Claim: A viral video shows that the moon appears to be extremely close to the Earth, as it orbits around the Arctic Ocean covering the sun completely for 5 seconds while the entire orbit lasts 30 seconds in the observable sky.
Fact: This video is a CGI animation and is nowhere close to reality.
On 19 January 2023, a journalist shared a viral video of the moon on his Twitter account with a caption claiming that the video shows the moon’s orbit above the Arctic Ocean as seen from earth, in a region between Canada and Russia.
The video shows an abnormally large-sized moon, which completely blocks the sun for five seconds and the time it takes for the moon to enter the horizon and then exit it, is 30 seconds.
The account owner claims in the caption that this phenomenon is “One of the many wonders of nature..”. Many people replied to the tweet, either refuting his claim, or expressing their surprise and appreciation towards the apparent beauty of nature.
We found that the video had circulated the internet multiple times in 2022 and 2021 as well.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check decided to fact-check this video. We reverse-image searched different keyframes of this video through InVid and found that the video first appeared in May 2021, following the lunar eclipse of 26 May 2021. The following video has been viewed thousands of times, re-uploaded by countless users, and surfaced again on 19 January 2023.
A number of organisations such as Reuters, AFP, and Vishvas News have fact-checked the video before. As it turns out, a Ukrainian digital creator named Aleksey Patrev initially uploaded the video on Tiktok and later on Youtube, calling it “Supermoon”. Patrev’s Instagram bio mentions that he is a digital creator, specifically a computer graphics artist. Patrev previously spoke to AFP and Vishvas News regarding this particular video. He explained that he created the clip using tools such as Autodesk 3Ds Max, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, V-Ray, and Corona Renderer.
Therefore, this video does not depict a real phenomenon since it is a computer-generated animation made by a computer graphics artist.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 3-day period since 19 January 2023 to 21 January 2023 using the following search terms:
- “Moon” “orbit” “arctic”
- “چاند“ ”چکر“ ”آرکٹک”
We found posts on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Most of these posts were already flagged as “false” or “partly false” by other IFCN signatories testifying the virality of this claim.
Conclusion: Viral video of the moon’s orbit in the Arctic is fake.