Fact Check: Photo Authentically Shows Mountain Resembling Turtle?

Claim:

A photo authentically shows a mountain resembling a turtle.

Rating:

Fake ( About this rating? )

A photo of a mountain that looked like a turtle resurfaced in numerous social media posts in 2024 .

One example appeared as a meme on Facebook on July 23, 2024:

(Facebook page True Motivation)

The image has been circulating online for years . Iterations of it were posted in Facebook groups called Amazing Nature and Gardening Humour in January 2019, the latter of which said it was " a tree in Cambodia" that resembled "a giant turtle."

The picture also featured on a Czech-language blog site called Rouming (which translates to roaming in English) in January 2019, on Facebook in May 2020, and TikTok in October 2023.

The earliest versions appeared on meme generating website Imgflip in 2018 — although the month it was posted was unclear — and an Italian meme page called Besti on Jan. 14, 2019, which captioned it: "La natura ci osserva…," which translates to "nature is watching us" in English.

Although Snopes was unable to find the source of the photo, in late January 2019 we debunked its authenticity.

The image was a digital artwork comprising of altered versions of at least two different photographs.

The base of the "Turtle Mountain" picture originated from a photo of Wild Goose Island in Glacier National Park, Montana, taken by Jacob Frank , a National Park Service ranger and photographer, in August 2015 ( archived ):

The landscape in the foreground, the lake, and the mountains in the background of Frank's Wild Goose Island image matched those in the "Turtle Mountain" photo.

Meanwhile, the part showing the mountain resembling a turtle matched a picture of Pilot Mountain in North Carolina on stock photography website Pixabay ( archived ).

In 2019, Snopes created a collage to highlight how the "Turtle Mountain" photo corresponded with the images by Frank and on Pixabay.

The "Turtle Mountain" digital artwork is shown on the left of the collage, while the pictures of Pilot Mountain and Wild Goose Island were on the top right and bottom right, respectively.

Given the "Turtle Mountain" photo was created digitally using two other images, we rated this claim and picture as "Fake."

The Australian Associated Press also debunked the "Turtle Mountain" photograph in January 2022.

Sources:

'Dobson, Norra carolina, Fjäll bild. Gratis att använda'. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/sv/photos/dobson-norra-carolina-fj%C3%A4ll-tr%C3%A4d-1985686/ . Accessed 10 Sept. 2024.

Evon, Dan. 'Is This a Photograph of "Turtle Mountain"?' Snopes, 28 Jan. 2019, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/turtle-mountain-photo/ .

GlacierNPS. Hazy Wild Goose Island. photo, 3 Aug. 2015. Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/glaciernps/23641238721/ .

Photo Gallery (U.S. National Park Service). https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm . Accessed 10 Sept. 2024.

'Pilot Mountain (North Carolina)'. Wikipedia, 14 July 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pilot_Mountain_(North_Carolina)&oldid=1234529025 .

'Truth Has a Mountain to Climb to Expose Fake Turtle's Head Pic'. Australian Associated Press, https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/truth-has-a-mountain-to-climb-to-expose-fake-turtles-head-pic/ . Accessed 10 Sept. 2024.