11 Fake Photos That Successfully Fooled The Internet

Internet users upload millions of photographs every day. Different images make people feel certain ways, but pictures which evoke strong emotions often go viral. Everybody likes and shares these pictures, but not everyone takes the time to read the comments. If they did, they would learn that some of the photos are fake.

It isn't always easy to recognize a fake photo, especially when a picture is real but the story behind it is false. Here are 11 famous photos we shouldn’t have believed right off the bat.

Here’s what happened to a rainforest over ten years.

© kinkysatanx / Reddit

© bigstockphoto

This photo collage became a hit thanks to the popular #10YearChallenge. On Reddit, the picture is accompanied by text writing that each year, 46,000 to 58,000 square miles of forest are lost to deforestation. The picture looks real particularly because of the logo in the right corner. But in fact, this is not a collage of two pictures taken ten years apart, but one image from a photo stock. It depicts Malasia where the rainforest was removed to increase the territory for growing palm trees.

A guy mixing rice

© GeneReddit123 / Reddit

© BobertMcGee / Reddit

Did you also believe a photographer managed to capture this awesome rice-flipping moment? Well, the rice is fake. In fact, everything is fake. It is merely a sculpture that you can buy in a shop in Tokyo where fake foods are sold.

Graffiti you can only see in the water.

© Bonnie817 / Reddit

This image became a hit on many websites. But the truth is, it was edited. Yes, this graffiti exists and the building is situated in Mariampol, Lithuania. The author of the photo is a street artist named Ray Bartkus who drew the image upside-down on purpose — for it to be reflected in the water. However, the best time to see the picture is when there's no wind, and the surface is entirely smooth. Otherwise, the picture looks like this:

© GoGoGadgetReddit / Reddit

See how the reflection in the first photograph was edited?

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

© junkyardmessiah / Reddit

“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 picture said on Reddit, Twitter, and other social media sites. Yes, the photo is real, but it is posted every time a forest fire breaks out somewhere in the US. The caption is different every time. The image was captured in May 2009 in a building which is owned by a non-commercial team of animal rescuers. During a fire in Santa Barbara, California, these cute animals were discovered not far from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ranch. As there were no cages, the lynx and the fawn 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 wouldn't survive in the wild. Later, he shared a video with the grown-up lynx that turned out to be very cute!

The New Year in Paris

© britainunwrapped / Reddit

This famous picture shows hundreds of fireworks which were supposedly launched in Paris on New Year’s Eve. Unluckily, the photo is fake, and we discovered several pieces of evidence. Firstly, 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. Finally, the Internet users who live in Paris claim this is a fake picture. Take a look at the image of the real fireworks show above the Eiffel Tower on July 14.

© BuckeyeEmpire / Reddit

A dog sleeping on the grave of its owner each night for seven years

It has been 7 years now. The cemetery does not close the gates until he arrrives each night promptly at 6 pm. He sleeps there all night guarding the grave until the ground keeper opens the gate in the morning. This is a true picture of Capitan here. pic.twitter.com/UBZPmBzLwd

— Back To Nature (@backt0nature) 2 Μαΐου 2018

Approximately 60,000 likes and over 55,000 shares were made by users when they saw the post about a dog which sleeps on a tombstone. The caption says the dog named Captain has been visiting his owner’s grave for the last seven years and sleeping there until morning. The photo is real, and so is the story. The problem is, they aren't connected. For instance, the same story was linked to a different dog sleeping on a grave as well.

The story was reported by the Spanish newspaper, La Voz in September 2012. Here's a video about the animal. You will probably notice that the dog there is entirely different.

“A typical day in Russia.”

© Moaml99 / reddit

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

A goose frozen to a pipe warmed a puppy with its wing.

© Suzanne PadaPetra / facebook

At the end of January 2019, hundreds of thousands of people on social media liked and shared the photo of a shivering goose which froze to a pipe and was warming a puppy with its wings. Allegedly, they were discovered in Montana. Although the photo seems to be real, it was captured a very long time ago. Most likely, it was not in the United States. The story itself is most likely fake too. These photos have been posted on Chinese websites since 2017. The earliest post we could find was made in March 2017 on NetEase — it is is a Chinese news platform. The text under these photographs says that the pup was sitting at the side of the road, freezing. Ducks were passing by, and the pup ran toward one of them, and it covered it with its wing. NetEase allows users to share their own content. So this means that they give their own description to the photos and there is no way to find out if the picture is real or not.

A mountain shaped like a turtle’s head

In January 2019, Amazing Nature on Facebook shared a picture that depicts a mountain which looks like a turtle. The post went viral, but the mountain does not exist — the photo was made by combining several pictures. For example, here are 2 of them.

© GlacierNPS / Flickr © Pixabay.com

A megalodon’s tooth in a whale vertebrae

© GallowBoob / Reddit

This photo shows fossils which look like a megalodon’s tooth and a whale’s bone, but they were discovered in different places at different times. But one talented seller just combined them into one sculpture. That's what the owner of the artifact said about it. If that were a real megalodon’s tooth stuck in a whale’s vertebrae, it'd cost millions of dollars and would likely be in an archaeological museum.

By the way, this photograph was first found online in 2012, and you could even buy the “artifact” for just $125.

A cruise ship dumping waste into the sea

This photo's caption says that this cruise ship is dumping waste right into the sea. This post went viral, and users began 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 the picture shows the cruise ship starting its turbines to drop an anchor. The brown spots are the sand and the sludge from the bottom.

Preview photo credit GeneReddit123 / reddit, BobertMcGee / reddit

Reference: Brightside