An AI-generated video showing an intoxicated man petting a tiger in the middle of a road and remaining unharmed is being falsely shared as a CCTV footage of a true and bizarre incident from Madhya Pradesh's Pench area known for its tiger reserve.
BOOM tested the video using AI detection tools which confirmed that the video has been created using AI.
The Claim
The viral video claims to show one Raju Patel from Pench, Madhya Pradesh who under the influence of homemade liquor, petted a Bengal tiger mistaking it for a cat. The caption concocts a bizarre story which says that the mysterious Raju Patel tried to make the animal drink from his bottle of alcohol and ultimately walked away unharmed. A user on X claimed that the incident happened on October 4, 2025.
The captions further claimed that forest officials later arrived with spotlights and mild tranquilisers and guided the tiger back to the forest.
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What We Found
1. Police Denial: BOOM ran a related keyword search but did not find any credible news reports on the incident. For further verification, we reached out to Police control room in Seoni, MP, about the viral claim. The office of the Superintendent of Police, Seoni, denied knowledge about any such incident. A news outlet also reached out to Rajneesh Singh, the deputy director of Pench Tiger Reserve to confirm the claim. Singh said that the video is not related to Pench. An excerpt from the report states that Singh made it clear that such a situation cannot arise with a tiger unless it is domesticated.
2. Visual Discrepancies: We found a clearer version of the viral footage where on a closer look, there are indecipherable objects in the background which appear to move. Furthermore, the fingers on the tiger's head also look distorted and the neck of the bottle can be seen disappearing and reappearing as well.
3. AI Detection Tools Test: We then ran the video on different AI detection models using Deepfake-O-Meter developed by the Media Forensics Lab at the University at Buffalo. The AI detector models analysed the video based on several parameters and found significant probability of it being AI-generated.
For further confirmation, BOOM consulted with their partners at Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) who analysed the video on AI detection tools like Is It AI and AI Or Not. Both the tools concluded that there is 69% probability of the video being AI generated. The results can be seen below.