11 Viral Photos On Internet That Have Been Debunked As Fakes

The internet’s 11 most popular photographs that have been shown to be fakes are listed below. Most of the time, we take the online news and false WhatsApp photographs at face value. In this post, we have a few examples of before and after images along with the background information.

Enjoy your time as you scroll down. All images include links that take you to the places where they were taken. Please feel free to check out more of these photographers’ work on their personal websites or in their collections.

#1 What happened to a rainforest over the course of 10 years

This photo collage became a hit thanks to the popular #10YearChallenge. The picture is accompanied by text that says that every year, 46,000 to 58,000 square miles of forest are lost to deforestation. The photo looks real especially because of the logo in the right corner. But in fact, this is not a collage of 2 pictures taken 10 years apart, it is one picture from a photo stock. It shows Malasia where the rainforest was removed to increase the territory for growing palm trees.

#2 A photographer captures a perfectly timed photo of a man cooking rice

Well, it turns out the rice is actually fake. In fact, everything is fake. It’s simply a sculpture that you can buy in a shop in Tokyo.

#3 A graffiti scene perfectly reflected in the water

This photo became a hit on many websites. But the truth is, it was edited. Yes, this graffiti really exists and the building is located in Mariampol, Lithuania. And the author of the picture is a street artist named Ray Bartkus who drew the picture upside-down on purpose — for it to be reflected in the water. But the best time to see the picture is when there is no wind and the surface is perfectly smooth. Otherwise, the picture looks like this. See how the reflection in the first photograph was edited?

#4 A lynx and a deer were found in an office under a table. They were hiding from fires in California

“A fawn and a bobcat cub found under a desk in an office building after the California forest fire rolled through” is what the caption for the viral photo said on Reddit, Twitter, and other social media sites. Yes, the photo is real but it’s posted every time a forest fire breaks out somewhere in the US. And the caption is different every time. The picture was taken in May 2009 in a building that is owned by a non-commercial team of animal rescuers. During a fire in Santa Barbara, California, these cute animals were found not far from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ranch. And because there were no cages, the fawn and the lynx had to be put in an office. The lynx just ran toward the deer and lied down next to it. By the way, one of the rescuers took the animals home because he was worried they would not survive in the wild. Later, he even shared a video with the grown-up lynx — he turned out to be very cute!

#5 The New Year in Paris

This popular picture shows hundreds of fireworks that were supposedly launched in Paris on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, the photo is fake and we found several pieces of evidence. First of all, on New Year’s Eve, the fireworks are launched from the Eiffel Tower. Secondly, all the fireworks in the photo are at the same distance from the camera. And finally, the Internet users who live in Paris claim that this is a fake picture. Just take a look at the picture of the real fireworks show above the Eiffel Tower on July 14.

#6 A dog sleeping on the grave of its owner every night for 7 years

Almost 60,000 likes and more than 55,000 shares were made by users when they saw the post about a dog that sleeps on a tombstone. The caption says that the dog named Captain has been visiting his owner’s grave for the last 7 years and sleeping there until morning. This photo is absolutely real and so is the story. The problem is, they’re not connected. For example, the same story was linked to a different dog sleeping on a grave as well.

#7 A typical day in Russia

You can see this photo with a similar title (for example, “Polar Express”) on the Internet. It is said that the photo shows a real white bear getting off the tram somewhere in Russia. You’d be surprised but the photo is absolutely real — it was taken in a town in the Czech Republic and it wasn’t edited. But the bear is not real — it’s a costume that 2 Greenpeace activists were wearing. This “bear” was a part of the campaign, Save the Arctic. It “walked” in European cities to attract attention to the problems in the Arctic.

#8 A goose frozen to a pipe warmed a puppy with its wing

At the end of January, hundreds of thousands of people on social media liked and shared the photo of a shivering goose that froze to a pipe and was warming a puppy with its wings. Allegedly, they were found in Montana. Even though the photo seems to be real, it was taken a very long time ago and most likely, it wasn’t in the US. And on top of all that, the story itself is most likely a lie.

These pictures have been shared on Chinese websites since 2017. The earliest post we were able to find was made in March 2017 on NetEase — it’s is a Chinese news platform. The text under these photos says that the puppy was sitting at the side of the road, freezing. Ducks were passing by and the puppy ran toward one of them and it covered it with its wing. NetEase actually allows users to post their own content. So that means that they give their own description to the photos and there is no way to find out if the photo is real or not.

#9 A mountain shaped like a turtle’s head

In January 2019, Amazing Nature on Facebook posted a photo that shows a mountain that looks like a turtle. The post went viral but this mountain doesn’t actually exist — the photo was made by combining several pictures. For example, here are 2 of them.

#10 A megalodon’s tooth in a whale vertebrae

The photo above shows fossils that look like a megalodon’s tooth and a whale’s bone but they were found in different places at different times. But one talented seller just combined them into one sculpture.

#11 A cruise ship dumping waste into the sea

A cruise ship dumping waste into the sea. The caption to this photo that was published on Facebook not long ago says that this cruise ship is dumping waste right into the sea. This post went viral and users started leaving bad comments and even the national director on the environment of Uruguay had to provide an explanation. In his Twitter account, he wrote that this photo shows the cruise ship starting its turbines in order to drop an anchor. And the brown spots are the sand and the sludge from the bottom.