Fact-Check: Video Doesn't Show Astronaut Jumping From Spacecraft

This 2012 video shows skydiver Felix Baumgartner free falling from a helium balloon and parachuting to Earth.

Rujuta Thete
WebQoof
Published:
<div class="paragraphs"><p>Fact-check: The video shows a skydiver and not an astronaut.</p></div>
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Fact-check: The video shows a skydiver and not an astronaut.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

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A video claiming to show an Austrian astronaut jumping from a spacecraft to reach Earth is going viral on social media.

  • The claim also states that he travelled for 1,236 kilometres to reach Earth in approximately four minutes and five seconds.

  • It also states that he saw the planet rotating.

An archive can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here. )

What's the truth?: This was a part of the high-altitude skydiving project called Red Bull Stratos, which happened in 2012.

  • It shows Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner performing a freefall from a helium balloon and landing on Earth using a parachute.

How did we find out the truth?: We conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video and found the original video from 2012.

  • We noticed The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)'s logo on the top left corner of the video.

The video was uploaded by BBC Studio.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

  • We found a longer version of the video was uploaded by the official channel of BBC Studio on 17 March 2016.

  • The description read that Felix Baumgartner performed a 'space dive', and this video was taken from Red Bull Space Dive.

  • We found another video from the official channel of Red Bull uploaded on 15 October 2012.

  • The description of the video showed Baumgartner freefalling from a helium-filled balloon after flying to an altitude of approximately 39 kilometres.

  • This video showed more clips starting from the release of the balloon, which took the skydiver up into space.

  • At the 0:56 timestamp, the video showed similar clips from the viral video.

What was this project about?: According to BBC, the skydiving project called Red Bull Stratos with BBC Studios happened on 14 October 2012.

  • Baumgartner jumped from 27,852.4 feet from the helium-filled balloon and attained a speed of 1,357.6km/h.

  • According to Guinness World Records, he became the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall with a final Mach number recorded as 1.25.

What is a 'space dive'?: Space diving is when a diver jumps from an aircraft or spacecraft towards Earth from the stratosphere.

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Conclusion: A supersonic freefall video of a skydiver is being falsely shared as an astronaut jumping from space.

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