That worked very well. It left a false impression that Mines Rescue had been far deeper into the mine than anybody had ever known.
But unless the police have lied to Prime Minister Bill English, the devastating truth is that Mines Rescue personnel were only a couple of metres inside the tunnel, working on the robot before setting it off.
As English was able to show at his post-Cabinet press conference, the fact that men had been down the drift before had been widely reported -- on November 9, 2012, Newshub (then TV3) along with other media reported experts commissioned by the families had gone down the drift 170m.
But Sunday's story implied others may have gone as far as 1km down.
In the wake of the footage, most players resorted to default positions.
Conspiracy theorist Winston Peters instantly alleged a cover-up -- though notably Andrew Little didn't.
The police fuelled the cock-up theory by confusing the footage and the robot (there have been five robots and more than 30 hours of video), leaving the impression valuable images had been deliberately withheld from the families and the Royal Commission of inquiry.
For many, the result of the video has been confusion. They don't know who or what to believe.
The police were slow to react but now advise that the footage in question was from the fourth robot, deployed by the Pike River receivers on or about March 15, 2011, four months after the explosion.
According to English, families were offered a viewing of footage from the third and fourth robots in Christchurch and in Greymouth before the material was handed over to the Royal Commission.
The Government is still in discussions with the families about the entry of an unmanned drone to take a fresh look.
That can't happen soon enough.
It may not give the families the answers they want, but it may give new information to debate instead of old suspicions.
