A video circulating on social media claims to show new leaked footage of the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger plane MH370. In this video, a flying plane can be seen surrounded by three smaller flying spherical objects before all of them vanish into thin air in a flash. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Leaked footage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Fact: This is a VFX video that contains a still image of clouds in the background. This video has existed on the internet since 2014. Generally, a video shot using satellites (this video is also being claimed to be shot using a satellite on the internet) should look dynamic as the camera mounted on a satellite would also be moving with it since a satellite is an object that revolves around the earth. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To learn more details about the viral video, we performed a keyword search on the internet, revealing that this video is pretty old and has existed on the internet since May 2014. The original video (archived) from 2014 titled “Satellite Video: Airliner and UFOs” was uploaded on a now-deleted YouTube channel named RegicideAnon, and the video’s description does not identify the plane as MH370.
After this video resurfaced recently as the footage of the missing MH370 plane, a Reddit user, who is a VFX artist, exposed that the cloud portion of the video is stock footage, a 2D still image (also here), providing evidence from textures.com.
Further investigation led to Jonas, a concept artist and illustrator, who claimed to have shot the cloud pictures that are used as a background in the viral video. His video on YouTube provides a detailed comparison, confirming the use of his stock footage (the still images available on textures.com) shot in 2012 in the fake video. He clearly explains that the video was made by compositing a plane fly through his photos, even saying that the hoax video was not really done in a convincing manner.
Corridor Crew, a group of VFX artists, explained that if the video were shot from a satellite, the camera would not remain still, debunking the satellite claim.
Janne Ahlberg of HoaxEye also stated (here and here) that a satellite video would capture the object from the top, not the angle seen in the viral clip.
To sum up, the viral video is a digitally created one. Analysis of stock footage, comparison with original sources, and expert opinions reveal that the video is a fabrication.
