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| - Fact Check: 'Elephant Mountain' takes netizens for a ride, artwork shared as nature's beauty
A stunning photograph is going visual on social media with the claim that it is a picture of the "Elephant Mountain" – a cliff in the shape of a frozen elephant. India Today's AFWA probes the truth.
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India Today Fact Check
It is not a real mountain, but a digital artwork created by a Polish artist in 2018.
Nature lovers are always on the lookout for new places to explore. And social media often provides us insights into some of the most marvellous places on Earth.
One such spectacular picture of a mountain cliff in the shape of a frozen elephant has gone viral on social media. The picture, captioned as “Amazing Elephant Mountain”, has aroused the curiosity of netizens, with many enquiring its location.
But India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the viral post to be misleading. It is not a real mountain cliff but was created digitally by a Polish artist in 2018.
Some Twitter users have posted that the structure is in Taiwan. A news website had also carried the picture as nature’s beauty. The archived version of the viral post can be seen here.
AFWA investigation
While searching about the photo, we found that a Facebook page named “Beautiful Nature” had posted the picture in April, giving credit to one “@mirekis7”.
AFWA found a Facebook profile with the same ID (@mirekis7), which had posted the viral image in January 2018 with a caption in Polish.
In the comment section of this post, Mirekis had replied to some users in Polish that this is not a real cliff, but was created from pictures of different places.
Reverse-searching the viral image on TinEye took us to two different pictures available on “Shutterstock” and “Pixabay”. Here, it can be ascertained that the viral image was created using these two pictures and a random picture of an elephant.
Mirekis had confirmed the same to fact-check website “Snopes” in 2018. The user’s Facebook profile also has similar digital artworks showing frozen cliffs in the shape of animals.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the “Elephant Mountain” seen in the viral image is not real. It is an artwork, created by using editing software.
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