News

With the rise of fake news being one of the big news stories of the moment, National Geographic has decided it needed to set the record straight regarding one “amazing” photo that’s been creating quite a stir on social media.

The image in question, of a dramatically breaching great white, was taken by “chief” National Geographic photographer Bob Burton, and was awarded the society’s photo of the year. The only trouble is there’s no such award and no such photographer.

And that great white shark picture? It turns out that it’s a Photoshop job—quite a convincing one to the untrained eye, but still unquestionably fake. A Snopes investigation reveals that the image is actually one of several digitally manipulated images by a Russian 3D graphic artist called “Alexyz3d,” which can be found on his Shutterstock profile.

It’s another reminder that we all need to be wary of the shocking fake news out there. And no, Donald Trump really did win the U.S. Presidential Election. (Sorry.)