Case File Status: Hoax
Background
by John Greenewald, Jr. – The Black Vault – TBV Investigations
This photograph appears on the Facebook / Edge of Wonder Page, as posted on February 14, 2018. Although there may be an earlier post “source” — this post alone has nearly 15,000 shares and more than 1,500 likes at the time of this writing, it constitutes as “viral” and deserves a mention here.
Reason being, the photograph is a fairly provable fake. But, don’t let that stop the masses from “sharing” it with the world. Why? Well, it has to be real despite evidence to the contrary. Why? Well, the post says it’s real. So, if you read it on the internet, it HAS to be true!
Here is the text of the original post:
It happened in Russia.
They said this is not fake, what do you think？
cr. web
The Evidence
The Analysis
Doing a slight crop on the image, then conducting a reverse image search, multiple matches to an identical “apparition” are discovered.
First discovered, believed to be the source, is a graphite sketch appearing on moziru, and on a large list of artistic work using “Graphite” as the medium.
Second, is information about a music album in Spanish, entitled “Accidents – El Fantasma en mi” which has the following cover art:
Although there are slight variations between the two examples found on Google, the image in question above, of an apparition in Russia, is clearly an exact copy of the first example. Here is an overlay showing the image in question, vs. the first graphite drawing.
Both layers are on top of each other, which different color balances to differentiate between the two.
The hoaxer did skew the original artwork (they changed the aspect ratio) but it took only seconds to do the same thing in Photoshop, and see that the finger placement, body, etc. are a perfect/identical match.
Conclusion
With the evidence given above, this case is comfortably labeled a hoax.
Follow The Black Vault on Social Media:This post was published on February 21, 2018