'm thinking, they it is pushing conspiracy theories and propaganda for decades. If anybody is fooled by something claimed there, it's only their fault.

 

[Sferrin]

It's a pity because I loved your work in the past. The fact that morons out there can't tell fact from fiction or perhaps don't want to (too many these days seemingly want to live in their delusions or perhaps want to scam others), shouldn't be a cause for you to stop. I understand your dilemma though.

I think it's more that someone wants to make a quick buck and it's easier to steal someone else's work than do it yourself.

 

[UpForce]

I saw your headline and immediately thought: "Well, all real aircraft start out as imaginary!" I think your creations are qualitatively different from many other "photoshops", they're infused with your intuition and extensive background knowledge of aviation.

What usually passes for imagination is the "fictional beast" model of fusing the physiology of different animals together somewhat randomly; quite naturally those with less than a passing interest in the subject can't possibly tell the difference from more plausible speculation. What I'm trying to tentatively suggest here that the overall distribution of interactions your imagery has received shouldn't be a solely demotivating factor but also encouraging. How to evolve this while having empathy (which you clearly have) for all good faith people?

No, I don't hold you to coming up with an answer to that. I don't immediately have one either. What I have found though is that creative enjoyment is an overall cognitive enabler which deserves nurturing. On a technical note, have you ever added metadata in your pictures indicating that they're fictional?

 

[BlackBat242]

About 20 years ago I created a WhIf "Commonwealth Essex-mod" version of the USN's Essex class carrier - mainly as a thought exercise of what the RN's version might have looked like had the UK accepted the historic US' 1966 (post CVA-01 cancellation) offer of three previously-unmodified Essex class hulls to be modernized in the UK (or in the US to RN standards and with RN equipment).

Imagine my surprise when, a couple years later, I ran across a post on a modeling discussion board where someone had taken my WhIf as being real (he had just seen the drawing, not the discussion where I had described it) and was asking for more info so he could "add it to his model fleet".

I created an account there, and straightened him out... he was cool about being "corrected", and we had a nice discussion. I haven't been back to that board in over 10 years... I wonder if someone else decided that my correction was BS and is trying to find "the hidden truth" about my drawing.

 

[Yellow Palace]

The bar is, unfortunately, low. Many years ago - and this may have been long enough ago that Facebook still required a verified university email address - I came across Wikipedia pages for entirely fictitious Italian submarines. The sole source cited was the WesWorld roleplaying game forum.

Some people just aren't interested in even the bare minimum of fact checking. And it's only going to get worse as people outsource their thinking to sophisticated autocomplete algorithms.

 

[Stargazer]

The bar is, unfortunately, low. Many years ago - and this may have been long enough ago that Facebook still required a verified university email address - I came across Wikipedia pages for entirely fictitious Italian submarines. The sole source cited was the WesWorld roleplaying game forum.

Wikipedia can be a real load of bull. Their sole criterion is that a source document must be provided. So if you're an amateur with little knowledge but can provide a link to a PDF (however silly), it's fine, but if you're a seasoned historian with only your own personal research and have published nothing, your posting is not worth a dime in their view. I use Wikipedia as a starting point, but have found mistakes there regularly so I always try to verify their assertions elsewhere when I can.

I saw your headline and immediately thought: "Well, all real aircraft start out as imaginary!" I think your creations are qualitatively different from many other "photoshops", they're infused with your intuition and extensive background knowledge of aviation.

Thank you so much for noticing!

On a technical note, have you ever added metadata in your pictures indicating that they're fictional?

Well, not DIRECTLY in the pictures, others than the copyright with my name, but they were all originally posted on pages that DID indicate their fictitious nature, whether on deviantART, What-If Modellers, my own AviaDesign or my dedicated Facebook page. The problem, I think, it the fact that images turn up in Google results WITHOUT the pertinent information attached to them. People see a nice aircraft, with its name on it, sometimes even presented in the form of a fake document or article, and they don't go beyond that.

 

[GeorgeA]

Sorry to hear how stressful this has been for you, Stéphane. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your creations and have admired not only your technical imagination but your sense of period-correct media styling as well. Grateful for all of your contributions (my all-time favorite is the A-51).

 

[Stargazer]

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your creations and have admired not only your technical imagination but your sense of period-correct media styling as well.

I'm especially grateful to you for mentioning it, since not many folks actually notice it, despite the fact it is an essential element of my creative process.

 

[Dilandu]

Frankly, any good historical fiction would always cause someone to believe in it. Just look at he stuff peoples - considered at least somewhate sane and mentally capable, I should point out! - are capable of believing into. Flat Earth, Moon landing hoax, chemtrails, religion... Even if you wrote perfectly clear that it's not a real thing, there still would be someone who either believe in it despite all, or someone who repost it as real thing, eliminating all your warnings. I have personal experience there; several of my alternate history texts (that were labeled as alternate history!) were taken and reposted as historical facts.

So to conclude, the whole thing is inevitable. There would always be fools who would fell for a good fiction as for reality. There is no reason to stop making good fiction just because of that.