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Fact check: Baltic sea meteor strike video created by digital effects artist

The claim: Video shows actual meteor hitting Baltic Sea

Some social media users are sharing a video that purportedly shows a meteor striking the Baltic Sea in northern Europe.

In the video, a bright light can be seen traveling behind clouds before emerging against a blue sky and striking what appears to be an ocean. After impact, an explosion appears and a shockwave ripples across the water toward the camera.

"Meteor hits the Baltic Sea," reads a Nov. 29 Facebook post. "Whatever this is, It happened in August 2022 in Germany."

The video was also shared on Twitter, where it was retweeted more than a thousand times.

But the video does not show an actual meteor strike. It was created by a digital effects artist.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment. The Twitter user could not be reached.

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Video created by effects artist

French 3D animation artist Elias Willnat posted the video on Instagram in August.

"This is not real don't worry," Willnat said to another Instagram user in the comment section.

When another user asked if the video was "cgi," Willnat replied, "yes."

Willnat's post is captioned with the hashtags "#aftereffects," "#vfx" and "#cgi." After Effects is a digital video editing and effects software product. "VFX" stands for "visual effects," and "CGI" references "computer-generated imagery."

Willnat also posted the video to YouTube, where the description says it was "made with After Effect and DaVinci Resolve."

Like After Effects, DaVinci Resolve is a visual effects software product.

Willnat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The claim was previously debunked by Reuters.

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Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that a video shows an actual meteor hitting the Baltic Sea. The meteor strike was digitally created.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Video showing purported meteor strike a digital creation