A video circulates on social media along with the claim that it shows an Australian astronaut jumping from a spacecraft to Earth within four minutes.
The caption of the video says: ‘An Australian astronaut jumped from an astronaut at an incredible height of 1,28,000 feet and reached the surface of the earth in just over 4 minutes and 5 seconds after covering 1,236 km . He could see the earth turning – watch the wonderful video from the BBC. Enjoy this exotic free fall and imagine yourself in its place. It’s beautiful … “
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the allegation misleading. The video shows Austrian parachutist Felix Baumgartner jumping out of the stratosphere. With this jump, Baumgartner makes the record for being the first parachutist to go faster than the speed of sound.
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here and here.
AFWA investigation
When we watched the 4 minute and 16 second video thoroughly, we saw ‘RED BULL STRATOS MISSION CONTROL, ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO’ written on the background of a control room that can be seen in several places in the video.
After 3 minutes and 35 seconds after the video, a man can also be heard saying, ‘Felix, we’re really proud of you. You are absolutely fantastic. ‘The video also has a BBC watermark.
If we take clues from this, we did a keyword search and found the same video in a BBC article published on October 14, 2012.
According to the article, the video shows Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumping 1,28,100 feet above New Mexico. He thus ‘became the first parachutist to go faster than the speed of sound and reach a maximum speed of 833.9 mph’, the report said. The report also says that the parachutist took ten minutes for his descent from the stratosphere.
We also found reports which confirms that Baumgartner did not jump from the official edge of the space 100 km away.
Baumgartner’s leap was sponsored by energy drink company Red Bull under its “Red Bull Stratos“Mission. Red Bull’s official YouTube channel has also uploaded a video of Baumgartner’s jump that can be seen here.
According to a report by “In October 2014The New York TimesAlan Eustace, then a senior vice president of Google at the time, broke Baumgartner’s high jump record by reaching 1,35,890 feet in 15 minutes.
Therefore, it is clear that the video in question shows a paratrooper from the stratosphere as part of the “Red Bull Stratos” mission and not an astronaut jumping from spaceship to earth.
ClaimThe video shows an Australian astronaut jumping from a spacecraft at an altitude of 1,28,000 feet and reaching the earth within four minutes.ClosureThis is Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian parachutist who jumps out of the stratosphere. It took him ten minutes to cover 1,28,100 feet and he did not jump from the official edge of the space that is 100 km further.
JHOOTH BOLE KAUVA KAATE
The number of crows determines the intensity of the lie.
- 1 Crow: Half true
- 2 crows: mostly lies
- 3 crows: absolutely false
