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Space Science

Iranian Space Official: Photo Shows Wrong Monkey 89

Posted by samzenpus from the pictures-of-you dept.
littlesparkvt writes "One of two official packages of photos of Iran's famed simian space traveler depicted the wrong monkey, but a primate really did fly into space and return safely to Earth, a senior Iranian space official confirmed Saturday. The two different monkeys shown in the photos released by Iran’s state media caused some international observers to wonder whether the monkey had died in space or that the launch didn’t go well."
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Iranian Space Official: Photo Shows Wrong Monkey More

Iranian Space Official: Photo Shows Wrong Monkey

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  • So (Score:5, Funny)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @10:58AM (#42778005)

    Its a 'scratch monkey'

    • Re:So (Score:4, Informative)

      by wmac1 ( 2478314 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @12:24PM (#42778531)

      According FoxNews (should be valid enough for most!):
      http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/02/iranian-space-official-says-photo-shows-wrong-monkey/ [foxnews.com]

      Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks rocket launchings and space activity, also said this week's monkey space flight was real, but he had a slightly different explanation for the photo mix-up. He claimed the light gray monkey with the mole died during a failed space mission in 2011.

      "The monkey with the mole was the one launched in 2011 that died. The rocket failed. It did not get into space," McDowell said. "They just mixed that footage with the footage of the 2013 successful launch."

      Iran has never confirmed that a monkey died in 2011, or that there was a failed mission that year.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wmac1 ( 2478314 )

        But the reference that Iran did not confirm failure of the launch is obviously incorrect. The minister of communications of Iran confirmed the failure and mentioned that the mission did not achieve any of it's targets.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @11:02AM (#42778031)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Trepidity ( 597 )

      I kind of like that style of signature. Like if instead of signing "Barack Obama" on bills, he signed "The Current President of the United States".

    • Re:Lies! (Score:4, Informative)

      by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @12:04PM (#42778389) Journal

      To believe otherwise goes against our religion, and dis-believers shall be beheaded! - Signed, The current Ayatollah of Iran

      Official Correction by a Senior Official of the Ayatollah's Space Commission

      The Ayatollah who signed that statement was not in fact "the" current Ayatollah of Iran, as there are actually 31 Ayatollahs of Iran [wikipedia.org]. He was simply a man sporting similarly-patterned headwear. However, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei [wikipedia.org] agrees with and endorses the statement, which makes it as true and internationally-significant as the indisputable fact that Iran has put a monkey into space and returned him safely.

      Furthermore, the previous senior official who released the signed statement has been beheaded for his failure to recognize an actual Ayatollah. Interviews for those seeking to succeed that official will take place starting Monday, as the Grand Ayatollah will be occupied watching the Superbowl today. He graciously thanks all of the Iranian citizens who have donated their satellite dishes [nytimes.com] to make this possible.

  • Preferably one from a regime that doesn't have a history of embarrassingly faked propaganda shots.

  • Iran has a history with PhotoShop (Score:5, Informative)

    by DigitalSorceress ( 156609 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @11:09AM (#42778079)

    So, Iran's got a bit of history with PhotoShop.:
    http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/ [nytimes.com]

    It seems quite reasonable for folks to question ANY photographic evidence / propaganda / news releases from Iranian sources.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • That's because the rocket hasn't returned to earth. Wait - what is that? Ninja Monkey navigating stealthily behind the ISS! Ninja Monkey is going to use his Ninja skills to spy on the ISS crew, while they watch the Super Bowl!! Ninja Monkey says "Screw "futbol", I want some FOOTBALL!"

        Will Ninja Monkey ever return to earth? Will Ninja Monkey master the rules of football? Will Ninja Monkey take over the space station? Tomorrow, boys and girls, same time, same station!!

    • Re:Iran has a history with PhotoShop (Score:4, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @11:55AM (#42778341)

      Hmm. What that article actually says is that a western news organization ran an image that they claimed they found on an Iranian news website, but when that Iranian site was checked later the same day no such image was found - the unaltered original was found there though.

      In fact, nobody has been able to find the altered image being served by Iranian media anywhere, it seems. So it ends up being "he said she said". That's why the article says

      So far, though, it can’t be said with any certainty whether there is any official Iranian involvement in this instance. Sepah apparently published the three-missile version of the image today without further explanation.

      There could be any number of explanations for that, including a patriotic but rogue photographer on the Iranian side, or even some kind of Western propaganda. I'm very doubtful that AFP has been compromised, it's more likely it was done by the Iranians, but unfortunately there is a history of absurdly flaky forgeries that support the case for war against middle eastern countries surfacing through the press. At any rate, it's impossible to conclude from this that there's some kind of systematic Iranian policy of photoshopping news images.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wmac1 ( 2478314 )

      The Photoshop was done by "Fars News Agency" and it was known only after the IRGC published the real photo on it's website.

      Attributing the stupidity of an editor or a reporter of "Fars News Agency" to the country is utter trolling.

      • Trolling?

        Can't find the best link, but Iran was caught with a Photoshop enhanced picture of a multiple rocket launch where they dubbed in a fourth rocket.

        The wags had a field day with that, with one pranked photo with Jar Jar Binks added making it back on to an Iranian news site.

        Didn't the Onion do one where the rockets were criss-crossing the sky in all directions?

  • yeah (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03, 2013 @11:18AM (#42778115)

    Yeah wrong monkey. This is the one that flies their new "stealth" fighter.

  • Shifted in time (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ol Biscuitbarrel ( 1859702 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @11:19AM (#42778129)

    First comment from the monkey:

    "Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty human!"

  • ... was the first monkey's stunt double.

  • if their nuclear scientists are of the same caliber as their graphic artists then we have nothing to fear.

    • No, for that very reason, we have everything to fear. The Iranians are building reactors on the cheap, without access to western technology, using Russian nuclear engineers who can't get jobs elsewhere. Wikipedia has the nice little factoid that their main weapons reactor is closer to 6 other capital cities other than Tehran.

      The largest threat from Iran is likely to be their dangerous incompetence, and this might well apply to their space program also.

  • Good laugh! (Score:3)

    by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @11:36AM (#42778219)

    Nations bickering over possibly fraudulent monkey photos put a smile on my face. Many a poo was flung that day that homo sapiens distinguished themselves with productive use of their time.

  • I thought it was Ahmadinejad. Wait, the monkey's better groomed, my mistake.
    • I thought that the Iranians meant that the photo SHOULD have been of Ahmadinejad, but wasn't, and that he was the one who flew into space and back.
    • Fuck you, you rascist wanker.
      • OK asswipe, I couldn't just ignore your bullshit. First of all, you don't know me, so your claim of me being a racist is a wildly inaccurate guess. Second, I was called "spic" and other anti-hispanic epithets way before a lot of other Hispanics came to the US and my wife, who was born in India, had to put up with racist crap too. Third, Ahmadinejad is the racist asshole who wants to obliterate an entire ethic group, not me.
        I pointed out that Ahmadinejad looks like he hasn't gotten a decent shave or hai

        • "I pointed out that Ahmadinejad looks like he hasn't gotten a decent shave or haircut in months."

          No you didn't - you said you mistook the guy for a monkey.

          Whether he's a racist, or whether you've experienced racism in your life, is immaterial. You called the guy a monkey.

  • The right monkey, named "Ahmadinijad" (Persian for "very ugly ape, even by ape standards"), was too busy hanging innocent apes of homo muslimus genus, and had to stay on earth.

  • I mean, please, just try to tell me this [mod.ir] is real [mod.ir].

  • So much propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @12:04PM (#42778395)

    Here's the explanation given, and apparently some Harvard professor finds it credible:

    “I say this with certainty that the monkey is in good health and the space flight didn’t have any physical effect on Pishgam,” Ebrahimi said. “Some of the photos released by one of news agencies were not related to the time of flight. They were archive photos of the monkeys being prepared for the launch.”

    Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks rocket launchings and space activity, also said this week’s monkey space flight was real, but he had a slightly different explanation for the photo mix-up. He claimed the light gray monkey with the mole died during a failed space mission in 2011.

    “The monkey with the mole was the one launched in 2011 that died. The rocket failed. It did not get into space,” McDowell said. “They just mixed that footage with the footage of the 2013 successful launch.”

    This sounds plausible to me. My experience of working with news agencies in the west is that they're extremely flaky and news stories are always published in a rush with absolutely minimal fact checking. I'd be surprised if things were much better in Iran. This is hardly

    In an ironic meta-fail the article also says, Iran has never confirmed that a monkey died in 2011, or that there was a failed mission that year but that does not appear to be correct [telegraph.co.uk].

    In short, this entire article can be summed up as, "news organization publishes story with some details incorrect, follows up with corrections" - is it really newsworthy?

    • Yeah right, and that same Harvard professor still thought it was credible when 30 other students submitted the same explanation.

    • It's newsworthy because it fits the Western (US mostly) view of Iran as a country to be mocked - all part of the ongoing propaganda campaign that's leading up to Israeli strikes on Iran, backed by the US's big stick, and wholeheartedly supported by an American public that can't see past Fox News.

  • A revolution will ensue and the wrong monkey will soon be replaced with the right one.

  • WTF a monkey (Score:2, Funny)

    by JonWan ( 456212 )

    In a country with thousands of nut jobs willing to blow themselves up for Allah, why a monkey. Just use a would be suicide bomber and launch him. They could have him scream Allah ho Akbar as he's launched.

    • Please note that the suicide bombers are more often coming from people living in the countries of our ALLIES -- like Saudi Arabia.

      We've never been directly attacked by Iran. What's the point of having restraint if nobody gives you credit?

      I would say that you might have offended some Iranians, but they were probably too busy laughing at you.

  • how far can a monkey throw poo in space?
  • I cannot remember the name , one was felix the other I can't recall, a female. They were two cats with implanted electrode in the brain to be sent in space. Felix escaped, the female was taken instead. Funnily on the commemorative stamps, they got the picture of the female, and put the male cat name (felix).

    Even when a female get an achievement there is a male to steal it ;).
    • http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/felix.html [purr-n-fur.org.uk]

      "France planned to launch Felix the astronaut cat into space on October 18, 1963, but Felix escaped so they chose another cat, Félicette. The cat had electrodes implanted into her head to measure neural impulses. Félicette was recovered alive, but, due to an accident, the next cat in space was not. The final French animal launches were of two monkeys in March 1967."

      felix is above a trigred cat, the female felicette black and white.

  • I doubt they even sent a monkey up at all. If he knew what was good for him, he'd have scrammed.

    I knew it! [mercurynews.com]

  • Corrected photo (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A simple misunderstanding. Corrected photo to monkey in question. [wikipedia.org]

  • And badly done at that. I wonder whether they even had a space launch, or whether that was faked too. It is also important to remember that Iran is faking being a high-tech nation mostly for their own population. I highly doubt any competent intelligence agency in the rest of the world is fooled even for a minute. On a closer look, Iran is still a backwards theocracy that does not respect individuals or knowledge. It has a big thirst for power though.

  • Somebody's been monkeying around with monkey photos.

  • Ahmedinejad wants to be their next monkey. He qualifies.

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