I get quite a few email forwards (who doesn’t?), but because of my background I usually get them with a question much like what my co-worker, Kyle, asked me yesterday: Is this Shopped?
What he sent was a combination of 2 forwards that have been making the email rounds for the past few years. Here are the photos and the text that accompanied them…
Text that goes with the first 2 photos:
This picture was taken by a KTBS helicopter flying over Lake Wiess about 90 miles north of Birmingham, Alabama! The helicopter pilot and the game warden were in communication via radio’s here is a transcript of their conversation. ‘Air1 have you a visual on the gator, over’
‘Approaching inlet now, over’
‘Roger Air1′
‘Gator sighted…. Looks like it has a small animal in its mouth.. moving in, over’
‘Roger Air1′
‘It’s a Deer!’
‘confirm Air1.. did you say Deer?, Over’
‘Roger… a Deer in its mouth… looks like a full sized buck… that’s a big gator, were gonna need more men, Over’
‘Roger Air1..can you give me a idea on size of animal, over’
‘Its big 25 feet at least, please advise Gator is heading to inlet… do I pursue?, over’That has to be a HUGE gator to have a whole deer in its mouth! The deer was later found to be a mature Stag and was measured at 11 feet! Are you ready to go skiing on Lake Wiess?! If you ski at the west end of the lake — try not to fall.
Text that goes with the last photo (on the right):
This alligator was found between Centre and Leesburg , Alabama near a house! Game wardens were forced to shoot the alligator – guess he wouldn’t cooperate…
Anita and Charlie Rogers could hear the bellowing in the night. Their neighbors had been telling them that they had seen a mammoth alligator in the waterway that runs behind their house, but they dismissed the stories as exaggerations.
‘I didn’t believe it,’ Charles Rogers said, but they realized the stories were, if anything, understated.
Alabama Parks and Wildlife game wardens had to shoot the beast. Joe Goff, 6′5′ tall, a game warden, walks past the 28-foot, 1-inch alligator 8.5 metres he shot and killed in their back yard.
So back to Kyle’s original question: Are these images Shopped? Well, the answer is: NO. They are all original images! However, the text that accompanies them is completely false and/or greatly exaggerated. How do I know? Well, when I get email forwards such as this the first thing I do is go to snopes.com. Snopes is a great resource for tracking down the truth behind all kinds of rumors and urban legends. Here is the information it revealed about the first 2 images and the information about the last image.
Although these images are not Shops, they are images being used as evidence to support total falsehoods, and I wanted to address the use of imagery in this manner and show you a resource to be able to debunk such email hoaxes. Just because you got an email forward today does not mean it hasn’t been around awhile and has already been “snoped”. So, be sure you bookmark Snopes and the next time you get an email forward search their site to see if you can find the real story behind it!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m totally hooked on snopes.com now.
It is a very addictive site! It is a real time waster – looking up old urban myths you have heard about over the years!