Fact Check: Videos claiming growls of mysterious creature heard in China's Xiushui were doctored

Hyderabad: There have been reports of mysterious sounds, like a dragon's growl, heard in the mountains of China's Xiushui town in Weining county. Viral videos show thousands of people making a beeline for the hills in search of the creature making the sounds.

Many videos have been shared on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Archived version of the posts can be found here.

Fact Check:

There are a number of videos on the Internet about the mysterious sounds coming from the hills in Weining. We observed them and found that the audio track is different in many of the videos. So, we concluded that some of the videos were doctored.

Later, we checked reports on Chinese media like ChinaNews.com and QQ.com to find out more about the incident. According to the news websites, authorities were informed about the sounds on 20 June 2020. The head of Guizhou wildlife management station, Ran Jingcheng, and his team were deputed to investigate the mysterious sounds. They found the source of the sounds: a yellow-legged three-toed button quail, a small bird that is not a member of the quail family but looks like one.

According to experts, the female bird hoots, trying to attract the male during the breeding season. The sound can be heard at a distance of about 100 meters. They said the female bird stores food for the male bird and leaves the nest after laying the eggs. The male bird takes care of the eggs until they hatch.

The Chinese authorities have arrested four people - Liu Moujiang, Hu Moujiang, Chen Moudan, and Zhang Mou - for doctoring the videos and adding horror sound effects. They had uploaded the videos to their accounts. Liu Moujiang and Hu Moujiang were sent to detention for 10 and six days, respectively. Charges are being prepared against the others, the reports said. The authorities said the offenders regret their action but they face legal action as per the acts brought in 2014 to keep internet clean of pornography, violence, and rumors.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/j5EH2h98p6p90qURhDWv3A

Hence, the videos being circulated on social media claiming that the growls of a mysterious creature were heard in China's Xiushui are FALSE.. The videos were doctored and the sounds effects were added.