BreakTheChain.org

In The Dark

Date Added: Aug. 21, 2003
Last Updated: Sept. 5, 2003

Satellite photographs are often amazing, but many chain letters about satellite photographs show how little the general public knows about them. Popular e-mail satellite photos are often misinterpreted, mistaken to be something they're not or complete works of fiction. This one fits the last category.

The picture in the message above is a fanciful creation of what someone felt the Northeast Blackout of August 14, 2003 might have looked like from space. However, the image shows some obvious signs of editing and is inconsistent with reports of the blackout and other known facts.

Among the signs this is a hoax:

• The blackout is represented as total, when it wasn't. There were many areas within the blackout area that maintained power.
• The blackout area represented above is geographically inaccurate. The real affected area stretched farther west and not as far south.
• The blackout area is shown as dark black - blacker than areas on the map that have no lights at all, such as northern Canada and the Pacific Ocean.
• The picture above claims to have been taken nearly 7 hours after the blackout began. By this time, much of the northeast grid had begun to come back online.
• Surely there was auxiliary lighting, powered by generators and batteries - perhaps even car headlights - that, taken together, would show on such a photograph, or at least prevent the area from appearing as a big black spot.
• The picture shows the entire continent without cloud cover... highly unlikely.
• There is no ISAT GeoStar 45 satellite.
• The time is given as 23:15 EST, or Eastern Standard Time. However, on August 14, 2003, the U.S. would have been observing Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Besides, a true satellite photo would more likely be stamped in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), Universal Time (UT) or Zulu time (ZT).
• If it was 11:15 pm on the East Coast, it would be only 8:15pm on the west coast. On August 14, there would still be some daylight on the west coast and into the Pacific Ocean, that should be visible on this image.

The picture above appears to a crude Photoshop hoax created from an image posted on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site, November 27, 2000. Even that picture is not totally genuine, as it is a composite of hundreds of satellite images. Fact is, it's very difficult to get a compelling photo of such a wide area with a single satellite camera.

As an experiment, I decided to take that original and see if I could come up with an equally convincing fake. It only took me about 5 minutes and I think you'll agree that mine is a much more amazing image:

Seriously, though, the U.S. Air Force Weather Service has provided images of the affected area before and during the blackout. While there is a noticeable reduction in visible lights, you can see the loss was not total.

Once again, we discover that the truth just isn't as dramatic or compelling as what our minds and photoshop can create. Break this chain.

References: Air Force Weather, NASA APOD

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