Fact Check: Viral video of a Gyro drop at Lotte World Adventure is CGI-generated
The thrilling video showing a giant Gyro Drop is fake.
By Sunanda Naik Published on 6 Sep 2023 12:07 PM GMTA video of a seemingly terrifying ride at an amusement park apparently called as a gyro drop is being widely shared on social media.
WHO even thinks about creating something like this?!?!!???? pic.twitter.com/oXByLOhW54
ā š (@itsnotdweena) June 13, 2019
The viral video shows that the tower first doubled in size, escalated people to the top of the tower and then dropped the riders swinging them out and around the tower giving a thrilling experience. Not stopping here, the tower then drops the riders down for a free-falling near-death experience. Did that scare you or woke the daredevil inside you? Does the purported ride really exist? Let's find out.
Fact Check
NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the viral video is CGI created.
Over a keyword search, we found that the viral video was first released by Lotte World Adventure's Facebook page and YouTube channel. The CGI video was apparently created to lure some daring to visit the amusement park.
For those who donāt know, Lotte World Adventure is located in Seoul, South Korea. It consists of a large indoor theme park, an outdoor amusement park called "Magic Island", an artificial island on a lake linked by a monorail, shopping malls, a luxury hotel, an observation tower, a Korean folk museum, sports facilities, and movie theatres.
Sadly, if you were planning to take a ride to Seoul, South Korea after watching the viral intense Gyro Drop free-fall amusement park ride. I am going to disappoint you.
We also performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes of the video and found the original video uploaded on the official website of the Lotte World Adventure and its YouTube channel as well. In the original video, we neither found the doubling of the height of the gyro tower nor we could see dead drops of riders followed by the swing as seen in the viral video.
During the search, we also found reports from media outlets like CNN and Wired calling the ride a CGI created. CNN has shared a cleared version of the Gyro tower ride, Lotte World.