Video of ISIS Militants Beheading 21 Egyptian Christians is Fake, According to Experts
A video had been uploaded recently where the group ISIS had beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. The Egyptians marched along a Libyan beach before being beheaded by black-clad members of ISIS. The video is hard for any civilized person to see, but, according to experts who watched the sickening 5-minute video, the video is faked.
The 21 fishermen are still alive.
In a report by Fox News, there are several anomalies in the video, which was posted online Feb. 15, indicated to trained eyes that at least some of the production was done on "green screen" with background added later, perhaps to disguise the real location of the atrocity. A day after the clip went viral, Egyptian warplanes struck hard at an eastern port city near Tripoli, where the video appeared to have been shot.
Experts who examined the sickening footage of ISIS militants killing Christians in Libya say the tape was doctored.
"The Islamic State's manipulation of their high-production videos has become commonplace," said Veryan Khan, editorial director of the Florida-based Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium. The murders likely took place in a studio, and the background image shown was likely from another location, the Bay in Sirte, a part of the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya, according to Khan. There are several technical mistakes in the video that show it was manipulated, she said.
"The shot that seems really tampered with is the one with the really tall Jihadists and the dwarf Christians," according to Mary Lambert, a horror film director
The most obvious, Khan said, is the speaker, "Jihad Joseph" is much larger than the sea in both the close up and wide shots, and his head is bizarrely out of proportion, meaning he was filmed indoors and the sea added behind him, Khan said. In addition, the jihadists featured in the film look to be more than 7 feet tall, towering as much as two feet above their victims.
The perspective is something several Saudi Arabians noted in their tweets about the video, questioning whether the jihadists were a part of some sort of special forces unit since they were so large.
Hollywood horror film director Mary Lambert, who among her many film credits directed Pet Sematary, analyzed the film for FoxNews.com and quickly concluded Khan was correct.
Egyptian government officials did not respond to requests for comment, but Edward Yeranian, an Egypt-based radio correspondent for Voice of America and other news agencies, said Egyptian analysts are also openly skeptical about the video's authenticity.
"Even the number of people beheaded is still in dispute," Yeranian said.