World's Biggest Snake of 100 Feet found in Amazon River Basin - Facts Analysis

Story:

Photographed July 4, 2012 in the Tocantins Quadrant of the Amazon River’s basin.

Rough estimates are a 75 foot anaconda although skeptics are suggesting a much larger snake.

Other Versions

100ft-long snake Photographed in Borneo river, sparks fears of mythical monster.

The picture was taken by a member of a disaster team monitoring flood regions by helicopter.

Analysis:

Messages, in several variants, show picture of what appears like a very big snake inside waters and claim that it is a 100 feet monster snake – world’s biggest! This real looking picture became so popular that it made into many mainstream news online, however, the snake is not real, the story is a photoshop hoax creation.

This picture of giant snake, estimated to be around 100 feet, has been circulating from many years, and many believed it to be a factual picture of large Anaconda, while others were not sure if it is genuine or photoshopped. Some versions of the stories said that the photograph was taken when the giant snake was spotted in Borneo river in Southeast Asia, following which the local villagers feared this mythical monster, as they were convinced of the existence of such a massive serpent. They even gave it a name – Nabau, an ancient sea serpent which could transform itself into various shapes of animals. This picture also accompanied another one showing a similar giant snake in waters (see below).

However, the picture in question was later found to be a hoax creation. A detailed reverse image search of the photograph revealed that the water body neither belonged to Amazon basin nor Borneo river, it was actually the Congo River located in west-central Africa, Congo. It is the continent’s second longest river, next to Nile. And then there are few other aspects that question the authenticity of the photograph – like, if the photograph was taken from a flying helicopter of rescue team, why do we not see any disturbance in the picture, and why there are only one or two shots of this amazing find!?

The picture was actually an entry in photo effects contest of Worth1000.com, which featured all the animals rumored to exist, but haven’t been caught. It was titled ‘Giant Congo Snake’ and backed third place in the contest, while the contest ended in 2002. As you can see in the image below, the original one shows couple of rock kind of formations inside the water body, the second one of which seems to be deleted and then the ‘giant snake’ is added cleverly. This picture in Worth1000 was in fact not publicly accessible, and only members who logged in could see the picture, which is why these hoax stories circulated for long time. And interestingly, there also came up other fake versions of this fake picture. The second picture of giant snake clearly appears like photoshopped again. So all these stories about sighting of 100 feet snake or anaconda, being the biggest one in the world, are simply hoax.