English Listening B2 Section 1 - Episode 10 - Track 05
Fill in the Blanks Exercise
P: Welcome to Insight, where the topic for the day is hoaxes, specifically
. It was extremely difficult get someone who produces hoax photos, a hoaxer, to agree to appear on the show, and it was only on condition that we promise to keep his
. So, I'd like to welcome my guest to the show.
H: Thank you.
P: For starters, can you explain why you want to remain
?
H: Two reasons really. I suppose, one is mystery. What I mean is a good hoax photo is more
if people don't know where it came from. If people knew I'd produced the photo, the
would be lost.
P: Fair enough. And the other reason?
H: Well, it's a fact that hoaxers often use photographs taken by someone else, and often without
, and the original photographer could sue us.
P: So basically, you're
it safe then.
H: Yeah, you could
that way.
P: OK. Now I asked you before the show if you'd ever earned money for your hoax work, and you said that you often work with the police and
. What exactly do you do for the police?
H: Well, when a politician, for example, appears in a published photograph in any embarrassing situation, say accepting money... sometimes the police ask me to
at it. Then, if I decide if the photograph is a hoax, they see if they can find out who
it.
P: Right. OK, well, let's look at some photographs that we found on the internet-some hoaxes, some not. Talk us
the photographs if you would.
H: So, this photo of a bike in a tree looks like a hoax simply because it's such an
image. Also, it looks a bit like a composite photo
P: What's a composite photo?
H: When you combine two or more photos, that's a composite. In this case, it would be very easy to put a picture of the two halves of the bike over a photo of a tree. In fact, this would be a very
hoax photo to put together.
P: So what you're saying is, it isn't real.
H: No, it actually
real. I wasn't sure myself, but I found out it was near Seattle, Washington. So I asked a friend who lives there, and he told me he'd seen it with his own
a number of years before. Apparently, there are many different legends about how it got there.
P: Well, I thought that one was definitely a hoax. Let's look at the next one. This one could be real. A man hanging on the landing gear of a jet plane is such an
sight, maybe that's why it looks a bit fake.
H: Well, even if you'd never seen such a thing, common sense would tell you that a man couldn't
even the landing, The wind would pull him off.
P: Then it IS a hoax photo.
H: Yes, a classic composite photo. Not
put together, though.
P: Remarkable. Now this next one could be real, sharks swimming through a flooded suburb. I remember seeing this on the internet. After one of those big hurricanes.
H: Ha, you've probably seen lots of photos like this, and maybe this
one.
P: Why? Why's it funny?
H: I'm ninety-nine percent sure this is a hoax simply because it's a cliché - yet another photo of sharks swimming where they
be! Look on the internet and you'll find plenty of hoax photos of sharks.
P: And that's it? Is there a technical reason why you know it's a hoax?
H: Well, yes. The water next to the fins isn't right. The surface of the water would break
if there really were sharks there. Look closely.
P: I see. You know, it seems like a lot of work. Why do people do it? It can't be for the
.
H: I dunno. I can only speak for myself and to be honest I'm thrilled when people believe one of my
.
P: Because they want to believe it?
H: Well, yes. Maybe we all like to believe something really
could be true.
