Remember CopterPack’s First Epic Flight Video? Sorry, You Guys, It's a Fake!

Well, not fake per se, but more of a fraud, in that the CopterPack was in fact tethered, a significant detail that was almost perfectly edited out. However, while it managed to fool us and most of the Internet, YouTube user Parallax didn’t bite the bait. The guy is passionate and experienced in the video field, and he took a closer look at the footage.

It seems that the whole thing was Photoshopped, as the device was actually hanging by a wire that was masked using editing tools in postproduction. There were other aspects that seemed suspicious and ticked off trained eyes as well, such as the fact that there was no dust flying around when the CopterPack took off, or the fact that the movements of the aircraft don’t seem all that natural. Skeptics even go as far as to claim the whole demonstration was done using a dummy or CGI (computer-generated images) and not a real person.

After the video was debunked, the CopterPack website was edited adding that the flying device is currently in an early development stage and a tethered test that was recently conducted aimed to evaluate its flight stabilization and dynamic. It turns out that the part with the “tethered test” was added after the CopterPack was exposed by the Internet.

The CopterPack controversy goes to show you once again that if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. So for now, we just have to settle for seeing gravity defied by David Mayman’s jetpacks and Richard Branson’s jet engine-powered suit.