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Dan • 02/20/05 • 1:34 AM:

Don’t read this if you haven’t taken the test yet.

I got a 65%. I offer no excuse for my performance other than that I bet even some (the alligator, bear, and catfish, for instance) are fake even though they say they’re real. I did guess “real” for the rare lizard thingie. That’s good photoshop!

Most of them are easy see the fakeness. Some people are good at Photoshop, some are bad (the shark and the helicopter, for instance, though that one is hilarious!).

David • 02/20/05 • 2:50 AM:

Indeed some of them are good. I used two strategies. Numero uno = Look at the quality of the picture - for instance - the tsunami one was clearly fake due to the colors and stuff. Same for that second huge cat. Next, I used common sense. The USA formation? No way. Jets can’t fly directly behind one another like they were in the “U”.

Using those time-tested-techniques I got 80%. I was tricked on only the alligator, giant bones (took a guess), the blackout satelitte image (I was certain it was real), and the grizzly bear.

Dad • 02/20/05 • 1:25 PM:

David,
take another look at the giant bones. Did you not see that overhead shot of the guy whose whole body was just a fraction of the size of the skull?

David • 02/20/05 • 3:06 PM:

That explains it now, doesn’t it? I didn’t even notice those two real people in the picture. I was wondering what sort of size/scale comparison there was in the picture. When I didn’t see any, I figured it was real. What a dummy.

Dan • 02/21/05 • 2:33 AM:

I just went back and looked at the stuff. How about the first one! The mermaid with the mustache and troll hair?!

Patrick • 02/24/05 • 8:03 PM:

I got 75% right, missing the blackout satellite picture, the grizzly bear, the amphibian, and maybe another one. I was doing so well in the beginning that I didn’t even realize that I was getting them right (I didn’t notice that it told you whether you were right or wrong until I got one wrong). As for the illegal alien hiding in the dashboard: how’d she get in there? Did the car still work? And as for that giant catfish: that’s the movie prop from Big Fish. The photo may be real, but the fish isn’t! No way! And as for the satellite photo of “space shuttle tragedy,” just which tragedy is this supposed to be? When did a space shuttle get hit by a guided missile in space? And how was the satellite that close and pointing its cameras that direction? Oh, one I definitely got wrong was the giant Iraqi spiders. Those things are also Big Fish movie props. And as for the giant skeleton, David, I’m sorry, but how could you miss the guy standing right next to the skull? I mean, the first thing you look at is the skull, and there’s this guy with a shovel standing right next to it. You know, it occurs to me that this is kind of like Balderdash with pictures. If we were better at photoshop and had more time, it might be fun to invent a game based on this.

David • 02/26/05 • 6:31 PM:

I just don’t know, Pat. Upon second look I asked myself the same question. No worries though. I still win!! Yippie.

A while back I read a National Geographic article about those “giant Iraqi spiders”. They’re not spiders, but super fast and huge scorpions called Wind Scorpions.

Patrick • 02/27/05 • 11:39 AM:

Actually, Dave, you don’t win. Karina did the quiz completely unaided by anyone (but while I was watching) and she got 90%. No joke. She missed the grizzly bear and I forget which other one.

As for the “super fast and huge scorpions,” the site you linked to says:

Not actually scorpions, these predators are solifugids, members of the Arachnida, a class that includes spiders, mites, ticks, and true scorpions. Sometimes known as sun spiders, and called camel spiders in North Africa and the Middle East because of their humped profile, wind scorpions weigh as much as two ounces (56 grams) and can have leg spans exceeding five inches (12 centimeters). Most of the 1,100 species are nocturnal. Racing over the sand in the dark like supercharged dune buggies, they seem to know no fear.

That doesn’t seem quite big enough for those things that the soldiers were holding up in that picture, but ok. That’s what they are, and the picture was misleading because it called them “spiders,” so it was a hoax.

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