'Glitter Bomb' Engineer Admits Not All Thieves Were Real

Anyone order a milkshake duck? 

After video of an ex-NASA engineer's invention to get payback on porch pirates went viral, people immediately embraced the idea as swift karmic justice. Anyone who's had a package stolen off their front porch knows the frustration and headaches that can cause. So, when Mark Rober's fake "Glitter Bomb" packages were seen showering its supposed victims with a pound of glitter and fart spray, people across the world cheered his ingenuity. Several phones were placed in the package that recorded the "thieves" actions and captured their location. 

The video quickly went viral as thousands vicariously lived through Rober's revenge on the wanna-be thieves. 

Sounds like fun right? But since it's 2018 and nothing good ever lasts anymore, internet detectives quickly realized that some of the reactions captured on Rober's impromptu revenge packages weren't as genuine as they were first presented. 

Rober apologized for posting footage for two of the glitter attacks, which he now admits was "misleading." 

The ex-NASA engineer explained on Twitter that he had asked his friends - and friends of friends - for help in trying out his invention. Rober even offered to pay those people who could recover their packages. 

I removed 1.5 minutes of footage from the video since originally uploading. I was presented with information that caused me to doubt the veracity of 2 of the 5 reactions in the video. These were reactions that were captured during a two week period while the device was at [a] house 2 hours away from where I live. I put a feeler out for people willing to put a package on their porch and this person (who is a friend of a friend) volunteered to help. 

Rober explains that he felt it was fair to compensate his guinea pigs for their time and willingness to place the bait package on their porch. 

"I offered financial compensation for any successful recoveries of the package. It appears (and I’ve since confirmed) in these two cases, the “thieves” were actually acquaintances of the person helping me."

That is, some of the people Rober had drafted for his prank called their friends to pretend to be robbers. They then sent the sham reaction videos to the ex-NASA engineer who passed them off online as authentic. 

"From the footage I received from the phones which intentionally only record at specific times, this wasn’t obvious to me," Rober wrote. "I can vouch that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house.”

Rober apologized to anyone who felt they had been deceived by the video, saying that he felt deceived as well. 

"I’m especially gutted because so much thought, time, money and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn’t just taint the entire effort as ‘fake,'" he wrote on Twitter. "I know my credibility is sort of shot but I encourage you to look at the types of videos I’ve been making for the past 7 years."