CNN’s US election night stunt, in which reporter Jessica Yellin and rapper will.i.am appeared on set as three-dimensional “holograms”, was little more than smoke and mirrors, physics experts say.
In what was billed as a world-first, Yellin appeared to be beamed from Chicago into the network’s New York studio for an interview with anchor Wolf Blitzer. But, in fact, Blitzer was looking at little more than a red mark on the floor.
Blitzer was happy to play along with the fakery : “Jessica, you’re a terrific hologram…”we can have a more intimate conversation”.
A second “hologram” interview was aired between another anchor, Anderson Cooper, and will.i.am, who, like Yellin, was in Chicago for President-elect Barack Obama’s election night celebrations.
“It looks exactly like in Star Trek when they would beam people down, that’s what it looks like right here,” Cooper said.
