Secure Computing: Sec-C

The story about the incident in the Straight of Hormuz (discussed in my previous blog entry) keeps getting weirder.

First: there are better sources for the two videos: Military Times (requires Flash) and Press-TV (click on the camera link at the top). The more that I watch the two videos, the more convinced I am that the videos are from different events. The sun is clearly at a different height in the two videos. Since the event reportedly took place in the morning, the Iranian video has the sun too high -- it is likely from a different event.

Second: there is still that weird voice that says "I am coming to you ... You will explode in a few minutes." While the US Navy says it was received at the same time as the incident, it is only heard in an audio splice and not in the actual footage. In addition, they are now attributing the threatening voice to an entity called "Filipino Monkey". This person (or group) reportedly harasses people on the radio and does so regularly.

There are a few problems with this "Filipino Monkey" explanation. First, if the voice has appeared regularly for 25 years, then why wasn't the naval radio officer able to quickly identify this as a hoax and unrelated to the Iranian boats?

Second: if the voice has been around for 25 years, then why is there no mention of it until just a few days ago. Google has started a new archive systems called Archive Search. There have been no news articles that mention this "Filipino Monkey" entity between 1990 and 2007. (A search turns up four articles, but they all talk about real Filipino monkeys and not some guy on a radio.) Even blogs and web pages do not discuss this entity. I would think that if it were a world-wide phenomenon then someone would have talked about it and maybe even released some recordings. In fact, this entity does not appear in any news sources (that I could find) until 12-Jan-2008 -- nearly a week after the event.

If someone has recordings or can find any mention of this "Filipino Monkey" person/group dating prior to 2008, please let me know. Right now, this Filipino monkey is looking like a red herring.

To summarize:

• The Pentagon has released video that looks real, but cannot be confirmed due to the selective video segments. And they spliced on an unrelated audio clip to the end of the video. This mysterious voice is attributed to someone that the Navy claims has been around for 25 years, yet nobody has ever talked about until today...
  
  
• Not to be outdone, the Iranian video appears to be from a different incident since the sun is at the wrong height. Their video is also heavily spliced. And the Iranians have made claims that the US video is file footage from the Persian Gulf, yet has provided no evidence to support this claim.

Everybody lies. The question is, what are they lying about?

Update 2008-01-13: I have found two news reports that talk about the Filipino Monkey. One is dated 1987 (and reprinted in a blog entry) and the other is from 1988. Both articles identify the source as starting around 1984, and mention searches for the person (or group) behind it. I can find no news reports about the Filipino Monkey between 1989 and 11-Jan-2008 (that's 19 years).

The article from 1987 does make it sound similar to last weekend's incident. It says:

Whoever he is, the Filipino Monkey's sing-song voice is also becoming familiar to U.S. sailors in the gulf.

Early last month, for instance, he broke into the middle of a tense radio exchange between a U.S. ship and an Iranian warship.

The Iranian ship had locked its weapons radar onto the U.S. warship, which was warning it in no uncertain terms to stand down. The warning was repeated three times until the Filipino Monkey added his own.

"Iranian warship, Iranian warship," he said. "You gonna get it now."

However, the Navy's recording does not sound like a sing-song voice, and the 20 years of silence (no media coverage) makes me suspicious. I am still looking for confirmation that the Filipino Monkey has been active beyond the 1988 news report, or has resurfaced. (If anyone has any other recordings of the voice, I'd be very interested in hearing them.)

Assuming that this is what happened, then the Iranians should have received the broadcast and recorded it too. I wonder why they don't mention it...