In recent weeks, the media has reported on number of hoaxes. First, Balloon Boy; then, a fake Chamber of Commerce press conference; and now, the Latvian Meteorite.
A phony meteorite impact near the northern town of Mazsalaca, perpetrated by a local telephone company, was briefly picked up by the press on October 26 and almost as quickly debunked. Phil Plait, the astronomer behind the blog BadAstronomy, gave rundown of the fake impact story.
Plait writes that he was preparing a post questioning the meteorite story when geologists confirmed that the purported impact crater was in fact man-made. “I had a blog post all ready to go saying this whole thing sounded extremely fishy to me, and before I could post it I found out this story has been confirmed as a fake,” he says.
Though few media outlets were taken in completely by the hoax, some reported the story a little too credulously. Plait cites CNN, for writing early Monday morning “a meteorite-like object falls in Latvia.” (This post has been subsequently replaced with one debunking the meteorite theory, but the original report survives in cached version of the page.)
The Associated Press also published brief report saying “the rock-like object was seen Sunday evening. It punched a hole 15 meters (50 feet) wide and 5 meters (16 feet) deep in a meadow next to a farm in northern Latvia.” Later, geologists examining the crater found spade marks and determined that a meteorite had not, in fact, created the hole.
Overall, Plait’s analysis suggests that this wasn’t really much of a hoax, and probably should have been easy to spot. Video footage of the meteorite was suspect, as were photographs of the crater, he says.
“I could see immediately I was right; the crater simply doesn’t look real. It looks more like what someone thinks a crater should look like than what one actually does look like,” he writes.
“And if I didn’t buy the crater, I really super duper didn’t buy the flaming rock sitting in the center. Meteorites tend not to be hot on impact!… So I was almost completely positive the video was a fake right after seeing it, and I’m glad to see my instincts were correct.”
By the evening of Oct. 26, reports that the crater was a fake had already been widely published. If CNN had just waited few hours they might have saved themselves that first over-credulous post. As media critics like Craig Silverman–writing for the Columbia Journalism Review—have argued, these hoaxes highlight that even a small amount of hold-time can often prevent inaccurate reporting.
Read Plait’s meteorite debunking in full here.