Globally, more than 100 vaccines are being tested and developed in a bid to stop the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 11 lakh people worldwide and ravaged the global economy.
The devastation caused by the pandemic this year has also been surrounded by an onslaught of fake news and conspiracy theories. Amidst it, a one-minute 58-second video purportedly from 1956 is also viral on social media. It is being said that the video, made almost 65 years ago, was a warning against the novel Covid-19 pandemic that is plaguing the world right now.
The caption to one such video that combines multiple black and white frames reads, "This recording was made on 29/2/1956. i.e. 64 years ago. Listen especially to the last 40 seconds of recording for a great surprise or shock."
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the claim is misleading. The video was not made in 1956. It was made in 2020 as a satire in response to misinformation surrounding Covid-19.
The extract from the voiceover played throughout the video is as follows, "When you think about the future, you probably envision the remarkable technologies you've seen in comics and movies. You may be surprised to learn what the future really could bring..."
Further in the video one can hear, "Perhaps worst of all will be the emergence of a deadly and potentially devastating disease Experts predict that by the year 2020, a new virus will rise, spreading from somewhere in Asia to the rest of the world..."
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here, here, here and here.
AFWA probe
With the help of the InVid tool and reverse image search, we found the oldest version of the same video was uploaded on March 1, 2020, on a
named RamsesThePigeon. The title of the video reads- 1950s PSA: "Avoiding the Future Plague"The description of the video says the clippings in the video were gathered from various public domains and the digital library - Archive.org.
"It's hilarious to look back on what people from the 1950s thought the future would be like! Archival and public domain footage was acquired from Archive.org. Also, yes, I only threw this together because I wanted to have a video upload on February 29th," reads the description to the video.
A satire built around Covid-19 conspiracy theories
Further search led us to a Twitter handle with the same name - RamsesThePigeon.
On October 6, 2020, the handle had posted a Reddit link to an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the caption, "In response to my "Avoiding the Future Plague" piece going viral, I'm hosting an AMA on Reddit:"
The headline of the AMA reads as follows.
"I AmA writer, absurdist, and satirist who recently started a viral misinformation campaign by accident. You might know me as RamsesThePigeon. AMA!"
Hyperlinking the video in question, the person wrote that the video is a satire piece created shortly after Covid-19 started to spread. He also wrote that the video is to be recognized as a genuine threat and was "intended to lampoon the anti-science perspectives which were arising at the time."
The person further pointed out, in the following months of creating the video, that parts of the video were, "ripped, cut, and shared across a variety of social media sites."
"Worse still, many of those individuals insisted that they were presenting "proof" of the pandemic having been intentionally engineered," the person adds.
With the help of a website link provided in the Twitter bio of Ramses the Pigeon and Linkedin, we also found that the "Ramses the Pigeon" is the pseudonym of author and satirist Max Patrick Schlienger, who lives in the United States.
Also, in an email interview with AFP which has earlier fact-checked the viral video, Max has confirmed that the video was made by him in response to the conspiracy theories surrounding Covid-19. Max also said he wrote and recorded the voiceover himself and the clippings used in the video are from a collection of public domain educational videos, commercials, and horror films from the 1950s.
Hence it is clear that the viral video shared as a warning against Covid-19 from 1956 was actually created in 2020, intended to be a satire.
JHOOTH BOLE KAUVA KAATE
The number of crows determines the intensity of the lie.
- 1 Crow: Half True
- 2 Crows: Mostly lies
- 3 Crows: Absolutely false
