[Iran Press TV] North Korea faked its latest submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test by heavily editing the released footage, analysts say.According to the Middlebury Institute's James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), the North used "heavy video editing" to cover up the fact that the "rocket ejected, began to light, and then failed catastrophically."
On Friday, North Korean state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
broadcasted footage of the December SLBM test, which was unannounced beforehand unlike a previous test in May.
Based on the analysis of the Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,-based think tank, two frames from the footage show the missile actually catching fire with small components breaking away.
"They used different camera angles and editing to make it appear that the launch was several continuous launches, but played side by side you can see that it is the same event," said a senior CNS research associate, Melissa Hanham, on Tuesday.
The analysis shows that Pyongyang used rudimentary editing techniques to splice the footage with and earlier SLBM test and a Scud missile test.
On Saturday, South Korea also announced that the footage appeared to be edited with a SCUD launch from 2014.
The footage was released just two days after North Korea announced the successful testing of its first hydrogen bomb, an action that was also met by skepticism and widespread condemnation.