Amidst the mixed emotions and grief surrounding Malaysia Airlines plane crash, various unofficial news reports and “proof shots” of the crash site have been circulating around in a frenzy on the interwebs, both locally and internationally.
Some concerned netizens who were keen to find out about the news have failed to identify the authenticity of the news and unfortunately, spread fake photographs of the crash site via various social media platforms. The image above was one of the first pictures that was heavily circulated after the news about the plane crash broke out.
However..
Although the photograph of the crash site looks real, the particular “proof shot” was later confirmed to be a fake picture as some sharp netizens have identified the image to be a photoshopped screenshot from the hit TV series “Lost”.
While it’s not verified, a Dutch passenger Cor Pan “predicted” the plane crash after he posted a photograph of Malaysian Airlines MH17 on Facebook. Before the plane departed to Kuala Lumpur, the passenger jokingly captioned his picture, “If this plane disappears, this is what it looks like”.
And because of that, a fake Facebook page has been created. The page has posted a series of links to the plane crash, leading people to click on the link to “read more”.
Lo and behold, the link only redirected people to porn sites and viruses/malware.
On top of that, various conspiracy theories began surfacing on the Internet, one of which has found a way to relate the incident to the number “7”. The conspiracy theorists compiled all information that they could get their hands on (or so it seems) and concluded that the Illuminati might’ve been involved with the crash. They claim that because flight MH17 was a Boeing 777 that crashed on 17 July, hence the number 7 was the cause/curse of the crash.
However, there has been no confirmation that the plane has been flying for 17 years since 1997.
According to Washington Free Beacon, the show anchor Krystal Ball from MSNBC’s The Cycle has wrongly interviewed a “sergeant” Michael Boyd, who claimed that he has witnessed the plane crash, over the phone. The Cycle producers launched into an exclusive interview when the “sergeant” pretended to have seen the deadly MH17 accident.
It was later proved to be nothing but a prank call from the supposed “sergeant” when he ended the interview with, “Well, you’re a dumbass aren’t you”. Goes to show that during a crisis like this, all “trusted” sources or “witnesses” aren’t the best verifications to the news. Be careful with that you choose to believe and what you choose to say at a time like this, people.
Meanwhile, for more timely and verified updates regarding MH17, please visit Malaysia Airlines’ official website and follow their Twitter account. Families of passengers and crew may contact +603 7884 1234 (Malaysia) or +31703487770 (Netherlands).
