Man Steals Picture from 1957, Says It's His, Gets Caught Immediately
A small tornado just struck the southwestern suburbs of Indianapolis, and one gentleman took the opportunity to steal a 57-year-old photo of a twister and claim he just took it. Everyone else who also has the Google machine caught him immediately.
He has since deleted the picture and all of his subsequent Tweets telling gullible news organizations that he did, indeed, take the photo. But as with pictures taken in 1957, screenshots live forever.
I'm embarrassed to use Twitter sometimes. https://t.co/AlvV0gkQzJ pic.twitter.com/3Os1DBBlf0
— Ian Livingston (@islivingston) June 24, 2014
The picture in question shows an F5 tornado in Fargo, North Dakota on June 20, 1957. The grainy black-and-white nature of the photo combined with the fact that the storm was not capable of producing such a large twister tipped off most people pretty quickly.
Photographic hoaxes are as old as photos themselves, and every weather event brings about its fair share of fakes. Unfortunately for the people who try to pass them off as real, the ability to bust someone's bull is growing just as rapidly as people's ability to create it.
[Screenshot via Twitter]