Snowboarder Girl Chased by Bear, She Didn't Even Know It: Video - Facts

Story:

Watch: Snowboarder chased by bear and didn’t even know it.

Other Versions

1. Bear chases snowboarder video.

2. Oblivious girl chased by bear while snowboarding.

Analysis:

A video uploaded to YouTube on 10 April 2016 by Kelly Murphy became a viral sensation online claiming to show that the Snowboarder was chased by a huge bear and she did not even know it until she saw the recorded footage later. Kelly Murphy said that the snowboard GoPro selfie footage was shot at Hakuba 47 Winter Sports Park in Japan during her vacation at the Japanese ski resort. As you can see in the dramatic first video, the girl Kelly Murphy wearing headphones and singing to Rihanna’s song “Work” slides down, in the background it appears that a large bear has decided to chase the clueless Murphy on her snowboard. Kelly Murphy is shown to escape the bear unharmed, but the authenticity of the video has been questioned by many. As we are going to detail below, the footage showing a bear chasing the snowboarder is in fact a hoax.

Kelly Murphy posted the video to her YouTube channel with a title ‘Snowboarder Girl Chased By Bear – I Was Singing Rihanna Work And Didn’t Know It Was Behind Me!’ and she also warned the local people to be careful with the video description, “OMG! I was going through my snowboarding videos and I found a bear chasing me!!! I nearly got eaten!!! This was at Hakuba 47 in Japan, filmed yesterday! Be careful people!!!” Interestingly, many media outlets posted the story and also the plausibility of the incident.

Flaws in the Video

As you can see in the video, the bear footage seems to appear and reappear, and some viewers mentioned the voice of the bear howling and approaching the girl seemed unrealistic. At the first instance when the bear was close to Kelly Murphy, she was not heading so fast, so the bear could have easily caught up with her, but that did not happen.

Picture about Snowboarder Girl Chased by Bear, She Didn't Even Know It, Video — Snowboarder Girl Chased by Bear, She Didn’t Even Know It, Video

As you can see in the composite picture above showing shots from the footage, the huge bear apparently looks more of brown colour than black one (also note the colour match of her suit and protective eye glasses). But brown bears, that too so large, are not usually spotted in the Hakuba area of Nagano Prefecture in Japan. Notably; there are no details about the girl Kelly Murphy, and there are no other witnesses of the bear chase or sighting – in a popular ski resort as told by her.

It’s Digital Manipulation

As of this writing, in her YouTube channel, Kelly Murphy only has two other snowboarding clips, which she claims come from the same vacation spot at Hakuba 47 in Japan. The other two videos have more realistic audios, and the significant point, one video titled “Backcountry Snowboarding Japan!!! Woohoo!” (second one in this article) appears to be the same video without the bear element (probably shot from different angle and camera).

In the third video showing a clip from the original video from timeframe 0:48 to 0:56 seconds, a YouTube user Oliver Hamilton points a significant flaw in the footage that indicates the video of oblivious girl chased by bear while snowboarding is digitally manipulated. The position of the bear chase with respect to a bush (plant) in the video varies greatly over a short span of time. A close look at the appearances of the bear in the video initially, and when it is shown far away as the girl slides down, clearly indicates slightly different frame rate.

So all this concludes to saying the bear was digitally added to the footage of Snowboarder girl. The claims that the Snowboarder girl Kelly Murphy was chased by bear and she didn’t even know it are therefore hoaxes.