Video shows Chile solar eclipse in 2019, not recent North America celestial event

Published on April 19, 2024 at 04:47
Updated on April 19, 2024 at 04:54
3 min read
By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka, AFP Mexico

A rare total solar eclipse swept across North America on April 8, 2024, but a video with hundreds of Facebook shares does not show the celestial phenomenon. The footage was in fact filmed in July 2019 on a beach in Chile, where revellers gathered to witness a solar eclipse that plunged swathes of southern Latin America into darkness.

"This is how it looked," reads a Sinhala-language Facebook post that shared the video on April 9, 2024.

The footage shows crowds cheering as the Moon's shadow plunges a beach into darkness.

It surfaced after a spectacular eclipse on April 8, which offered an unparalleled celestial show for tens of millions of people in North America, from Mexico's Pacific coast to Texas, Arkansas, Niagra Falls, New England and eastern Canada (archived link).

Screenshot of a Facebook post sharing the false claim, taken on April 19, 2024

Similar Facebook posts here and here racked up hundreds of shares.

Chile eclipse

However, a reverse image search of the video found a post on X, formerly Twitter, which said it was filmed in Chile (archived link).

A Google search for keywords "Chile", "beach" and "eclipse" in Spanish found a YouTube video which gave the precise location of the footage as La Serena -- a coastal city five hours' drive north of the Chilean capital Santiago (archived link).

The YouTube video was posted on July 4, 2019, two days after a total solar eclipse plunged a vaste swath of Latin America's southern cone into darkness.

The rare spectacle briefly turned day into night in much of Chile and Argentina (archived link).

A search on Facebook for "eclipse" and "La Serena" found an identical video to the one shared in social media posts falsely claiming it was filmed in North America in April 2024 (archived link).

AFP confirmed the video was filmed on El Faro beach in La Serena by comparing Google Maps images of the area to landmarks seen in a similar YouTube video of the eclipse (archived link).

The video shows a white structure, which is the Monumental Lighthouse of La Serena, a popular tourist attraction.

(Charlotte MASON)

Apartment blocks seen in the video also correspond to Google Street View images from the Avenida del Mar, a road overlooking the beach.

(Charlotte MASON)

AFP previously debunked Facebook posts that falsely shared the same video as the "Star of Bethlehem" planetary alignment.

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