The 'drone' UFO hoax

This 'drone' phenomenon probably started as a gag, but it's grown into something of a phenomenon in certain UFO circles. I'm positive it is a hoax, and those who accept this stuff uncritically are going to lose a lot of face when it's revealed as such.

It started as a series of photos, then became more elaborate photos. Thankfully some people with CGI modeling and animation skills created demonstration movies (one, two, three, four) showing how easy it is to create such fakery, even with unsteady hand-held footage.

Here is a blog which purports to be leaked information from a program called CARET (here's an article about the blog) which dealt with the 'alien technology' upon which the drone is based.

This kind of visual stuff is my bread and butter and I can tell you with little doubt it's all fake. The shapes which comprise those craft are exactly the kind Lightwave, Maya, or 3DSMax are good at producing, and all professional 3D packages have render modes that can produce photoreal lighting/shading. The photographs are obviously ray-traced CGI renders using a radiosity lighting algorithm.
(Check out this tutorial on environment-based lighting with High Dynamic Range Imaging.)

Not only do the designs of the craft strike me as utterly without precedent in the realm of serious ufology, but the 'alien language samples' in the CARET document look completely specious. The terminology in the document sound impressive but it's really just fluff and nonsense.

My guess is it started as a hoax, and gained additional (and probably totally independent) contributors. As more people are duped, more incredible supporting material will be provided until it blows up eventually. Think of the process as an ad-hocratic viral meme with a self-destruct switch.