Fact-Check: Old CGI Video of Lightning Falsely Linked to Earthquake in Morocco

This video is old and created using CGI, it is unrelated to Morocco.

A video showing a massive lightning striking on the ground is going viral on social media to claim that this happened moments before Morocco witnessed a devastating earthquake on 8 September.

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What's the truth?: This video has been on the internet since 2020 which predates the recent earthquake.

• Moreover, this visual is not real and is created using Computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation.

How do we know that this is old?: On performing a reverse image search of some of the keyframes of the video, we came across a Facebook post from 14 March 2021.

• The video caption stated that this video is an artwork created by '@jayhideaway'.

• Taking a cue, we found a TikTok profile of '@jayhideaway' which carried the same viral video.

• This video was shared on 1 May 2020 and the caption read, "First a pandemic and now ALIENS?!?!?!"

• The profile also carried several other animated videos.

• The profile's bio carried a link to an OpenSea account, an online marketplace for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

• OpenSea's bio specified that this account carries CGI artwork, it read, "Original Apocalyptic Video Art".

• The account carried three videos for sale which included the viral video and it was titled 'The Visitors'.

• This was priced at 35 ETH (ether) and was uploaded on 19 November 2021.

• While performing a reverse image search, we found another post on X (formerly Twitter) carrying the same video.

• This was shared on 10 June 2020 by an account named 'ufoofinterest.org' which posts information about UFOs.

• The post stated that this video is fake and is created by Andy Fortenbacher.

• He is a writer, director, and producer, according to his website.

Many asked me about this viral video. Of course it's a fake. Who did it? There are several cropped versions w/o credit, I think it was created by TikTok user Andy Fortenbacher: https://t.co/XNWIpvYOwm
You can see other short VFX videos from his account:https://t.co/ndOiMkhGmJ pic.twitter.com/oLlK92mwtL

— ufoofinterest.org (@ufoofinterest) July 10, 2020

• Further, we checked Fortenbacher's social media pages but did not find the same viral video.

• We have reached out to him for confirmation and the story will be updated once we receive a response.

Conclusion: Clearly, this old and animated video of massive lightning is going viral to claim that this is happened just before the earthquake struck in Morocco.

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