Russell Crowe Once Swore He Saw A UFO
Let’s give a shortlist of some of this century’s greatest thinkers: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Phil Plait, Steve Jobs, Richard Dawkins, and, wait for it, Russell Crowe. Wait, something about that isn’t right. It’s probably Jobs, who was more of a marketing man. Crowe definitely belongs here.
In the early hours of March 6, 2013, Russell Crowe took to Twitter and YouTube with a video that he claimed was of a UFO he caught on camera outside of his office in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales.
He then spent the next few hours defending himself as people with their right mind attached politely debunked the shit out of his “evidence.” Take a look at the tweet below, then watch the video that follows. Hold off on judging him until the aliens slip the probe inside.
Admittedly, if I’d have been the one taking these pictures, I would have certainly bypassed reality to brainstorm a bunch of ludicrous solutions before slowly dipping back down towards groundedness. But we aren’t Russell Crowe, not by a long shot.
In the videos, a glowing light can be seen moving irregularly and rapidly changing directions in the night sky over Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens. Many outlets at the time, including us here at Giant Freakin Robot, speculated it was a publicity stunt.
That being said, Russell Crowe maintained he genuinely witnessed something unexplained in the skies over Sydney that night. Is there any chance that was actually the case? Almost certainly not, but this is a celebrity we are talking about so a decent number of folks sat up to take notice.
Anyone with a beginner’s knowledge of photography knows that Russell Crowe is mistaking “time-lapse” with “long exposure,” which is what this picture exhibits.
Beyond that, no amount of photography knowledge can actually tell you what this thing is, so we leave that to the guys at ParaBreakdown.
Just in case you thought it couldn’t get any more moronic, it was then reported that this wasn’t even recorded that day, nor was it Russell Crowe’s own footage. It belonged to a friend of his, cinematographer Duane Manwiller, who recorded it four years ago in Sydney.
Again, this all makes us think that Russell Crowe was performing in some sort of cinema vérité project and using the Internet for promotion. Otherwise, it’s just a celebrity being weird and stupid, and that never happens. Right? Right?
