{"id":612972,"date":"2021-08-05T14:20:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T18:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=612972"},"modified":"2021-08-05T14:20:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T18:20:54","slug":"fact-check-does-this-image-show-dozens-of-lightning-bolts-striking-at-the-same-time-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-does-this-image-show-dozens-of-lightning-bolts-striking-at-the-same-time-in-venezuela\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Does This Image Show Dozens Of Lightning Bolts Striking At The Same Time In Venezuela?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-does-this-image-show-dozens-of-lightning-bolts-striking-at-the-same-time-in-venezuela%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=612972&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>An image <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo\/?fbid=1265787050537970&amp;set=gm.837002580355910\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared on Facebook<\/a> purportedly shows dozens of lightning bolts striking at the same time above Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7253749\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7253749\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-7253749\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM-613x620-1.png\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM-613x620-1.png 613w, https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM-119x120.png 119w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM-768x777-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM-1536x1554-1.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM-2048x2072-1.png 2048w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-05-at-12.00.02-PM.png 1186w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 613px) 100vw, 613px\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-7253749\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Facebook\/Screenshot<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: False<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The image was created by stitching together dozens of photographs that were taken over the Greek island Ikaria.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The image shows what looks like dozens of lightning bolts striking a body of water at the same time. \u201cThis blistering sight occurs in Venezuela,\u201d reads the post\u2019s caption. \u201cWhen warm and cold fronts meet where the river empties into Lake Maracaibo, it forms just the right conditions for this phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The area where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is one of the stormiest regions in the world and can experience up to 28 lightning flashes a minute, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/earth\/story\/20150810-the-most-electric-place-on-earth\">BBC News<\/a>. The image was not, however, taken in Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact discovered the image was published in a 2012 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/31229-amazing-lightning-photo.html\">Live Science<\/a> article that explains it was created by photographer Chris Kotsiopoulos. Kotsiopoulos stitched together a 70-shot sequence of photos of a lightning storm he captured over the Greek island <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/10\/28\/magazine\/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html\">Ikaria<\/a> in June 2011 during a lunar eclipse. In other words, the image is 70 photographs carefully meshed into one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was very intense,\u201d Kotsiopoulos told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/31229-amazing-lightning-photo.html\">Live Science<\/a>. \u201cOne lightning every 10-20 seconds.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2020\/08\/29\/fact-check-lightning-pyramids-giza\/\">(RELATED: Image Claims To Show Lightning Over The Pyramids Of Giza)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The image can also be found on Kotsiopoulos\u2019 <a href=\"http:\/\/greeksky.gr\/lightning-photography\/\">website<\/a> with the title, \u201cIkaria island lightning.\u201d The photo\u2019s caption reads in part, \u201cThe severe thunderstorm took place the night of the total lunar eclipse at June 15, 2011. In order to make the sequence, I set the camera to a tripod taking 20 second shots continuously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Genuine images of lightning strikes over the Catatumbo River can be found on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/search\/catatumbo+lightning\">Shutterstock<\/a> and the stock photo website&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.alamy.com\/stock-photo\/catatumbo-lightning.html\">Alamy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows dozens of lightning bolts striking at the same time above Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}