| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Clouds in Uttarakhand praying for Joshimath? Don't fall for such videos, they're just CGI
Amid the crisis that has been unfolding in Uttarakhand's Joshimath that has forced people to abandon their homes, a video of a strange cloud formation has been making the rounds on social media with many claiming that the clouds seem to be resembling folded hands or 'pranaam.'
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
The cloud phenomenon is CGI and was made by Myuz Ahmed of Palestine who has created many similar videos.
Joshimath — the Uttarakhand city where residents have lately been waking up to see long, deep cracks running down the walls of their homes — supposedly saw a strange cloud formation per some social media users. Those claiming this shared a video featuring a bunch of people pointing at clouds shaped like folded hands. Text inside the video read: “A strange cloud in the Uttarakhand.”
Sharing this video, a Twitter user wrote, “While Joshimath in Uttarakhanda is in peril, a strange cloud appears in sky revealing a pranam. As if people appeal to the supreme lord of the devbhoomi to save them from devastation.”
Janata Dal (United) leader Santosh Nema also shared the viral video on the Public app, writing, “Nature itself folded hands in Uttarakhand, clouds creating the shape on their own.” Archives of such posts can be found here, here and here.
AFWA found that the supposedly divine clouds in the video are nothing but CGI. Also, this video is neither from Joshimath nor from India at all.
AFWA PROBE
A reverse search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to a similar video, of much better quality, shared by a Facebook user in December 2022. However, the text inside this video read, “A strange cloud in the sky of America. Amen.” The font of the text and its placement suggests that in the currently viral video, “sky of America. Amen,” was replaced with “Uttarakhand”. Moreover, this video also contained the TikTok logo along with the username “@myuz_gaza1”.
Further searches led us to a few more videos of different cloud formations with the same TikTok username. In one such video, shared on YouTube in 2021, people could be seen pointing at the sky as a ghostly creature floated and disappeared within seconds. Another video ollowed the same pattern, featuring a bunch of people pointing at the sky as a faded monument floated with the clouds. The text in the video read: “Everyone has seen it in Indonesia. Amen.” Interestingly, the font in these videos was the same as the viral one.
We found a Yahoo News report in Mandarin about clouds forming a spectacular scene of three galloping horses. The report stated that this video was shared with the hashtag “Myuz Gaza”. It also added that the video contained CGI and did not show a natural phenomenon.
Searching that username led us to a Facebook page that belonged to Myuz Ahmed, a gymnastics coach from Gaza, Palestine. Scrolling through his profile, we found that Ahmed’s TikTok username was Myuz Gaza.
We then found a YouTube short that featured a different (but similar-looking) video of praying hands appearing in the sky, along with Ahmed in the frame. A comparison of the hand-like structure in this video and the viral video can be found below.
The YouTube channel hat shared this video appeared to belong to the same person, although we could not independently verify that. Interestingly, in another such video of an angel amid clouds, we identified one person pointing at the sky who was also there in the viral video.
We also found a photo of a folded hand posture similar to the one used in the video available on a free photo editor called Pixiz. AFWA has also reached out to Ahmed, and the story will be updated as and when he responds.
Thus, it is clear that the viral video is neither from Joshimath nor one that shows any kind of natural phenomenon.
(Written by Sanjana Saxena)
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)