Fact check: Video going viral with 'Ring of Fire' visuals over a lake is false
By Satya Priya BN Published on 23 Jun 2020 11:49 AM GMT
A video showing a crowd cheering at the giant ring of fire during the solar eclipse is being forwarded vigorously on WhatsApp saying that it is the scene from the city of Chi Yee, Taiwan on 21 June 2020. The video shows a long line of people holding their phones to take photographs of the sun while fog envelops the scene and on changing the angle, we can see a huge image of Sun in the form of Ring of Fire over a lake.
[video width="480" height="848" mp4="https://newsmeter.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/WhatsApp-Video-2020-06-22-at-17.02.02.mp4"][/video]
Fact Check:
The above claim is FALSE.
This video has also been uploaded on YouTube channel by Venu Gopal on Jan 27, 2020, with the title 'Video of Sun coming down'.
When reverse image search was done using the keyframes extracted from the video, we found very amusing results. They showed another version of the video which showed the crowd cheering and seeing a huge image of Mother Mary in the clouds. This video was shared online on different platforms of social media.
https://vk.com/video587010392_456239018
We also found an article in an Arabic website named Falsoo.com, debunked the video showing the image of Mother Mary. The article published on December 7, 2019 states that a large number of social media users shared a video claiming the appearance of the Virgin Mary over a lake in the State of Armenia, which sparked controversy over social media.
And the truth is that the video in circulation is fabricated, and the original video of "Tianchi Lake" or Lake Sky is located at the top of Mount Baekdu on the border between China and North Korea. The article also says that the video showing Mother Mary itself was fabricated.
This same video has been used and the image of the sun has been affixed into the video to make it look like a huge sun coming down during solar eclipse.
To check the truth of the location, we searched for Mount Baektu or Mount Paektu and found that the location is certainly Mount Paektu, a mountain considered sacred in both North and South Korea. Though not the same video, we found several other pictures and videos with the same visuals as the viral video.
https://www.north-korea-travel.com/monte-paektu.html
Hence, the video is NOT from Taiwan but from Mount Paektu/Mount Baektu on the border of North Korea and China. The image has been fabricated into the video to make it look real.
So, the claim is FALSE.
