Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos
Occasionally, against all odds, you'll see an interesting or even enjoyable picture on the Internet. But is it worth sharing, or just another Photoshop job that belongs in the digital trash heap? Check in here and find out if that viral photo deserves an enthusiastic "forward" or a pitiless "delete."
DELETE
As long as NASA's Curiosity rover keeps sending images back from Mars, determined ufologists will find proof of alien life in its photos. Most of the time, that "proof" will just be a rock, while other times it will just be a rock. This week, however, the conspiracy theorists' evidence was the rover itself.
After a Taiwanese UFO blog determined the above image to show the "shadow of a human-like being" with "no helmet and their short hair is visible and in high detail," a regrettable number of media outlets republished the claim. Unsurprisingly, actual space boffins like Planetary Society Senior Editor Emily Lakdawalla have a different explanation:
What you're seeing is the shadow cast by the rover's arm and the instrument turret on the end of the arm. When the arm is stowed, the "elbow" of the arm is located near the rover's neck; the forearm crosses the front of the rover; and the turret rests on the rover's left shoulder. The instrument turret is enormous and sprouts all kinds of protrusions so it can make a huge variety of shapes of cast shadows; and when you overlay that on the pebbly local topography you can see all kinds of stuff.
To illustrate this, Lakdawalla helpfully sent Gawker a photo of her own (highly-detailed) Curiosity model from the same angle.
Images via Twitter/Emily Lakdawalla
FORWARD
Gnarly photos of "real-life zombies" are a recurring theme on the garbage fake news sites that pollute the web, making it easy to dismiss this viral story about a cat that came back. But according to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay, the improbable image is absolutely real.
Buried by his owner after getting hit by a car, the latter-day Lazarus "dug himself out of the grave and slowly made his way back home, albeit weak, dehydrated and in need of medical attention."
On Friday, the humane society announced that the cat—named Bart—was doing well after surgery to remove his eye and fix his jaw.
Image via Twitter
FORWARD
Manipulated X-rays are another staple of online fakery, but this viral image is also legit. Taken by a radiology resident at King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Saudi Arabia, the photo is just one in a series of radiographs showing the obstructed throat of a 16-month-old boy.
"First, the lateral X-ray appeared with thin long object in the oesophagus," Dr. Ghofran Ageely told Gawker. "I thought it's a pin or coin as most cases are. Then I saw the frontal and here he is, the funny spongebob looking at me with a big smile!"
Images via Twitter/Ghofran Ageely//h/t Live Science
DELETE
When the above image hit Reddit earlier this month, a number of users declared the supposed winner of 2015's "Best Group Selfie Award" to be Photoshop bullshit. Predictably, the naysayers were right. Somewhat less predictably, it was the least impressive part of the photo that turned out to be fake.
In case you didn't catch how the viral photo differs from the original, this animated gif highlights the subtle, almost imperceptible differences between the two.
DELETE
MILF, or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is a very real militant group that killed 30 police commandos in the Philippines this weekend. FAP, as Twitter's @PicPedant pointed out on Monday, is not.
The actual, fap-free headline reads "MILF braces for AFP offensive," which, incidentally, is both less bracing and less offensive.
Image via Twitter
