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Subscribe to RSSA golden eagle tries to snatch a baby in Montreal! (P.S.: The video is fake.)
Canadian whiz kids pulled the wool, or the feathers, over the eyes of millions of Internet users with a fake video showing a golden eagle trying to snatch a child in a Montreal park.
For a while, "Golden Eagle Snatches Kid" spiked on YouTube's viral-video meter, chalking up 5 million views in just one day. One reason why the video leaped up the charts was because it was widely distributed via sites such as The Guardian and Gawker with a minimum of fact-checking. It didn't take long, however, for Montreal police to note that there were no reports of avian kid-snatching attempts. Besides, birders said, golden eagles don't frequent that part of the world — and the bird in the video didn't look like a real golden eagle anyway.
"With all the ignorance about nature that's out there already," the last thing we need is this kind of stupid garbage," the Black Swamp Bird Observatory in Ohio said in a Facebook posting.
"Shame on you, Guardian!" wrote an ornithologist and evolutionary biologist whose nom de plume is Grrlscientist.
Others took note of the jerky frame rate and soft focus, which are typical red flags for video fakery. Some noted telltale anomalies in how the video showed the bird's shadow and one of its wings.
To their credit, the media outlets that linked to the video quickly linked to the skepticism as well. Grrlscientist, for example, lodged her objections on the Guardian website itself, where she is a regular commentator.
Within hours, the jig was up. Montreal's Centre NAD, a school that specializes in 3-D animation design, acknowledged that the video was made up in a production simulation workshop class by three of its students: Normand Archambault, Loic Mireault and Felix Marquis-Poulin. "Both the eagle and the kid were created in 3-D animation and integrated into the film afterwards," the school said in a statement.
Centre NAD's student projects are often aimed at creating hoaxes good enough to fool outsiders. Last year at this time, students put together a video that seemed to show a penguin escaping from a Montreal zoo.
The "Eagle Snatching Kid" episode is just the latest example of instant foolery facilitated by image processing. Such pranks can be harmless fun — but they can also create serious problems. For example, after last week's horrific school shootings in Connecticut, some hoaxes purported to show that the perpetrator gave advance warning of what he was planning to do. That has the potential to send investigators down a dead end, which is why police issued a warning about that kind of mischief.
The bottom line? Be skeptical about the videos or screenshots you see on the Web, on YouTube or in the Twitterverse. Here are a few pro tips that Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, emailed us while the video was being scrutinized:
"I've seen the video, and analyzed similar ones in the past. It is difficult to come to hard conclusions about it. The problem, of course, is that YouTube is full of hoaxed videos of everything from Bigfoot to UFOs. My first reaction was that it's most likely fake. A few red flags include the fact that the bird in the video is not a golden eagle (as claimed in the video) and is not found in Canada; and that the baby would likely be far too heavy for a bird to pick up. It is true that large birds of prey can and do swoop down and snatch things off the ground — but they are usually small animals like mice, fish, rabbits, squirrels and gophers. Furthermore, there are no known incidents in history where a bird has actually abducted a baby and carried it off. ... It turns out that it was indeed a hoax."
Update for 3:40 p.m. ET: The YouTube view count has shot up beyond 5 million, and I've updated the figure cited here accordingly. (When I first published this item, it was 2.7 million.)
More adventures in image processing:
- Plastic beads on Mars: The short life of a NASA spoof
- There's something fishy about 'woolly mammoth' video
- Siberian snow job: 'Dead alien' video is a hoax
- UFO video shot over South Korea: Fact or fake?
NBC News' Suzanne Choney contributed to this report.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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It doesn't help their hoax when they use a red-tailed hawk screech - not an eagle's call - in the audio!
Even before I saw the video, I assumed it would be fake based solely on the premise.
I can't believe that anyone was gullible enough to believe that the video was real to start with. Aside from the whole idea of an eagle carrying off a child being completely absurd, there were many red flags in the video. The hoax videos all have certain characteristics in common. For example, they are almost always showing events some considerable distance away and are always a little out of focus to make it impossible to make out any details. Add to that the fact that there is no way any eagle can pick up something that heavy and it was pretty obvious that this was a hoax.
Styro and JS in SD-
'Zactly. I live very close to a nesting pair of Bald Eagles and have seen them struggle to heave some very impressive fish out of the river near my house, but none that could be compared to the weight of a child like in the video. Plus, that whole red-tailed hawk screech. Just. Duh.
I think its funny how MSN writes an article about how other sights promoted the video, when I watched it on MSN yesterday!
not sure if first comment took;well,my dad said he lost me to eagle types yrs ago.'hotel california' just wasnt part of his screechin.lol. never heard of a real bird trying this,but,if hungry enough and 'just right' facted in,never know 100%.ck out dingo story from what,79 reversed around.
The video is stupid. But don't don't think it couldn't happen. More from a hawk then an eagle. But i've seen a hawk try. Never an eagle.
I don't have sound, but I know a hawks call in a second. If you have chickens just make that call and watch them scater.
Faux News aired the video this morning. That's when I knew it was fake.
Of course someone had to get all political with it^^^
You can tell what a red-tailed hawk sounds like? That Duck Dynasty show must be a God-send to you..lol.
I've heard a red-tailed hawk - it spoke English and wanted to eat Tweety Bird, or Alvin the chipmunk, or Speedy Gonzalez, or......
LMAO that is like the pot calling the kettle black. That is about 70% of NBCNEWS.COMs articles.
Initially I thought the whole thing was fake but then I thought (tongue in cheek) that anything is possible, thus perhaps the real story would be that the eagle was doing a pick up.... you know claiming its chickybaby from the surrogate.... Well this is the 21st century, even eagles are getting in on the surrogacy thing. With all the pollution plus with its biological clock having stopped ticking plus with all the other reproductive problems and environmental threats, it had to go the surrogacy route.
Then felt that as this was fiction that one should run with it and flesh it out...... with the old govt had to be involved bit....
Thus..... an unproven, non fact checkable rumor (LOL) came to light that the eagle and its handlers were probably a part of a very secret govt project that is training eagles in a program called green guarding/silent hover where an eagle is deployed to green watch because unlike a drone or other mechanical equipment .... the eagle can blend in to its environment, is quiet, can forage for food on the hop, even as it hovers and watches, and if caught have no secret technology that the other side may want to get their hands on.
It seems that in this case this eagle went rogue and attempted to do a snatch/grab of the 'package' instead of simply hovering, watching/guarding and reporting back to the 'nest'. A bushytailed source close to the programs - who did not want to be identified but was known as the Fox and who was one of the guardagents- as he was not authorized to be aware or share er.. info....and who was not only noted to be covered in chicken feathers but was picking his teeth with a chicken bone outside of a farmers henhouses, stated that the eagle, a very sharp and talonted agent, known simply as Iron Beak, has been desked for the duration pending an investigation.
As sanity and reason left the building ....on must push on....
So it appears that there was also another unconfirmable rumor not based in any fact that drones - no longer feeling they were the techies viagra, and worried un-necessarily and for no reason that they would be decomissioned if the selfsufficientsnoopguardeagle or Greeneyenergysaveronthewing program was successful- were seen in the area just before the unsanctioned attempted snatch/grab supposedly took place......
The plot thickens... so one is forced to push on in the madness.....
Questions..... was this a surrogacy gone awry.... was this a custody case gone awry......was this the action of a sole hawkish eagle gone awry or was this indeed a secret govt program gone awry.....
Enquiring minds do not want to know.... but what the hey... with being able to post this array of questionable questions of who or what went awry and just being able to use that word... awry... Hoax or not... surely had fun filling in a back story....LOL
Peace..... live, laugh, imagine....
Fake or not...no reason to involve a child in the fake after what happened last Friday in Newton.
James,
The author of the video are not americans, and most probably the video was already on the way when that happen, But hey, it`s easier to blame video showing babies than to blame the lack of mental care or gun violence.
Pathetic really.
I'm waiting for the video of Abraham Lincoln reading the "emancipation retraction".
D'oh!!
how about a video of abe telling us how we can't believe everything we see on the internet?
"emancipation retraction"????
Gawd, I hope you haven't been sitting on that one, waiting for the right moment to use it. BTW; nice Pilot glasses, you got the Fruit boots to go with them? I could only stand my 1971 fruit boots for about 2 months before they got the heave-ho. Levi's, JC Penny's white tee-shirts, and Chuck Taylor Converse - all day, every day...lol.
I hate hoaxes! I wish these so-called whiz kids would put their talents to better use than trying to scam people into believing in something that didn't really happen. If they want to label it fake up front that's ok. Let's see their brilliance at work but I think it is really shameful to post something that is not real just to try and make people think it is really happening. What so they can sit back and giggle about how they pulled the wool over peoples eyes? There's too much phoniness in the world already. Sorry for the rant but hoaxes and pranks (like the Australian dj's) just irk me!
u know what if peeps didn't believe every freaking thing they see on TV/Movies/internet no one would bother making this fake crap to fool u with...
The whole purpose of this kind of thing is to make something so realistic it fools people. The more people fooled, the higher the standard. It kinda defeats the frickin purpose to label the darn thing.
There WERE those of us around that told everyone it was fake, but we were shouted down in many places, with would-be "experts" coming out of the woodwork with "facts" that pointed to its credibility.
Some people just WANT to believe crazy stuff. :)
I agree with queenie- it's annoying when I see people falling for this stuff without question. I didn't even bother watching the video when I saw people posting it on facebook because I knew it was probably a fake.
I've seen some really convincing UFO videos on YouTube, and I have to believe that at least some of them are real. (I've heard first-hand accounts of UFO sightings from people that I know and trust.) But the vast majority of anything fantastic that you see online is fake.
As long as there are stupid people in the world, the smart ones will make sport out of fooling them, I suppose. It's still not very nice.
Styro: Just because you know and trust them doesn't mean they're not messing with you (or the public). Always demand *verifiable* evidence. As long as you believe UFO's don't "equal" aliens, well and good. It's usually proven to be a hoax or a weather phenomena anyhow.
BeekGirl: I myself watched a bright orange light rise up from the horizon (nothing like an accelerating rocket) and, after reaching a height I would figure to be outer space, turn to the south and wink out. A number of my friends and neighbors were there, and they saw the same. You can say it was a weather phenomenon or some such thing, but regardless, had I posted a video of it on YouTube, it would have been real. Still, no one would have believed it thanks to all the fakes.
Then again, you have no way to know I'm even telling the truth.
Styro, from your description that what you saw was an aircraft. It's difficult for human visual perception to analyze things in the air, and take into account atmospheric filtering (orange light) and perspective. If the aircraft were climbing and in the direction away from you, it would appear to be rising slowly.
Otherwise, regarding extra-terrestrials, most people have no concept of the DISTANCE between stars and stars with planets. Our nearest star, the closest one, our next-door neighbor, is Proxima Centauri and it is roughly 24,928,000,000,000 miles away, or about 4.24 light years. Think how much further you'd have to travel to get to the next star, and so on.
inMYday,
Believe, me I understand your skepticism. It's one those "you had to be there" moments. I've lived near airports and I've lived far from them, and I've seen all sort of planes in all manners of travel direction and lighting configurations. (I even saw a rare one once that had backwards wings...I had to Google that one to find out what type it was.)
This one went straight up and didn't turn and wink out until it had passed directly overhead at enormous height. It was extremely out of the ordinary. It even sparkled like a flare. A terrestrial rocket is the most logical explanation, but I can't even accept that one because there are no launch facilities near where I saw it in the countryside, and there was no noise. Also, it didn't accelerate, unless my perspective on it matched it's increasing distance. That much I can accept, but even that would serve to make it more implausible, not less. Plus, it was really, really bright. Again, it was a "you had to be there" moment. You wouldn't be questioning whether it was a plane if you had seen it yourself. It was the kind of sighting that grabbed your attention pretty quickly.
There was a comment by one of the debunkers that"Golden Eagles are not found in Canada...well maybe not that part of Canada. Anyone who has spent a few days in Prince Rupert BC, would be happy to debate that "fact". As for Golden eagles not being strong enough to pick up a small child...watch them heave large salmon from Prince Rupert Harbour. A mature Golden eagle can have a wingspan of over 11 feet....plenty of lift there to heave at least 20 lbs into the sky. Not too dispute that this is a "hoax", but the nay saying fact checkers might want to check their own facts.
LOLs web snatches truth! everybody share on your page for 1 hour ROFL
It can't be fake. Kathie Lee and Hoda said so between sips pof wine during their morning MSNBC Alcoholics Anonymous meeting this morning.
Those kids got some NADs!
better for these kids to make fake videos than for them to go shoot up a school full of small children. At least they are learning some computer skills; maybe someday one of them will get a job at Pixar.
Wow, you had to go there.
Sigh.. for a brief moment, the world was so much more exciting with baby-snatching eagle...
Thanks a lot, de-bunkers! :-(
Doug, search the words goat and eagle on youtube. I don't think you will be disappointed.
This is a fake and a hoax. This could never happen, an Eagle can not lift this much weight even if he wanted too
Thank you for repeating exactly what they said in the article...
actually a golden eagle can lift up to 15 lbs
Booyah, unless that kids was a 4 or 5 month old infant, which it clearly was not, I guarantee you he/she weighs more than 15 lbs. The kid looked to be at last a year old, which would put his/her weight well into the 20's or more.
Janranm,
National Geographic wants to interview you. You are very astute!
There's an opening in their call center to sell subscriptions...
Ok, unsurprisingly it's fake. But what I want to know is, could this actually happen? I mean, could an eagle theoretically snatch up a small child?
It can. But eagles rarely want to incounter humans. Not to say they wouldn't. But not likely. But if you have a small child in the yard, you better watch for hawks. I've had them take 10 pound chickens right in front of me.
I think this article is a hoax. And while I'm at it, I think the internet must be too. I'm pretty sure it's simply one of those interactive DVDs that gets slipped into my computer every morning just to keep me from playing Minesweeper. A bit of a digression, but can someone tell me how to win 'Facebook'? I can't seem to figure out how this damn game is scored.
RM Fields, NO, this could never happen! This video is a fake!
A Eagle can only lift at the most 4 to 5 lbs.
not true - search golden eagle and read about it
Your wrong on that one. I've seen eagles take little piglets. They were more then 10 pounds.
Ever been to the National Aviary in Pittsburgh? One of only (I think) 2 or 3 places in the US that house Stellar's Sea Eagles. So help me, these things can probably pick up a school bus. They are magnificent, beautiful, HUGE HUGE HUGE eagles.
They have Bald eagles next door, and they look like sparrows!
The eagle stayed away because it knew there were people there who had permits to carry concealed eagles, and we all know that the only way to prevent an eagle attack is to have more eagles in the hands of law-abiding eagle owners.
If eagles are criminalized, only criminals will have eagles.
Yes it's a fake, but this kind of thing has happened before... In Homestead, PA in 1927, and in Bridgeport, CT in 1912, both as reported by the New York Times.
A full-grown eagle can lift an 60-80 lb. prey so it is absolutely possible it could lift up a small child even if this video is reportedly a hoax.
Marta, a full grown eagle of any species can only lift about 3/4 of its own body weight. Your statement would necessarily mean an eagle must weigh close to 100 pounds, but there is no bird on this planet that can fly that weighs that much. However, if you know of such a bird, I'd be happy to come see it and verify its weight. Otherwise, you may want to ask what the people in Dallas are putting in your drinking water.
No way. Heck, I'm 6'1" and 190 lbs and I can hardly lift an 80 lb. bag of concrete...but then again, I'm old.
Hey, didn't that Hiawatha guy get carried off by an eagle ? He was a full-grown injun.....
Yes it's a fake, but this kind of thing has happened before... In Homestead, PA in 1927, and in Bridgeport, CT in 1912, both as reported by the New York Times.
I cannot belive you people, you'll believe ANYTHING said in the Internet.
Hoax or not, the Golden Eagle DOES have the strength to pick up a 25 lb baby (and then some), a Golden Eagle IS local to Canada (maybe not Montreal, if this IS Montreal), just because something wasn't reported to the police, doesn't make it a hoax. Sure it may have been newsworthy, but would it HAVE to be reported to the police?
The shadows of the bird DO look consistent with the teh other shadows (i.e., in relationship to the light source).
I'm not gullible (excuse the pun) and don't necessarily believe the video, but need more proof than what I've seen and heard so far to say that it's a hoax!
gee, even including the people that made the video saying that they made it up?
It was make by 4 students in the NAD school as part of a 3D animation and numerical design course.
Will you believe them if they said it was fake, cause they did say it.
I cannot believe you people, you'll believe ANYTHING said in the Internet.
Hoax or not, the Golden Eagle DOES have the strength to pick up a 25 lb baby (and then some), a Golden Eagle IS local to Canada (maybe not Montreal, if this IS Montreal), just because something wasn't reported to the police, doesn't make it a hoax. Sure it may have been newsworthy, but would it HAVE to be reported to the police?
The shadows of the bird DO look consistent with the other shadows (i.e., in relationship to the light source).
I'm not gullible (pun intended) and don’t necessarily believe the video, but I’m not going to write it off as a hoax with more proof.
Eagles feed mainly on fish, but water fowl, small mammals and carrion supplement their diet, especially when fish are in short supply. Eagles can fly up to 30 m.p.h. and can dive at speeds up to 100 m.p.h. Their keen eyesight allows them to spot fish at distances up to 1 mile. Eagles swoop down to seize a fish in their talons and carry it off, but can only lift about five pounds. Under certain circumstances, eagles have been known to drown trying to lift a fish that weighed too much.
Starbuck -
Golden Eagles can lift much more than that - google it
Don't you just love human ego! I love watching and reading it. All of the sudden there are the "those of us" now, there are the, "..the people that believed that are morons" and "clearly it was the screech of a red-tail himinyhomo". Fake or not, it is yet another opportunity for you to prove how smart you are, huh! You sure are smart! Nothing could have fooled you because your brain works well in detecting all things fake in foul, huh?
You grew up and were told you were the measure of all things and you've got a brain that won't tolerate data proving anything but.
I'm 41 and a half now and in those 41 and 1/2 years I've determined that really? Deep down..? We're all still in elementary school, still trying to hear a fellow fleshbag say, "Boy, you sure are smart". Well, let this serve the purpose from one fellow fleshbag to another -- WELL DONE, you clever twat, WELL DONE! You spotted the hoax where no one else has! You're still just as remarkable now as you were when you first shat in the loo! [pat, pat, pat].
Rest assured, Moon, that no one here will be telling you how smart you are.
They can't put anything on the internet that isn't true. Bonjour!
Yes, just today we were discussing how a gun can't be fired in outer space, unless it's under water. I've never learnt so much as you can on the internet!
Doug, lmao. I hadn't heard that one.
So <scratching scalp> where are these alien swimming pools or lakes in outer space, and why don't they freeze instantly from the rapid loss of heat (if not boil instantly from the low ambient pressure against the water vapor pressure of liquid water) and sublimate slowly to the gas state of matter until they are gone? duh. (attempt at humor)
inMYday, you're absolutely right about that of course, which is why there have never been any shooting incidents among the astronauts. It's just too hard to find enough water.
Anything can now be faked on video. Have you been to the movies lately?
I used to hunt predators with a call. So did a couple buddies of mine. This entails having a camo outfit, a good hiding place and some skill with the call. One of the buddies was sitting on a log, calling a coyote who at that point was visible. He heard a whooshing noise, and a split second later he was sprawled flat on his face in the snow! A red-tailed hawk had apparently seen something slightly moving on his hat, or glove, and had made a hard pass at it. He was not injured, the hawk flew away. Red tails are not the honor students of the hawk world: When I raised wild turkeys, they would occasionally try for a turkey, even though the turkeys weighed more than the hawks, and would fight furiously if they got the hawk on the ground. Wild turkeys are vicious (the males) and extremely hard to surprise.
Next week these clowns will post a video of Lochness swollowing a boat, i'm sure! Step aside Moby Dick!!!
Personally, I want to know who dropped the kid.
Starbucks49, Golden Eagles actually eat more mice, rabbits, and other small animals more then they do fish. It is the Bald Eagle that eats a lot of fish. Golden eagles prefer to live in mountainous area's instead of by lakes and rivers.
Good practical joke.