EditedNatural DisasterShocking

The shocking viral video of a man falling in an open manhole is actually edited.

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A ‘shocking’ video is viral which shows a man walking in rain with an umbrella suddenly falls in an open manhole covered under water i.e. not visible.  Mostly people sharing it have added a warning for taking care while walking in rains.

Twitter

A Congress supporter posted this video as a satire –

 

YouTube

Truth

This viral video is digitally edited, the man didn’t fall in.

Although it’s not impossible and someone can fall in an open manhole but there are many proofs and clues inside the video to make one check it’s authenticity which we, at SMHoaxSlayer, did.

Let’s list them out here followed by details.

  1. This is not a CCTV footage, someone is taking this video.
    – Video is shot in Potrait mode,
    – Visual quality is quite clear as compared to CCTV recordings,
    – CCTV cameras are fitted at much higher than this level.
    No date, time, camera number is visible
    – After the incident, someone holding the camera moves to shoot from another angle.
  2.  Now if, as above, someone was taking the video, his/her reaction on the incident would be a scream or rushing to the spot and check for the man, shouting for him which obviously will either show a black screen or video not focused and shaking violently but as you can see, the cameraman is moving calmly after the incident.
  3. The size of water splash was pretty small given the weight of a human being falling in.
  4. We ran the video in 25% speed of the actual speed, i.e. very slow, almost frame by frame. and noticed following things –
    – Looking closely, it’s clear that the man threw the umbrella knowingly even before touching the surface of the water. This means he was acting this up.

 

– From the frame where he touches the water, till the frame his head also drowns, the entire body is in same status like a statue falling in, no reaction, trying to hold out or anything.

  1. Searching for the method of editing we found an exact similar video of a kid falling in ground made by Adobe After Effects.

    So, in the above video, the creater explains in detail how this was done (video embedded under).
    In short, the boy stood like a statue for 2-3 seconds (screenshot on left below) after jumping and then walked out of the frame. Then a stone was thrown in the muddy water (where the boy was jumping) to create a huge splash (screenshot on right below).

    You can see how the editor selected the image of the kid standing like a statue to make him drown.

    – The video editor clipped the image of the kid standing like a statue and moved it under after clipping the time between the kid stopping and the stone causing the splash.

    – You can see the editing detail (as explained above) in the below YouTube video

 


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SMHoaxSlayer is India's largest and oldest Fact Checker. Started in Aug 2015, it had debunked more than 2000 Fake News till now. Check more at smhoaxslayer.com/team