AFP fact-check demystifies ‘misleading’ articles on ‘alien crop circles’
Credit to Author: kadraneda| Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:15:12 +0000
MANILA, Philippines — Fact-checking of Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday exposed what it described as “misleading” articles that misrepresented a video and claimed about “mysterious alien crop circles” supposedly appearing in the Philippines.
“The claim is false and the video is part of a satellite television company’s marketing campaign for a History Channel convention,” AFP revealed.
According to AFP, multiple websites have published articles about a video “purportedly showing alien crop circles that have appeared in two locations in the Philippines.”
One article, the French news agency said, had this headline: “Mysterious crop circles appear in two different places in the Philippines, spook netizens.”
“Another similar article was published August 10, 2018, and said: It seems that the aliens have found their way to the Philippines, with a strangely shaped crop circle recently appearing in rice fields in Nasugbu in Batangas and another one in Nueva Ecija,” AFP added.
But according to AFP, a reverse image search disclosed that the video, which was used in the misleading articles, was from a post by Youtube Channel “Spookify Pinoy” last August 8.
The channel, AFP noted, uploads supernatural-themed content.
Below is a screen grab from Spookify Pinoy’s video of the purported crop circles:
AFP further said two days later, Spookify Pinoy posted another video showing the same supposed crop circles.
AFP noted the second video had the title of: “BREAKING NEWS: CROP CIRCLE in the PHILIPPINES DECIPHERED! IMPENDING ALIEN VISIT.”
“Based on the design that was seen, there were symbols of H-CON-18-08-10, the H-CON or the convention of the History Channel,” the AFP quoted the narrator who explained the meaning of symbols seen in the video.
“The video then shows that the crop circles are a stylized version of the logo for the 2018 History Channel convention (H-CON) in Manila,” the AFP said.
“In the latter part of the second video, the History Channel logo as well as the logo of cable television network Cignal TV, which broadcasts the History Channel in the Philippines, are displayed,” it added.
The French news agency said Cignal TV confirmed the video was part of a marketing campaign for the said convention.
Cignal TV said that it asked Spookify Pinoy to help them in the promotion of the event, the AFP noted.
AFP said the websites that carried the misleading articles, “did not mention the second video showing that the crop circles were part of a marketing stunt for the 2018 History Convention” when they began sharing the video and editorials on August 10 and December 11.
Citing CrowdTangle data, AFP said the two articles about the “supposed crop circles” in the Philippines were shared by Facebook groups and pages with over 10 million followers. /kga