The 6 Most Absurd Military Hoaxes By North Korea And Iran

How do rogue states compete with a superpower? Photoshop, apparently.

By Kelsey D. Atherton

Posted on Apr 2, 2013 2:07 AM EDT

In February this year, Iran released photos of a brand-new stealth fighter called the Qaher-313. With slick lines and a modern shape, it looked like a remarkable feat of technological progress...until someone stood next to it, and it appeared to be about 75 percent the size of a working plane. Or until someone watched this video, purportedly of the Qaher-313 in flight, but probably just a remote-control plane: Besides those two dead giveaways, there is this picture, where the Qaher-313 conveniently flies over a mountain at the exact same angle as a stock photo. Why fake it? For starters, Iran was able to get this awesome headline from Business Insider: "Iran's New Qaher 313 Stealth Fighter Would Be Perfect For Attacking The US Navy," which is true except for the fact that the fighter almost certainly doesn't work and so would be terrible at any task requiring it to, well, work. Here, too, there is a bit of deception. Iran doesn't need stealth fighters or flashy technology to attack the U.S. Navy. Instead, simple small fast boats combined with regular cruise missiles and underwater mines will do the job far better than a fancy stealth fighter. Thanks to this, it doesn't matter than Iran's fancy stealth fighter doesn't work - all it has to do is scare the U.S. into preparing for a threat it will never face. Khouz News

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Doctoring photographs is a great April Fools’ Day prank, but for some dictatorships it’s a way of life.

In modern times, the best government photoshop jobs have been Iranian and North Korean. (No, Iran, you can’t just copy-paste extra missiles into a photo.) Here are six of the most ridiculously fake images from the past few years.