8 viral images that fooled the Internet
We crawl back through the archives and take a look at 7 famous photos that fooled the Internet and turned out to be nothing more than the result of digital manipulation…
From sharks to disasters, from movies to … well, Bill Gates. They’re all here.
8. Shark attacks Helicopter
This classic image shows a shark trying to get himself some dinner in the form of a man on a ladder being held by a helicopter. It’s a popular hoax that has circulated with so many different captions over the years we’ve lost count. Popularly it’s attributed to the title “You think YOU were having a bad day at work!”
It’s a fake image of course. The original image of the helicopter was taken by Lance Cheung and you can see it below.
7. Powerball Winner
I’ve won the Powerball. Share this photo of me and the not-at-all-photoshopped winning ticket and I’ll give you a portion of the money!
Whilst not particularly original, it still manages to do the job, since this photo went mega viral a number of years back, (and many times since) being shared by people who genuinely believed a Powerball winner was going to share his winnings with strangers on Facebook just because they shared his photo.
Come on now, people.
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6. The Accidental Tourist
Also known as the 9/11 Tourst guy photo, this photo spread across the Internet like wildfire shortly after the 9/11 attacks and the messages that caption this photo claim the image was found on a digital camera within the ruins of the World Trade Center buildings.
You can see a man atop of the viewing platform on one of the buildings, and right below him is – according to the messages – one of the planes that hit the WTC, thus leading the viewer to assume the photo was taken only a second or so before the 9/11 attacks on the WTC – and America – started.
Despite the image going viral, the many inconsistencies – including the wrong airplane, wrong airline and wrong direction – meant that image didn’t hold up for long before being dismissed as a forgery. This was later confirmed by the man in the photo himself, Peter Guzil, who eventually released the original, unedited photo, that of course did not include the plane. See below.
Guzil’s image has seen been the subject of an Internet meme, photoshopped into a variety of other images where impending disaster awaits.
5. The towering Tsunami image
Another photo claiming to show a recent disaster, this image claims to show the 2004 tsunami hitting either Indonesia or Phuket in Thailand, depending on what variant of the hoax you see. Other versions claim the photo was taken in Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
And again there are far too many inconsistencies in the photo for it to ever stand up as genuine. The most noticeable being the size of the wave which is substantially larger than what was seen and reported in 2004.
Whilst movies may often depict tsunami waves as tall as multi-story buildings, in 2004 the waves generally reached only several metres high, with the significant force of the rushing currents being the fatal factor attributed to killing so many.
This image, whilst depicting a genuine skyline, appears to have the wave digitally added.
4. Shark attack
Some of the most viral photos that have fooled thousands in the past have involved sharks, and our 2nd shark related photo comes courtesy of this little gem that claims to show two sharks swimming below some escalators.
Various rumours attribute the hoax photo with the collapsing shark tank at the Scientific Center in Kuwait, whilst others say it was the result of flooding after Hurricane Katrina.
The reality is that it’s a photoshopped image. The original photo of the scene – minus the sharks – was taken from the CBC News website.
3. The “last photo from a plane passenger” photo
Another disaster themed hoax, and this time we’re looking at a photo that was apparently taken from Air France Flight 449/Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 (depending what version you read) just before it crashed.
Of course the photo doesn’t show any plane crash at all – at least not a real one. Okay Photoshop had little to do with this particular hoax, but it’s still equally fake. The hoax was perpetrated by a Brazillian blogger and the image is actually a still taken from TV series Lost.
2. Bill Gates share share share
In a continuation of a classic, ever persistent hoax, the good old “share this and I’ll give you loads of money” message has spread via email, social media updates, Tweets and this – photo hoax.
In the photo Bill Gates appears to be holding a sign claiming that he’ll give you $5000, aslong as you share the photo, of course.
Well actually no. The sign Bill is holding is actually a sign to Reddit, nothing to do with sharing the photo or getting money. Other background objects in the hoax photo have also been changed as well…
1. The future… Today
And perhaps one of the most persistent hoaxes over the last few years is the claim that the future date in Back to the Future is the date it is now (or at least, when the hoaxer started the hoax.)
This is illustrated by photoshopped images of the dashboard inside the DeLorean – like the one below – with the future date changed. A number of different versions have spread, all with the future date changed to presumably whenever the hoaxer decided to start spreading his own version of the hoax. The most popular was a day in July 2012.
For those wondering, the date has now been and gone. The real future date was October 21st 2015.
Where apparently hover boards and self-drying clothes will be a thing of reality. Or maybe not.