Fact check: Skull-like cloud image combines art from Iron Maiden album with 2019 storm photo – USA TODAY
Tornadoes and severe weather swept across Arkansas and other states in December, leaving more than 70 dead.
An image on social media purports to show a skull face formed by clouds during the storm.
“My sister Sam Lumley took a picture of this today in lake village Arkansas while I was fixing her roof,” claims the Dec. 10 Facebook post.
“Look at the detail of this picture,” the poster continued.
The post was shared over 6,000 times within a week.
“That’s awesome, I am stealing this.” wrote one commenter.
But the image, which has circulated for more than a year, has been doctored. It combines art from a heavy metal band’s album cover with an image of a 2019 storm in Pennsylvania.
Special access for subscribers! Click here to sign up for our fact-check text chat
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment.
The grinning, skull-like face in the altered image comes from the cover design for Iron Maiden’s album “Brave New World.” The album was released on May 29, 2000. The upper half of the album art was created by Derek Riggs and the bottom half by digital artist Steve Stone.
The image of the clouds during a storm, meanwhile, came from the website of The Patriot-News, a newspaper based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
“Storm clouds as they appeared over Kutztown University on Wednesday,” read the caption accompanying the photo on the May 31, 2019, article.
Fact check:Digital artwork from 2009 doesn’t show the northern lights
Based on our research, we rate ALTERED an image that claims to show a skull-like cloud formation in the sky in Arkansas. The image combines cover art from an Iron Maiden album with a photo of a 2019 storm in Pennsylvania.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.
Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
