This is definitely a great lesson in “don’t believe everything you see online.” There are so many different accounts all over the internet that post fake or misleading pictures, either trying to pass them off as real, or having no idea they’ve been faked.
Luckily, accounts like @PicPedant on Twitter have taken to debunking these (sometimes obviously) fake pictures, giving us the lowdown on what’s real and what isn’t.
“Storm cloud pasted in from photo by Marko Korosec.”
Technically speaking, the storm cloud is real. It’s just that it doesn’t actually belong in this photo. There’s no way anyone would be on such a small boat when a huge storm like that is nearby.
Logic aside, it looks totally photoshopped.
“Original photo of caves without fake over-large moon was taken in daylight.”
The cave itself is actually real. It’s the night sky that isn’t. You can clearly see the lighting around the holes, which are obviously from daylight.
Even if the moon was somehow shining perfectly in the center of one of the holes on a clear night, it wouldn’t create that much light inside the cave itself.
“Milky Way and oversize Moon pasted over rotated Space Station photo.”
This one just seems too good to be true. And apparently, it is! The moon looks a little too close to Earth here. And the fact that the Milky Way is thrown into the mix makes it look so much more like a fake.
“The snake is drawn in and that’s not even the bird’s real head.”
At least most of the photo looks real. It’s a bird plunging into some water. But it’s definitely not picking up that snake, since it isn’t really there.
And look closely at the bird’s head. It doesn’t even look like it’s part of the body.
“It’s a Photoshop enhancement of an Andromeda wallpaper for Mac.”
At least they put down the name of a galaxy, even though it’s the wrong one. The funny thing is that the Milky Way and Andromeda don’t really look that much alike. It would’ve been so easy to just name the right one.
“This view of Mt Fuji was shot from a plane by Gareth Arthur.”
It’s amazing how many people out there will try to fake space shots. This picture is way too close to have been taken from space. Considering how far you have to travel to get out of the Earth’s atmosphere, this would be impossible.
Luckily, it’s just shot from an airplane.
“This is a 3D artwork by Jean-Michel Bihorel titled ‘Winter Sleep.'”
I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that this is obviously not real, or the fact that it’s the result of stolen artwork. How about we don’t try to pass off people’s art for a naturally occurring phenomenon?
“The bullet at left was stationary; these did not collide in midair.”
The word “collide” makes it seem like these two bullets were shot and met each other midair. For them to be in such well-preserved condition wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
But the one on the right was shot into the one on the left, which actually makes a lot more sense.
“That’s Arizona, not Norway.”
Someone really took a photo composite of Arizona, tweaked it a little bit, and then tried to pass it off as Norway. I’ve never been to Norway, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t look like this.
“This is not a photo but a computer-generated image of Korolev Crater on Mars.”
It’s so funny how the original tweet tries to pass off so much false information as true. This isn’t a photo, and it isn’t even the first time we’ve seen water on Mars. It really pays to do a little research.
“This is not real, it’s a composite by Richard Silvera — the Shuttle wouldn’t launch with those strongbacks still on the payload bay doors.”
The photo itself is quite nice, but it’s still fake. This isn’t how a rocket looks when it launches into space. The fact that the original tweet couldn’t even spell “launch” correctly is probably funnier than the idea of this being a real image, though.
“Those aren’t moon phases. That’s a solar eclipse timelapse composite.”
If you’ve ever, you know, looked at the moon, you could tell that this isn’t it. Even when photographed, the moon has little craters on it, which aren’t here.
It’s also not normally orange, or bright like what you see in the image. And this isn’t even how moon phases work .
“That’s a clay turtle.”
This picture is definitely trying to make it look like someone found a smiling turtle. But you can actually tell that it’s a turtle statue. A total fake.
On the plus side, it would make for a really cute garden decoration.
“Judging by the ‘Gakman’ labels at the bottom of the basket, these are handcrafted plush toy owls by Ekaterina Gakman.”
The baby owl toys are so cute! But again, they aren’t real baby owls. It would be nice if the original tweet had mentioned that, but it looks like the account either didn’t know, or didn’t care.
“This is a painting by Steven Power called ‘Fantasy Island,’ probably loosely based on Hawaii.”
Imagine looking at that image and thinking it was Australia. Again, Australia is a country I’ve never visited, but even I know it doesn’t look like this. It’s hard to tell if the person who tweeted this image knew it was a painting or not, even though it looks like it’s been painted.
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“This is a long exposure of fluorescent tubes under high voltage lines”
So, it’s definitely not Aurora Borealis. The Northern Lights can appear in a whole bunch of different beautiful colors depending on external conditions , but they don’t appear white. This image is definitely not the real deal.
“The couple at left are just contemporary reenactors tinted sepia.”
It would’ve been so cool if these really were two images taken in the same spot over 50 years apart. But it’s very clear that it isn’t. Just judging by how the backgrounds are almost identical, that couldn’t make sense.
Even if that spot remained untouched for decades, there would be little changes, like the grass in the top left corner of the pictures.
“That’s a POV-Ray 3D render by Christoph Hormann.”
There is no way that this could be real. Space is really far away, so for any mountain range to appear that close in an image, it would have to be huge. Like, hundreds of times bigger than any actual mountain on Earth.
