I am having a good time. A picture of a whale whacking a sailing boat in South Africa is in the news, now with a video of the dude from the boat. The picture is CLEARLY fake, but the news has been increasing for days. I don’t know if the incident has happened or not – but the PHOTO of it is fake, in my opinion. When I first read the article in the Swedish news, I was sure that it would not take more than an hour before they would change the article and state that it was fake. However, people seem to belive it. This is very dangerous, because next time the picture might carry some other meaning or message, and have a purpose. To sum it up – here´s a picture from BPs work with the oil spill (from a forum). Please note everyone – the picture IS fake.

BP Whaling

Update: Today, Swedish media is showing a MOVIE of the same “incident”. This will convince many new people that it is real, since many do not know that movies can easily be faked too. Please have a look and comment what you think.

Why is the picture fake? LINK TO PICS.

1) The skipper does not look at the whale. By looking at the whales shadow in the boat, the whale is in FRONT of the skipper, so it should be in the line of sight. No reaction.

2) The whales shadow in the boat hull does not seem to match the position of the whale in relation to the boat (in terms of distance from the photographer). The whale looks closer to the photographer than would be indicated by its shadow on the hull.

3) The whale shadow area of the hull is partly covered by a white area, like a could. Why would water look like this only on this part of the hull, and not on the other parts of the shadow on the hull?

4) The small amount of water, where the whale is breaking looks strange. A body that large would create much more water in the air. Now it looks like the whale (part of the picture) is from a photo where the whale is already higher up in the air, since you can see the water falling from the its body.

5) The whale looks enlarged compared to the boat. I have no problem with its size, but that part of the picture looks like it has been enlarged quite a lot due to the smoothed out feeling.

6) The background on the before and after picture has changed. This is possible, but a bit strange. Why would the photographer NOT take more pictures from the same angle, given the interesting event.

7) Why is the “after picture” much more enlarged if it is the same camera? (Pictures are credited to the same person as I understand it). On the “before picture”, the boat is totally clear – on the after picture, you can hardly see it, even if it is now presumably not moving anymore.

The photographer is an IT guy. The Skipper is a yoga guy.  ;)

9) There are other videos of whales breaking on canoes and other stuff. These were fake.

10) In the video of the incident – link above. How credible is it that people just laugh and drive away from a boat in that kind of distress?

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