CGI Magic
In 2007, a pair of short videos made waves after being quietly posted to YouTube’s “News and Politics” section. Crystal clear yet showing the slight shakiness typical of tourist videos, the pieces quickly became YouTube sensations. “UFO Haiti” and “UFO Dominican Republic” were uploaded from two discrete YouTube accounts; “UFO Haiti” runs twenty-two seconds, and shows a pair of illuminated, mostly silent craft gliding above palm trees at sunset, and then directly over the videographer before continuing on toward distant mountains. Roughly circular in silhouette, the craft have four distinct, connected modules. The underside of each module is illuminated by a protuberant white light; the center underside of each carries a larger white lamp.
A woman gasps from off-screen as the ships emerge from behind the swaying fronds of palm trees. When in the distance, the ships appear to rendezvous with seven small lights. “UFO Dominican Republic” aka “UFO Haiti 2 ‘Dominican Republic,’” runs twenty seconds, and has a “look” similar to “UFO Haiti”: the same upward angle, similar palm trees, and the appearance of early sunset. This time, though, the first two craft that appear are in the familiar saucer style, rounded top and bottom and tapering to a narrower center band.
Crickets and distant, indistinguishable male voices are heard throughout, and faraway dogs bark during the video’s late moments. “Haiti” and “Dominican Republic” are startling by any standard, and will impress, even thrill, UFO enthusiasts looking at them for the first time. A Los Angeles Times reporter named David Sarno became understandably intrigued, and began an investigation. After a false start with a “UFO Haiti” poster who had simply uploaded a shot of her kiss with a boyfriend, Sarno was contacted via Skype by a representative of the original poster—someone calling himself Barzolff814. Throughout the conversation, Barzolff did not appear on camera, but Sarno could hear him instructing his proxy, a young woman who called herself Sam, about what to say. The reporter had already heard about a fabulous new computer-imaging program, and sure enough, Barzolff had used it: a VUE application that lets the user create total environments, including sky, trees, mountains—and, if the user wishes, UFOs. Not a single visual element of “Haiti” and “Dominican Republic” is real. Each one had been created by Barzolff—who identified himself to Sarno as a professional animator—using a MacBook Pro and 3-D imaging programs that included one from VUE. Both videos required just seventeen hours of Barzolff’s time.
Although Barzolff admitted he was doing preliminary work on a feature-length UFO thriller, he insisted that neither “Haiti” nor “Dominican Republic” were viral marketing tools.