Surveillance footage purported to show HitchBOT's death called into question

Video captured by Philadelphia surveillance camera thought to show hitchhiking Canadian robot's death

 

 

PRINCESS! ‏@BridgetteWest

Ummmm, last people to have @HitchBOT was @JesseWelle and @edbassmaster?? This HAS to be a prank lol

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9:49 PM - 3 Aug 2015

A video purporting to show the grisly destruction of a hitchhiking Canadian robot is bringing many on the web to new levels of shock, anger and sadness.
Fortunately for hitchBOT's legacy, it may be entirely fake — a surveillance scene staged by two professional pranksters.
YouTube star Jesse Wellens of Prank vs. Prank and his friend Ed Bassmaster were the last people believed to have seen hitchBOT before it was destroyed.
Wellens is also the sole source of the purported security tape, which he released on Snapchat and sent to several reporters Monday.
Based on the fact that a known prankster distributed the tape, the incident's timing, the duo's reputation, Bassmaster's prior wardrobe choices, photos showing no surveillance cameras near the scene, and other details surfacing on Reddit, skepticism about the footage has been ramping up since its initial release.
The Canadian researchers responsible for hitchBOT, a child-sized "social robot" famous for its cross-country travels, confirmed over the weekend that their creation had been destroyed beyond repair.
"The head, as far as we know, is missing," said McMaster University professor David Smith to CBC News, noting that some of its electronic parts had also been stripped out.

hitchBOT, seen here during happier times, embarked on a 6,000 kilometre 'Canadian Adventure' last summer — a trip it completed without incident. (Paul Darrow/Reuters )

Sadly, HitchBOT was only two weeks into its first tour across the U.S. when it was destroyed. The beloved bot is believed to have been vandalized Saturday night in Philadelphia while waiting for its next ride.
As one of the last two people to see hitchBOT intact, Philly-based Wellens seemed particularly invested on finding out what happened to it.
Wellens and Bassmaster had picked the bot up in the early morning hours of Aug. 1 and dropped it off near Elfreth's Alley and 2nd Street, as confirmed by HitchBOT's live map.
"Dropping the Robot at Elfreths Ally," Wellens tweeted to his nearly 900,000 followers shortly before 4 a.m. ET. "Waiting for one of you peeps to pick it up."
Whether the tweet tipped off a robot-hater or a vandal simply stumbled upon hitchBOT is not known, but by Saturday afternoon, Canada's tiny beloved traveller announced its own death. 



source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/hitchbot-surveillance-video-destroyed-philadelphia-jesse-wellens-1.3178244