Jason Goodman has responded to our Part 1 article Insane in the Ukraine – J.Go Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before in a recent episode of “Sundays With Charles”.
A summary of the claims he made:
- “it started before I got involved”
- “it started before I got involved
- “the original aircraft was purchased in Sweden”
- “the two original owners of that company actually decided to go to Ukraine and do a video over the Chernobyl nuclear reactor”
- “this is before I got involved in the company”
- “they got in a dispute with the Swedish manufacturer and the helicopter failed”
- “when I joined that company they had no working helicopter, I had to go to Sweden and re-establish the relationship with the manufacturer to get that helicopter repaired and back in the sky”
- “then I got them to change the name of their company to Aerocine”
- “the rest is history that’s being distorted by some people who would perpetrate falsehoods on the Internet in an effort to damage Crowdsource the Truth”
Although he does not name us specifically, it is clear that Jason is insinuating that the information presented in Insane in the Ukraine is false. We are not trying to perpetrate falsehoods, as he alleges. We are trying to present true information, supported with citations. So let’s take a look at the evidence we have and compare it to the claims Jason Goodman just made.
Goodman claims that he was not the CEO of Aerocine when the drone flew over Chernobyl at the time of the Ukrainian revolution – February 21, 2014. He certainly had no problems talking about being the CEO a couple of weeks later at London’s 3D Creative Summit on March 12-13, 2014. Did he really only join the company (formed by his NYU Film School chums) between Feb 21 and March 12, just in time for a speaking gig at the conference?
Video of Jason Goodman presenting as CEO of Aerocine in London, March 12-13 2014:
He says “it became clear to me that this micro-aerial platform had a tremendous future and so we formed Aerocine“. Doesn’t that make it sound like he was a co-founder of the company, and not just someone hired to join them later on?
“I am aware that a video we posted several weeks ago has gone viral” (presumably meaning the Chernobyl video)
“We’ve been working on this for a long time, selecting the best platform, the best motors, we’ve done everything to modify the rotor configuration and just tweak this thing out to the utmost extent” – doesn’t that imply he’s been working on this drone project for longer than 2 weeks? Wouldn’t they have done all that tweaking and adjusting BEFORE their flagship Chernobyl flight debut?
8:00 “we’ve been working with ARRI CSC. At the end of February we flew an Alexa XT and this is some footage of that”
“We” implies the speaker considers himself part of the group. Goodman is visible in the video clip he plays and appears to be directing the events.
Further video of this flight at ARRI in New York:
Here is Aerocine’s demo reel, shot in Chernobyl in February 2014. Did they use a different camera?
That Aerocine was in Ukraine in Feb 2014 is also confirmed from co-founder Jeff Brink’s instagram:
Aerocine, LLC was incorporated December 12, 2013.
Jason Goodman filed the trademark for Aerocine in his own name, citing first use anywhere March 13, 2014. This is weird, since it seems like it was being used in February to film the Aerocine demo reel. Aerocine’s own web site says they made their public debut March 12, 2014, and talks about its record-breaking drone flight on February 21, 2014.
It seems there may be some copyright issues specific to the use of the drone in February. If this was not a commercial gig for Aerocine, then who paid for the mission? What was the real purpose of the mission? Who owns all the footage now?
Goodman’s claims that the Chernobyl flight was “before I got involved with the company” are at odds with the video he shows in his own presentation of him directing the world’s first micro-aerial flight of an ARRI Alexa XT in February 2014. The video of this also proves his claim that “they had no working helicopter when I got involved” to be false. His claim that “I got them to change the name of the company after I got involved” is at odds with the company registration information and his own trademark filings.
If we are “perpetrating falsehoods”, we sure have a lot of evidence to accompany our perpetration. Evidence that comes from Goodman and his company themselves, and disproves his own claims. The onus is now on Mr Goodman to provide any evidence whatsoever that any of our claims are false.
See also: https://medium.com/@thehudsonreport/jason-goodman-from-russia-with-love-2c26da55f436