When mainstream media falls for a beautiful photo of India from space claiming Real Diwali Pic !
Don’t we always want to see an aerial view of our country with lights every where ?
This obsession fooled us twice till now. Earlier (since years) a photo of India was viral in the name of Diwali night which was debunked here years back too.
Now we have another beautiful photo to believe in which again came out to be false, and this has a twist too (check the end, the climax of this.).
An astronaut, Paolo Nespoli currently at ISS, part of NASA’s Vita mission tweeted a photo on 19th Oct wishing Indian’s Happy Diwali
“Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, starts today. #HappyDiwali to everyone! #VITAmission” – Paolo Nespoli
Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, starts today. #HappyDiwali to everyone! #VITAmission pic.twitter.com/Uygnc8tTWx
— Paolo Nespoli (@astro_paolo) October 19, 2017
Now, you can’t deny the photo is breathtaking, so even mainstream media fell for this.
We finally have a real pic of India from space on Diwalihttps://t.co/SVua5rGU5g pic.twitter.com/6IXbcqJoeR
— NDTV (@ndtv) October 22, 2017
Truth:
Photo although true, but is not from Diwali Night
He posted the photo on his flickr account on 29th Sep 2017 i.e exact 20 days before Diwali, but just as a good gesture, he tweeted this on 19th Oct wishing us, Indians a Happy Diwali.
Being fresh, this didn’t show up in reverse image search.
You may ask how media can be so irresponsible ? For some I’m here to blame, or am I ?
Many asked me about this and my reply was “Looks real. Not on net. He is astronaut.”
Now Let’s dissect why would I say that. There are three parts.
1. Looks Real – Because yes, it does and have seen such photos in the past on NASA website
2. Not on Net – Did a comprehensive search on Internet using reverse image search and keywords but couldn’t find this
3. He is Astronaut – Yes he is, verified handle too so good reason to believe in.
This statement of mine which actually is not a confirmation, is taken up as proof by few media houses.
But NDTV, and few more took my statement as confirmation and based their news on it.
Now, I always claim to deal in Black & White i.e True or False, No gray areas but here I didn’t. I said “Looks” which means look like but not sure, you may call it my Hypocrisy thought but I leave it to you to advice me if I should use this gray area or not. Do give your views in comment
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