- A post shared more than 1,600 times on Twitter tells how an airplane that disappeared in 1955 would have landed in 1992 in Caracas, Venezuela.
- A slightly more suspicious YouTuber has already posted a video on this story in 2019.
- It is in fact an article published several times between 1985 and 1999 by a US parody newspaper, Weekly World News .
It is the return of a supernatural story of theft lost between New York and Miami. On Twitter, a user posted a long thread, shared more than 1,600 times, telling "the mystery of flight 914, which landed 37 years later".
Illustrated by images of newspaper articles, the posts explain, in summary, that a plane which left New York on July 2, 1955, at 6 pm, would have disappeared from radars and would never have arrived at its destination. No trace of this plane or of the survivors was found and the families of the victims were allegedly compensated. Until thirty-seven years later, the plane landed at Caracas Airport, Venezuela, on September 9, 1992, before passing out again in the air.
Already, in June 2019, a YouTuber, fan of strange stories, told about this disappearance in a video seen almost 147,000 times. It takes more or less the same narrative elements. Its author explains that he can hardly believe it even "if there is evidence of crazy time travel". “Everyone believed, the American, Venezuelan newspapers. This story has been spread everywhere, ”he says, without specifying which newspapers are these. Several theories circulate to explain this mysterious reappearance like that of a journey through time, through another dimension or even linked to the Bermuda triangle.
FAKE OFF
This account is, of course, a forgery. It is in fact a hoax that was published by a US parody and satirical tabloid, Weekly World News . This weekly, created in 1979, is known in the United States for inventing stories from scratch. It ceased to be printed in 2007, but continues today to publish its articles on social networks and on its website, where it says "invent names in all these stories, except when it comes to figures public ”. His favorite themes relate to extraterrestrials, animal-human hybrids or improbable scientific discoveries, Reuters recalled in 2007.
The history of Flight 914 was published several times between 1985 and 1999 by the newspaper and includes some jokes that change the timing. It was invented and told for the first time in the May 7, 1985 issue. In this version, the surprise landing in Caracas took place on March 9, 1985. Five years later, in an issue published in 1990, the article is reshaped, the plane lands on September 9, 1990. The pattern is repeated in an issue of 1993, where the landing date is, this time, May 21, 1992. The story will be republished one last time in 1999 while remaining faithful to May 21, 1992. The date of September 9, 1992, included in the YouTube video or on Twitter, therefore seems to be a mix between these different publications.
For the curious, the newspaper is available free on Google Books. It is possible to easily find the numbers in question by typing "Flight 914". The details put forward by Internet users include elements from these articles such as the 1955 calendar released on the runway in Caracas or the testimony of Juan de la Corte, the imaginary controller of the Venezuelan airport. By the way, the photo illustrating Juan de la Corte changes between the publications of 1993 and 1999.
Whether on Twitter or in the YouTube video, the illustrations of articles in English are all extracted from the various publications of the Weekly World News , without worrying about consistency. Thus, the thread published on Twitter highlights the article with the landing in 1985, while the Internet user indicates in his story that the plane landed in 1992.
The other illustrations correspond to montages or old black and white photos unrelated to the articles in the periodical newspaper. Thus, a search on TinEye makes it possible to find a photo illustrating a Wikipedia article on the airline Iberia, and dating, according to legend, from 1946.
Another image, captioned in Russian, is taken from a video published on YouTube in May 2014. It appears to tell the story of Flight 914, as shown in the extracts from Weekly World News (7''35), and to resume the theory of an interdimensional journey.
In addition, if there are many planes which mysteriously disappeared, as recounts Ouest-France , none was lost on July 2, 1955.
20 Minutes is a partner of Facebook to fight against fake news. Thanks to this device, users of the social network can report information that they believe is false.
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