Analysis: More evidence Scientology doctors its event photos

Following our analysis of Scientology’s most recent event photos, which showed Tom Cruise and John Travolta had -not so carefully- been removed from the audience, we took a closer look sat previous event images and have uncovered a series of examples that suggest Scientology routinely doctors photos.

In our article earlier this week, we showed how Scientology’s public-facing images contained several hallmarks of manipulation to remove their A-list stars, presumably in an attempt to avoid media scrutiny. Block splodges, weird marks and even a floating arm that did not seem to be attached to a body were all seen in the photos published by the church following last month’s L. Ron Hubbard birthday celebration at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

A press release the Church published this week claims “more than 5,000 Scientologists” attended the gathering, despite Ruth Eckerd’s hall having a capacity of just 2,180… and that prompted us to take another look at their photos, scanning the audience for more signs of photoshopping. And low and behold, in the same photo which had been altered to remove Cruise and Travolta, we spotted this woman on the upper balcony, whose face appears to be melting.

Similarly, on the second tier one woman appears to tower above the rest. Her proportions are not consistent with what we would expect if she were simply taller than those in her vicinity. Instead, we think, Scientology have cut her out of another photo and placed her in the audience to cover up a group of empty seats.

This prompted us to delve into the archive of previous event photos published by the Church. Last year, reclusive leader David Miscavige held a special event at the Ruth Eckerd Hall to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Dianetics, the book that began the movement. Zooming in to the back of the upper level of the audience, we could see the same woman appearing twice, and one attendee with no head.

And photos from a previous Hubbard birthday event also show signs of manipulation. In this photo, by adjusting the brightness and contrast we can clearly see two lines indicative of cropping, where members of the audience appear to have been added – again, presumably to make the auditorium appear fuller than it was.

Pay close attention to the inconsistencies with camera noise, changes in lighting and the sharp blue square that suggests this portion of the audience has been copied and pasted from another image. On the left, the legs of some attendees appear to overlap the tops of the seats in front of them.

And in this photo, one person has been cropped so he appears to be missing the lower half of his body, and is floating above his seat.

As we mentioned in the last article, Scientology have a history of doctoring event photos in order to make it seem like the audience was larger than it actually was… and the Church completely removed L. Ron Hubbard’s own wife from a photo published in a biography about his adventures at sea.

Scientology still claims to be the “fastest growing religion” on planet Earth, but it seems to us that they are now struggling to pull the audience they perhaps could have in the past. Claiming 5,000 people attended an event at a venue that only holds 2,180 – and then doing a poor job of photoshopping the crowd are not indicative of a growing movement.. rather, it suggests Scientology is facing monumental decline.. and they’re trying to cover it up.