The images of destruction in New York and New Jersey are stunning. Some are also photoshopped
Frankenstorm Sandy has passed over the New York City area on her slow, destructive path north, leaving behind a trail of wreckage and mayhem from North Carolina up to at least Connecticut. The biggest mess, though, is in New York City: The streets and subway tunnels are filled with water, power lines and power stations have erupted in flames, fires have taken out whole blocks in outer Queens — and New Yorkers with cameras, both professional and cellphone varieties, captured much of the damage. But among those stunning photos, telling the story of Sandy to people anxiously scanning their Twitter feeds, Instagram, and web browsers, a number of fakes also went viral. Some helpful journalists have laid out ways to sniff out the fakes from the real thing, and others have turned to debunking the frauds themselves. Here, a lightly curated gallery of some Sandy fakes:
1. Some of the photos making the rounds on Twitter are real, but have nothing to do with Sandy. This amazing view of a storm brewing over lower Manhattan, for example, is from an April 2011 tornado, captured on film by The Wall Street Journal:
SEE MORE: 5 ways Hurricane Sandy could impact the presidential race
2. Also in the not-fake-but-not-Sandy category is this picture purporting to be from a hurricane-ravaged McDonald's in Virginia. It's not. In a case of life imitating art, the photo is from a 2009 installation/film called, appropriately enough, Flooded McDonald's:
SEE MORE: INTERACTIVE MAP: Follow Hurricane Sandy's progress in real time
3. The bulk of the faux photos involve varying degree of skill with image-editing software like Photoshop. In this imaginative mash-up, a scuba diver explores the 14th Street-Union Square subway stop in Manhattan:
SEE MORE: The latest tweets on Hurricane Sandy
4. Sharks were well represented in the doctored flood photos from New York and New Jersey. This photo, from Kevin McCarty, of actually flooded Brigantine, N.J., fooled a lot of people on Twitter but mostly earned eye-rolls from his friends on Facebook:
SEE MORE: Hurricane Sandy: 4 ways the huge 'Frankenstorm' is hammering America
5. This frequently-retweeted photos is also from Brigantine. A Twitter user named Tom Phillips found the shark used in this Photoshop job in a Google image search:
SEE MORE: How to stay safe during Hurricane Sandy: 7 tips
6. The final shark photo, also purportedly from a street in New Jersey, not only isn't real, it isn't new. It first made the rounds after 2011's Hurricane Irene, when it (slightly more plausibly) pretended to be in the streets of Puerto Rico:
SEE MORE: Frankenstorm: What we know about Hurricane Sandy
7. This impressive-looking storm gathering behind the Statue of Liberty is actually from 2004, in Nebraska, captured on film by storm chaser and photographer Mike Hollingshead:
SEE MORE: Hurricane Sandy: Does it help President Obama politically?
8. In this photo, Lady Liberty looks like she's under attack from Sandy's massive storm surge, but really is being washed away by the Hollywood special effects team behind 2004's The Day After Tomorrow. In a minor bit of post-screengrab doctoring, the image "has had a New York TV logo superimposed on it to fool people," says The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal.
SEE MORE: WATCH LIVE: The Weather Channel's Hurricane Sandy coverage
9. Given how eager Twitter users have been to sic Sandy on her, Lady Liberty could be excused for trying to lay low, as in this not-even-trying-to-fool-you Photoshop job:
SEE MORE: Hurricane Sandy: Photos and first-hand accounts from across the Northeast
10. Like No. 9, this one didn't take any sophisticated sleuthing to debunk. The Atlantic's Madrigal scores it "fake (but awesome)":
SEE MORE: WATCH LIVE: WNBC covers the fallout of Superstorm Sandy
Sources: The Age, Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, Hoax-Slayer, Mashable, NBC Today, Tumblr, Wall Street Journal, WPIX 11
View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week
Other stories from this topic:
- Live Feed: WATCH LIVE: WNBC covers the fallout of Superstorm Sandy
- Fact Sheet: How to stay safe during Hurricane Sandy: 7 tips
- First Reactions: Hurricane Sandy: Photos and first-hand accounts from across the Northeast