Does this video show ISRO Chief celebrating success of Chandrayaan-3? Fact Check

Posted by: Snigdha Nalini August 27, 2023

After the successful soft-landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the Moon, several videos have emerged on social media that show ISRO chief – S Somanath – and other scientists dancing and enjoying themselves at a party.

Many Twitter users shared the video on their profiles claiming that it is a recent video that shows ISRO scientists celebrating the success of Chandrayaan-3. The video has gone viral on the social media platform since August 23, the day India’s third lunar mission’s rover was successfully landed on moon.

It has also been shared here, here, and here.

Digiteye India received a WhatsApp request to fact check the viral video.

FACT CHECK

When the Digiteye India team checked some key frames from this viral video on Google Reverse Image search, we found multiple people had shared this video. When we checked Twitter further, we found this tweet by a user named Sidharth MP. The user, a journalist with WION News, had posted the video with the caption, “Dr S. Somanath & team #isro… Celebrate and dance your hearts out tonight. How many people in the world have the power and knowledge to make 1.4+bn hearts swell with pride and joy! #Chandrayaan3 #Chandrayaan3Landing #Chandrayaan3Mission #india #space #tech.”

However, in the following tweet, the user mentioned that the video is not recent. He tweeted, “Pls note: This is a video from earlier this year and I had formal access to this entire event and that’s how I had filmed it. This video is not from tonight!”

In order to check the veracity of this video further, we looked at other videos of ISRO scientists from August 23. In the live stream of the Chandrayaan-3 landing, S Somanath was wearing a different attire. We looked further for the ISRO chief’s speech after the successful landing and he was wearing the same sky-blue shirt with a black waistcoat.

[See Also: Split Moon image goes viral on WhatsApp; Fact Check]

Here is a video of S Somanath’s speech.

We checked Google for more videos of S Somanath and found a video of him from a month ago. This video corroborated the claims made by Sidharth MP. The video shows the ISRO chief addressing the audience at the G20 Space Economy Leaders Meeting in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

In the video, S Somanath is seen wearing the same clothes as in the viral video.

The lanyard around S Somanath’s neck is exactly the same one as seen in the viral video. hence a wrong video.

Claim: Multiple videos posted on August 23 claim that the ISRO chief danced and celebrated the Chandrayaan-3’s successful soft landing on the lunar surface.

Conclusion: The old video is from a G20 meeting that was held earlier this year in Bengaluru.

Rating: Misrepresentation – ???

[See Also: Split Moon image goes viral on WhatsApp; Fact Check]

About Snigdha Nalini

Snigdha Nalini started as an intern with Digiteye India from the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC), Pune and as contributor later. She can be reached at snigdha@digiteye.in.

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