Apparently Iran has been feeling a bit under-endowed. From the Lede:
"As news spread across the world of Iran's provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a fact that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites."
Oops. Fess up, Iran.
Yeah, that's more like it.
"Agence France-Presse said that it obtained the image from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, on Wednesday. But there was no sign of it there later in the day. Today, The Associated Press distributed what appeared to be a nearly identical photo from the same source, but without the fourth missile."
"As the above illustration shows, the second missile from the right appears to be the sum of two other missiles in the image. The contours of the billowing smoke match perfectly near the ground, as well in the immediate wake of the missile. Only a small black dot in the reddish area of exhaust seems to differ from the missile to its left, though there are also some slight variations in the color of the smoke and the sky.
UPDATE:
"As news spread across the world of Iran's provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a fact that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites."
Oops. Fess up, Iran.
Yeah, that's more like it.
"Agence France-Presse said that it obtained the image from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, on Wednesday. But there was no sign of it there later in the day. Today, The Associated Press distributed what appeared to be a nearly identical photo from the same source, but without the fourth missile."
"As the above illustration shows, the second missile from the right appears to be the sum of two other missiles in the image. The contours of the billowing smoke match perfectly near the ground, as well in the immediate wake of the missile. Only a small black dot in the reddish area of exhaust seems to differ from the missile to its left, though there are also some slight variations in the color of the smoke and the sky.
Does Iran's state media use Photoshop? The charge has been leveled before.
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."
If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned.
UPDATE:
Stumble Upon
"If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned."
How about, if you play with missiles you're going to get bombed.
You risk to get bombed even if you don't play with missiles (Afghanistan/Iraq), you just need some oil or gas.
I'm going to throw out there that the far left missile also looks fake. It probably is a reproduction of the far right missile, but elongated. The weird brown puff near the bottom is too similar, as is the coloration of the smoke. There isn't any horizon or scale relationship to other missiles, and why would a precision missile be shot at such a different angle than the rest? Is it landing in a different place?
Now that doesn't mean 4 missiles didn't go off, but I doubt even three wen off simultaneously.