Air Force One Gets Tagged

[sce56]

Video at Break . com
http://www.break.com/index/airforce1.html

Amazing someone was able to get into and then Tag (Graffiti) The most secure plane in the world!
This was posted according to the web site 23 months ago!

[Poll_Blind]

1. It's a well-made fake, btw.

PB

[Poll_Blind]

2. Here's the link to Snopes:

HERE

Very convincing though!

PB

[sce56]

3. Yeah well not that I believe everything on Snopes!

Did graffiti artists 'tag' Air Force One?
http://hamptonroads.com/node/93171
April 24, 2006



Marc Ecko stands in front of a rented 747 painted to look exactly like Air Force One. (AP Photo/Marc Ecko Enterprises)

By TED BRIDIS
Associated Press (ASAP)

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The grainy, two-minute Web video -- showing hooded graffiti artists who climb barbed-wire fences and sneak past guards with dogs to spray graffiti on President Bush's jet -- was so convincing the Air Force wasn't immediately certain whether the president's plane had been targeted.

''We're looking at it, too,'' Lt. Col. Bruce Alexander, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, told The Associated Press just hours after the video began circulating on the Web.

Did they or didn't they?

In fact, Bush's plane was safe. Last Friday, the pranksters behind the video revealed the biggest ingredient for their hoax: a rented 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like Air Force One.

The video, available at stillfree.com, was elaborately produced for New York-based Marc Ecko Enterprises, a fashion and lifestyles company whose products are aimed at urban youths.

In an exclusive behind-the-scenes interview Friday, Ecko acknowledged his company rented a 747 cargo jet at San Bernadino's airport and covertly painted one side to look like Air Force One. Employees signed secrecy agreements and worked clandestinely inside a giant hangar until the night the video was made.

''I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment,'' Ecko says. ''It's this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath.''

Special attention was paid to details: The graffiti artists race in darkness across a golf course, similar to the one located near Andrews Air Force Base. In ''Blair Witch'' style cinema, the camera jostles and occasionally loses focus. The plane, brightly lit on the runway, is protected by roaming emergency vehicles and behind barbed-wire fences. Filmmakers added an image of Air Force One's actual hangar, the only element that was digitally manipulated.


The story is at www.stillfree.com

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. Not likely, unless the cadre of heavily armed soldiers guarding AF1 did the tagging n/t

[MADem]

5. OLD, debunked HOAX.

Air Force One Graffiti Hoax
Associated Press 04.22.06 | 8:10 AM
WASHINGTON -- A startling internet video that shows someone spraying graffiti on

President Bush's jet looked so authentic that the Air Force wasn't immediately certain whether the plane had been targeted.

It was all a hoax. No one actually sprayed the slogan "Still Free" on the cowling of Air Force One.

The pranksters responsible for the grainy, two-minute web video -- employed by a New York fashion company -- revealed Friday how they pulled it off: a rented 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like Air Force One.

"I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment," said Marc Ecko of Marc Ecko Enterprises. "It's this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath."

The video shows hooded graffiti artists climbing barbed-wire fences and sneaking past guards with dogs to approach the jumbo jet. They spray-paint a slogan associated with free expression.

After the video began circulating on the web on Tuesday, the Air Force checked to see whether the plane had been vandalized.

"We're looking at it, too," said Lt. Col. Bruce Alexander, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, which operates Air Force One. "It looks very real."

Alexander later confirmed that no such spray-painting had occurred.

Ecko acknowledged Friday that his company had rented a 747 cargo jet at San Bernardino's airport and covertly painted one side to look like Air Force One. Employees signed secrecy agreements and worked inside a giant hangar until the night the video was made. Ecko declined to say how much the stunt cost.

"It's not cheap," he said. "You have to be rich."

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/04/70718