I want you to believe I can fly.

An artist in the Netherlands named Floris Kaayk pretended he was "Jarno Smeets" and had invented a set of wings that enabled him to fly like a bird.

Despite eight months of realistic-seeming buildup, with documentary video evidence, when the final flight video was released, many were skeptical.

It didn’t help that experts in computer graphics at places like Industrial Light & Magic examined the video and offered detailed reasons why it couldn’t be real and looked like CGI.

Only a few days after the birdman flight video appeared, Mr. Kaayk admitted it was a fake.

Flying like a bird | part 14/14

This isn’t his first hoax. In 2006, Mt. Kaayk created a fake documentary about medical implants that take over bodies.

Metalosis Maligna. An Extraordinary disease

Skeptics
cheer that a fake is so easily debunked, but others might have the
opposite reaction – if we can make things look so real, couldn’t many
things we think are real actually be artfully produced fakes?

(So who wins this one – skeptics, or conspiracy theorists?)

– ‘Bird Man’ Hoaxster Comes Clean on Dutch Television, Wired>>
– CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2), Gizmodo>>