Teen confirms incredible shark selfie is fake
A Sydney surfer has admitted he tried to fool the world with his ‘obviously fake’ shark selfie.
17-year-old Alex Hayes posted the photo on his social media accounts on Thursday last week, showing him casually on his surfboard at Clontarf Beach as a shark swims up beside him.
Media outlets quickly picked up on the photo and started to debate whether it was real or fake.
Others fell for it completely.
"I thought it was obvious," Alex told Fairfax Media.
"It was just meant to be a massive joke. People started to take it a bit literally ... it just goes to show how things just go viral."
The teen has been surfing since he was a young boy, he said he liked and respected the ocean and the natural habitat of sharks.
"I'm always a fan of sharks. I'm in the ocean every day. I surf every day. I respect the ocean and the sea. There are sharks and there are creatures who are harmful, but they're not all like that," he told Fairfax reporters.
"It's their ocean and if you're going to get eaten you're going to get eaten."
Alex, who is completing year 12 at St Paul's Catholic College in Manly, said he was shocked to see the image shared by so many people, and that so many fell for it.
REAL OR FAKE?
Another viral sensation which was revealed totally fake was the disgusting and shocking video of a spider living inside a man's ear.
Creator Bruce Banit confessed on his blog that he used special effects to make the horrifying video.
A video that initially appears to show a great white shark in the waters just off Manly also went viral, but not all is as it appears.
Another video that had people wondering for a long time, was a sought-after photograph of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War battleship.
John Potter, from North Carolina, revealed to The Associated Press that he did the 30-year-old hoax as teenager.
Former Jackson Memorial High School star Anthony Rocco smashed this towering home run off the light pole, but we want to know do you think this is real or fake? We are not so sure it for real.
UFO VIDEOS
Some of the most talked about videos which are debated as being real or fake are UFO videos.
An airline passenger recently captured footage of strange UFO orbs over Atlanta, Georgia, USA, what do you think?
An apparent triangular UFO was caught on camera over York, England. What do you think it could possibly be? Something real, or was editing work involved?
A passenger aboard a commercial airliner recorded footage of an apparent unidentified flying object over Iran. Have you ever witnessed any strange sights from the window of an aircraft?
