Absurd conspiracy theory about earthquakes in Venezuela: lasers blamed

A video falsely linking mysterious red lasers to recent earthquakes in Venezuela has been circulating online, but fact-checkers have debunked the claim as a fabrication.

The video, which depicts red light beams resembling laser swords from science fiction films in a night sky over a city, appeared on the internet in March, more than three months before the earthquakes struck Venezuela in late June. This timing alone disqualifies it as evidence of the cause of the tremors.

Further investigation revealed that the video was originally posted on TikTok by a user named @archive.available, with the title "Case #058 – Intersecting Beam Event." This account features over 200 similar videos depicting unexplained phenomena in the sky, suggesting a pattern of fabricated content rather than genuine occurrences.

Moreover, the earthquakes in Venezuela, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude, occurred during daylight hours, contradicting the video's depiction of a nighttime event. While a "Google Synth ID" tool found no definitive signs of AI generation by Google tools, the repetitive nature and similar style across the account's videos strongly suggest they were created using artificial intelligence or similar generative methods, intended to mimic unusual events.