Suspicious images that emerged last month showing what some believed to be a legendary giant snake in Borneo have been proven to be fakes.
The Daily Mail reported that the image above had sparked local villagers’ fears that the mythical Nabau, a 100-foot-long serpent, had returned. But online investigators tracked down the real photo, identical to the image that created a frenzy but without the serpent figure.
Scientific American talked to a Kansas librarian who was one of many to reveal the hoax. Nathan Chadwick explained that by using the reverse search engine TinEye, which crawls the Web for pixels that match an uploaded image, he was able to locate the original photo. According to many Web sites, the original image shows the Congo River in Africa, not the Baleh River in Borneo.
A second photo that the Daily Mail included in its story was actually found to be an image that was entered in a 2002 hoax contest.
When AOL posted an earlier story about the photos and questions over their authenticity, 55 percent of those answering a poll said they believed the images did in fact show a 100-foot-long snake.
It would appear the Borneo monster is just a myth.
news.aol.com/article/borneo-snake-hoax/382584
