A video clip of an infant with three eyes, the third on his forehead is fake and a digital manipulation. The video is viral in India with posts claiming that the baby was born in Germany.
In the 11 seconds long clip, we can hear a man speaking to the baby and then a woman's hand can be seen patting the baby on the cheek. The video is being shared with a caption saying "A child born in Germany with three eyes" and a caption in Telugu. Click here to view, and here for an archive.
BOOM also received the viral video on its WhatsApp helpline number (7700906111) inquiring about it.
Viral on Facebook
We searched on Facebook and found that the clip was widely shared by accounts
The same video is viral with a caption in Telugu which when translated reads, "Strange baby: Strange baby born abroad as told by Potuluri Veera Brahmendraswamy." The caption links it to a ninth-century sage from Andhra Pradesh, Potuluri Veera Brahmendra Swamy and his book 'Kalagnanam' which made several predictions about the future.
(In Telugu - వింతశిశువు : పోతులూరి వీర బ్రహ్మేంద్రస్వామి చెప్పిన విధంగా విదేశంలో వింతశిశువు జననం..ముచ్చటగా మూడుకన్నులతో మూర్తీభవించిన త్రినేత్రుడు…జై శ్రీమన్నారాయణ)
Also Read: Fake News Gives You Wings: Movie Clip Shared As 'Boy Who Can Fly'
Fact-Check: Is the video digitally edited?
BOOM analyed the viral clip and found that the third eye on the toddler's forehead had been digitally edited and in fact its left eye has been superimposed to create a hoax that the infant has three eyes. On observing the viral clip we noticed that the movements of the left eye match the third eye on the forehead and a frame by frame comparison proved that the left eye had been digitally edited on to the baby's forehead to make the false claim that it has three eyes.
BOOM could not independently verify the source of the video, however a reverse image search using Google showed results of the same viral clip uploaded by a Twitter handle on July 9, 2020.
The caption when translated from Chinese reads, "The three-eyed man appeared"
Click here to view an archive.
A YouTube search for the keywords, 'three-eyed baby' showed that the same viral clip was uploaded with a caption that read, "Craniofacial duplication known as diprosopus is a rare congenital disorder whereby parts or all of the face are duplicated on the head. This is a case of a 1-year-old boy referred to our hospital with an extra eye (third eye) on the left side of the head and an abnormally shaped head, which were noticed since birth.Jan 2, 2018" to lend false authenticity to the video.
We found that the was picked up from a 2018 case report published in the West African Journal of Radiology about an infant born with a genetic disorder in Nigeria. The photos of the baby as published by the medical paper showed that it was different from the infant in the viral clip.
caption highlighted lifted from the case report
Click here to read.
We also did not find any credible reports about a baby born with three eyes in Gernany. The viral clip was previously debunked by Hoax Or Fact.
BOOM has previously debunked manipulated clips, like a clip from a French fantasy movie that shows a baby flying with the help of wings was being shared that it showed a boy born with wings.
