Viral video of strange light in the sky is not from Turkey

NewsMeter found that the video is from Kazakhstan and has been on the internet since September 2022.

By Md Mahfooz Alam  Published on  13 Feb 2023 11:36 AM GMT
Viral video of strange light in the sky is not from Turkey

Hyderabad: A video showing a strange light in the sky has gone viral on social media. People sharing the video have claimed that the ā€˜strange lightā€™ appeared before the earthquake hit Turkey.

A Twitter user shared the video and wrote, ā€œThere have been a lot of videos coming out of Turkey showing strange lights in the sky before the massive earthquake. What the hell is that thing?!ā€ (Archive)


Click here to see the post.

Several Facebook users also shared the video with the same claim.

Click here and here to see the posts.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is from Kazakhstan and has been on the internet since September 2022.

On performing a reverse image search of the videoā€™s keyframe, we found it published by a YouTube channel on 12 November 2022. According to the caption, the video is from Balkhash, Kazakhstan.

Taking a cue from this, we found street-view images of Balkhash on Google maps and found the same building as seen in the viral video.


Further, we found the stills from the video in an article published on 30 January. It said the video is from Kazakhstan and dates back to September 2022.


NewsMeter could not find the reason behind the light seen in the video. However, using geolocation, we found that the video is from Balkhash, Kazakhstan.

Hence, we conclude that the claim that the video is from Turkey is false.

Claim Review:The video shows a ā€˜strange lightā€™ that appeared before the earthquake hit Turkey.
Claimed By:Social media users
Claim Reviewed By:NewsMeter
Claim Source:Twitter, Facebook
Claim Fact Check:False
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