Thousands of attendees at Burning Man, held this year from Aug. 27 through Sept. 4, were stranded in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert after a late summer storm dropped more than a half-inch of rain on the festival.
Organizers closed the festival to vehicles after one death was reported. Officials provided no details of the fatality.
The annual gathering in the Black Rock Desert about 110 miles north of Reno attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians and activists for a mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances.
In the days after the storm, videos claiming to show the unsettling conditions started appearing on social media. One video shows a model walking through the mud, another shows a jeep buried in mud and another shows a vehicle in floodwaters as trash pours next to it.
VERIFY looked into whether these shocking videos were actually from Burning Man.
QUESTION #1
Does this video show a model walking through the mud at Burning Man?
THE SOURCES
- Original video from October 2022
- Google Lens, a reverse image search tool
THE ANSWER
No, this video does not show a model walking through the mud at Burning Man. The video is nearly a year old.
WHAT WE FOUND
“I'm currently stranded at Burning Man, along with thousands of others. Despite the unexpected challenges, some artists managed to put together an impromptu catwalk show. The ‘I’m in the mud’ show is a metaphor for trying stuff and always learning. I'm deeply inspired by the ingenuity and resourcefulness of this community,” one tweet with more than 5 million views, posted on Sept. 3, says.
But the video is not from Burning Man. It was actually taken in October 2022 at the start of Paris Fashion Week and shows a fashion show from designer Balenciaga.
VERIFY used Google Lens, a reverse image search tool, to find original video from the fashion show. The same model in the same designer dress that was strutting in the video claiming to be at Burning Man can be seen walking in the mud at around 12 seconds into this video, posted on Oct. 3, 2022.
According to various reports, the fashion show was held in mud as a form of social commentary – a nod to breaking away from boxes and labels.
QUESTION #2
Does this video show a jeep stranded in the mud at Burning Man?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, this video does not show a jeep stranded in the mud at Burning Man. It was posted to Instagram before the festival started.
WHAT WE FOUND
Also using Google Lens to conduct a reverse image search from a keyframe in the video, VERIFY was able to confirm this video predates Burning Man.
The same video of the same jeep trapped in the mud was posted to Instagram on Aug. 15, which was 12 days before Burning Man started in Nevada. The video was posted by @trokas_chihuahua, an account based out of Nuevo Casas Grandes, a city in Chihuahua, Mexico, according to its account profile.
No other information about where the video was taken was shared on Instagram. Geographical markers, like a license plate, also couldn’t be seen in the video. But, we can confirm it was shared online weeks before the storm hit the Burning Man festival.
QUESTION #3
Does this video show a vehicle submerged in floodwaters during Burning Man?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, the video does not show a vehicle submerged in floodwaters during Burning Man. It was actually taken in 2018.
WHAT WE FOUND
The video wasn’t taken during the storm at Burning Man.
VERIFY was able to find several instances of the same video posted online in November 2018. Each video says it was taken after heavy rainfalls in Haiti, and one video says it was taken on Nov. 14, 2018 in the Haitian capital of Port au Prince.
This longer video, originally posted to video platform LiveLeak, says the video was taken from Boulevard Toussaint Louverture and Rue Thébaud, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A gas station and sign for a bus stop can be seen at the start of that video, and according to Google Maps, there is a gas station and that same stop at that location.
So, we can VERIFY this was not taken from Burning Man in 2023, but actually in 2018 from Port-au-Prince.
The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More »
