Old Video of Vultures Falsely Linked to Ayodhya’s Ram Temple Inauguration

The video has been on the internet since October 2021 and has no connection to the upcoming Ram temple inauguration.

The video of a committee of vultures is old and does not show a recent video of the birds gathering in Ayodhya.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A video showing a committee of vultures on a road has gone viral on the internet, where social media users are linking it to the upcoming inauguration of the Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya, slated for 22 January.

What is the claim?: Calling the vultures Jatayu, a mythical bird who fought Ravana in the epic Ramayana, users are claiming that the birds are flocking to Ayodhya before Lord Ram's arrival.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here and here.)

But...?: The video has been on the internet since October 2021 and is not a recent one.

How did we find out?: We divided the viral video into keyframes using InVID, a video verification extension on Google Chrome.

• On running a reverse image search on one of the frames, we came across a Facebook post dated 8 October 2021.

• It was shared by a Palestinian local news page named 'Dooz' on Facebook, with a caption asking people to identify the bird.

The post was shared on Facebook in October 2021.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

• We also found other instances of the video being shared in 2021 and 2022.

• The Quint was unable to independently verify the location where the viral video was shot.

Conclusion: The video has been on the internet since October 2021 and has no connection to the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.

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