One of the best things about the Internet is the speed at which it allows information to be shared. Unfortunately, this means all information — even false ones like the news about the six-day darkness that would envelop the world in December.
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The bogus report published on satirical sensationalist news website Huzlers read, “NASA has confirmed that the Earth will experience 6 days of almost complete darkness and will happen from the dates Tuesday the 16 – Monday the 22 in December.
The world will remain, during these days, without sunlight due to a solar storm, which will cause dust and space debris to become plentiful and thus, block 90% sunlight”.
However, the hoax story even drafts in some credible-sounding sources including Nasa chief Charles Bolden, who reportedly warned the public to stay calm. Some users even linked to a (real) video of Bolden talking about “emergency preparedness” — an official-sounding phrase that apparently bypasses common sense to hit the big button marked ‘PANIC’ in the brain.
In actuality Bolden recorded the video to encourage US families to think about what they would do in the event of an earthquake or hurricane — natural disasters that are a real enough threat in America. Click to zoom
NASA has not made any official statements regarding this six-day period of darkness descending on Earth.
The good news is that this means the world will not be falling into darkness for six days in December. The bad news is that people aren’t very good at separating what’s real from what’s not, liking and sharing the story thousands of times since it first came out on Oct. 25.
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