U.S. experts have weighed in on North Korea's allegedly successful test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, and many believe that the propaganda video, which features North Korean leader Kim Jong-un watching as a missile is launched from the sea, shows evident signs of extensive editing, reported The New York Times.
Immediately upon the release of the video by North Korean state media, officials at the South Korean Defense Ministry questioned its validity, stating that that they saw a number of signs that the video had been doctored, including the possibility that the launch video was spliced with Scud missile footage from 2014.
Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute's CNS, agreed with the assumption, saying that the North's state media used a number of rather rudimentary techniques, such as the utilization of numerous camera angles, in order to make the test launch appear more successful than it actually was, according to The Economic Times.
"The rocket ejected, began to light, and then failed catastrophically. North Korea used heavy video editing to cover over this fact," she said.
Catherine Dill, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, further stated that the North not only doctored the launch footage, but the editors who worked on the video were also quite careless, leaving an extra two frame of video that should have been cut.
"The missile successfully ejects, which would mark an improvement in testing if reports about a failed ejection test in November are accurate. However, the missile then appears to explode, and we conclude that the failure likely occurred at ignition," she said, according to Popular Mechanics.
Check out more World News here.
