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The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Tsunami Seen From a High-Rise
Snopes posted a photo (click to enlarge) that's going around accompanied by this text:Be sure and open the picture for a shock of your life to see what the tsunami looked like just before hitting Puket, Thailand. This picture is not a fake. It appears to have been taken from a hi-rise building window in downtown Phuket Thailand. The power of nature is hard to comprehend, especially the destructiveness of water.
Snopes says the status of the picture is undetermined, but I'd have a hard time believing it's real. First of all, is that actually downtown Phuket? I've never been there, so I couldn't say, but all the pictures of Thailand I've seen show it being a lot greener... a lot more vegetation. Second, almost every account of the tsunami I've read said that it didn't look like the classic hollywood image of a tidal wave towering above the land... which is exactly what this picture looks like. The wave in this picture is nearly as high as the tallest buildings, which would make it at least 100 feet high (or even higher). Of course, if this picture is real, it's pretty incredible.
Update: The cars are driving on the wrong side of the road for this to be a picture taken in Thailand.
Update 2 (1/19/05): This picture actually shows a harbor view of Antofagosta, Chile (as seen in the thumbnail to the right). The large wave has obviously been photoshopped in.