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NASA forward you received on WhatsApp groups after Janta Curfew is (obviously) fake

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Indians will continue to be Indians.

As the nation observed the ‘Janta curfew’ called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, March 22, they also took part in a nation-wide event to mark the curfew.

At 5 PM, Indians queued on their balconies and doorsteps, and clapped, banged on pots, pans and plates. They created the “sound” to thank the healthcare and essential service workers on the front line of the fight against #Coronavirus.

They took PM Modi’s ‘taali bajao, thaali bajao’ advice and acted on it.

After the exercise, they went back inside their homes, and managed to convince, send and receive a fake message on WhatsApp about the event.

During Diwali every year, the same message of “NASA sharing visuals of India from space” starts circulating with an image. Every single year, without fail. That’s definitely fake.

The new message, also on similar lines, stating how ‘NASA satellite videos LIVE telecast have shown that the coronavirus is retreating in India thanks to the people’s efforts at 5 PM on 22nd March.”

If this wasn’t unscientific enough, the message continues with “The cosmic level sound waves generated have been detected by NASA’s SD13 wave detector and a recently made bio-satellite has shown COVID-19 strain diminishing and weakening.”

Soon, people started sharing this forwarded message on Twitter.

It’s 2020, and we really shouldn’t have to be ‘fact-checking’ this for you, since the chances of receiving a genuine WhatsApp forward in a Desi family group is very, very low. But, here it is, anyway.

The forwarded message is (obviously) fake.

For starters, NASA can’t record sounds from the earth in isolation. There is no possible way, scientifically, or otherwise, to do that. Sounds recorded of the earth can be recorded, then isolated from the background noise, which in this case, the clapping and the banging was the background noise. So no, NASA did not record any sounds of India’s clamour. Here’s how NASA does record its sounds, though.

Secondly, there is no such this as an “SD-13 Wave Detector”, that is owned by NASA. Here’s a list of a general idea of the equipment NASA owns on the electro-magentic spectrum, and this ‘wave detector’ is definitely not on it.

So the viral message, is fake, through and through.

But this wasn’t the only bit of fake news. There were a lot more, unscientific claims.

Some people also played on the ‘NASA Diwali message’ and produced a gem of a meme, we really wanted to applaud.

Indians becoming self-aware about the fake WhatsApp forwards is something that surely deserves claps. Slow claps.

News18

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