Days after Chandrayaan-3 successfully entered the lunar orbit, various types of videos and photos started going viral on social media, claiming that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had sent some of its scientists along with India's third lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3. In this viral video, some astronauts are also seen doing research. When we fact-checked the video claiming that scientists were sent along with Chandrayaan-3, the whole truth came to the fore.
Claim
In a video reel that has gone viral on Facebook, some scenes of space are seen playing. In this video, some astronauts are seen visiting a fictional planet. Here they are seen doing some searching inside the wreckage of something like a spaceship.
The video with the caption, "Scientific search time after Chandrayaan-3 launch... This time India has done something different..." is going viral on social media. With the caption of this viral video, an attempt is being made to tell people that ISRO has sent these scientists to the moon with Chandrayaan-3. This video has been shared by about 1.2K, i.e., about 1200 people, and liked by 73.1K, i.e., more than 73 thousand people.
India TV did a fact check
When this video came to our attention, we reached out to the original source of this post. This video was uploaded by a Facebook user named Gupta Bholu. When we watched this video carefully, Chandrayaan-3, sent by ISRO, was not seen anywhere in it.
Apart from this, the entire clip looked like the VFX of a film. When we reverse-searched a key frame of this video on Google, the search engine showed us some results, which were a YouTube link to a scene from the Hollywood movie Transformers.
When we played this video, we saw, that it was uploaded on a YouTube channel named Cinematic Style. When we played this video, after 3:20, the same scenes started appearing that were seen in the viral video on Facebook. In this video, too, astronauts enter the debris of a spaceship and are seen doing research.
Original video of Transformers-3 movie
The title of the video found on YouTube reads, "Transformers 3: Apollo 11 Finds an Alien Spaceship on the Moon". It is clear from the title of the video that this is the scene from the film Transformers 3 when Apollo 11 detects an alien spaceship on the moon. This entire scene of 6 minutes, 47 seconds was in front of us. After watching this video carefully, it is known that the space suit of these astronauts has an American flag and NASA written on it. One thing was clear from this: neither Indian astronauts are in the viral video nor were they sent by ISRO. Similar videos were also uploaded on many other YouTube channels.
Astronauts did not go with Chandrayaan-3
According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Chandrayaan-3 is an unmanned mission, in which important information will be collected after a successful soft landing on the lunar surface with the help of the Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover. It is worth noting that according to ISRO, Chandrayaan-3's Vikram Lander is expected to land on the Moon on August 23.
Viral video turned out to be misleading
Everything came to the fore after the India TV Fact Check team investigated the matter. It has become clear that the claim being made in the viral video is completely misleading, and ISRO has not sent its scientists into space under the Chandrayaan-3 mission. It is an unmanned mission. Apart from this, whatever is visible in the viral video is a scene from the Hollywood movie Transformers 3. Therefore, in our fact check, this video and the claim made along with it turned out to be misleading.
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