Star gazers across the globe got to witness the rare super blue blood moon on 31 January.
The celestial show, which was a result of the moon being near its closest orbit point to the earth, happens only once in 152 years.
While many of us were busy clicking pictures of this beautiful phenomenon, a photo was put up on Twitter titled “Photo of the Century”. It was a snap of the super blue blood moon with Delhi’s iconic India Gate in the foreground.
Just as people were admiring the click, it was learnt that the image had been photoshopped. Sheikh Junaid tweeted the picture which garnered 3,239 retweets. Ironically, his biodata reads, “#Pacifist | Working with #ANI Jammu and Kashmir India aninews.in.”
A String of Tweets Followed
Another journalist also put out the fake photo – and received 2,700 retweets.
Actress Bhairavi Goswami also took to Twitter to share the picture.
The Moment of Truth
The picture posted by photographer Shobhit Khatter said, “PS – These are two different pictures. The moon is super imposed. Both images clicked by me.”
Shobhit claims that he super imposed the photos, and both are different. Now, the question that arises is, why should his claim be taken as proof?
The best way to go about this is to rely on forensics. Error level analysis (ELA) of a photo shows inverted colours that make it easier to find the quality and resolution of the image.
The left one is the ELA of the image by Shobhit Khatter, who claims to have taken image. On being contacted on Friday, he was ready to give the original highest resolution images too.
The ELA shows smooth sky and less noise on the image.
The right ELA is of the viral image being shared on Twitter and Whatsapp. It is full of noises from sky to the India Gate, which clears the low quality of the image.
So this comparison of ELAs of both parties makes Shobhit a hands down winner and backs up his claim of being the true owner of the photo.
Other Similar Hoax Cases
A similar hoax occurred during Diwali last year, where somebody posted a photo of lanterns flying over the Golden Temple claiming they were released as part of a wish. It went viral and people thought it was real. Even celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan fell for the fake picture.
Fake Images Galore
There were fake images all over the internet. For example, one Twitter user tweeted this:
Twitter was flooded with the same image being re-tweeted across the page.
(The article has been published in an arrangement with SMHoaxSlayer.)
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