A Filipino netizen uploaded on Facebook a short reel showing a crowd of spectators looking at a monstrous cobra rising out of a body of water. The video is fake.
The short video appeared on Aug. 27 and continues to circulate up till this week with 2.2 million recent views, according to FB. It shows people gathered along a bay recording the creature and later running away to avoid a massive wave supposedly triggered by the giant snake.
There are no legitimate news reports about a giant snake rising out of a river or sea. A reverse image search revealed that the creature is a product of video editing, although scenes of people running away from huge waves have been captured in recent years.
Based on news reports in 2014 and 2016, the video was taken at a bank of Qiantang River in China’s Zhejiang Province, where scenes of a tidal bore swamping spectators can be seen.
Tourists and locals alike regularly visit the river during the annual Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, where the Qiantang River’s tidal waves are at their peak. The river is known for having the largest tidal bore in the world.
Other fact-checkers flagged a similar video with a different untrue context back in 2020, where the Hindu serpentine demigod Sheshnag supposedly emerged from a river.
The short clip published by the FB netizen has garnered over 12.4 million views and 15,200 shares, according to FB.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
