An Irish television station aired a news segment about a “mysterious crater” found on a local beach, suggesting it could be evidence of a “once-in-a-lifetime cosmic event.”
But the station had to correct course one day later and reported in a follow-up segment that the so-called “cosmic crater” was just a hole some people dug in the sand.
Virgin Media News sent a crew to Portmarnock Beach on Wednesday to investigate the findings of “local astrophysics enthusiast” Dave Kennedy.
The science junkie reportedly “stopped in his tracks” when he came across a circular hole about 3 by 3 feet by the waterline.
“Just about a month ago I watched a documentary from NASA about what you see behind you, and when I looked at it and saw how uniform it was,” Kennedy told the outlet. “I immediately knew what I was seeing was an impact site.”
The angular black stone he found in the hole, Kennedy explained, might have been the celestial visitor himself.
Dave Kennedy, a “local astrophysics enthusiast” who found the hole and is convinced it’s a crater.Virgin Media News/Twitter
A Virgin Media News reporter holds the supposed meteor next to the supposed crater where it should have landed.Virgin Media News/Twitter
“As you can tell here, there’s a burn mark on this side, so it’s going to be at an angle that it’s coming down, and it’s heavy,” Kennedy said, as the report cut to his photo showing the flight path of the rock that might later mimic an explosion. next with his hand.
“I’m not sure of the composition, but we definitely need to find out.”
The segment then cuts to Kennedy walking down the beach and staring out to sea while holding his stone, then a scene of excited passers-by posing in front of the hole with the stone held between them.
“We’ve been here quite a lot, and I’ve never seen anything like this before, so it’s pretty amazing,” said one visitor.
Kennedy showed his estimate of the rock’s flight path as it descended from the sky in a fireball.Virgin Media News/Twitter
A Vice Media report drew people to the hole, who posed with the stone believing what they were told about its origin.Virgin Media News/Twitter
Later, Kennedy could be seen staring into the hole as the station said there was no confirmation that it was actually an impact crater, but he spent the day calling astronomers “to see if they [could] help him solve the mystery of the crater on the beach.”
The next day, Virgin Media — somewhat sheepishly — reported that the puzzle had been solved, “shattering the hopes of local space enthusiasts.”
“The footage came out last night of two men digging a hole on Portmarnock Beach,” said an anchor, bringing up a clip of two men digging on the beach, armed with green plastic shovels.
He explained Kennedy was “disappointed” by the revelation, but he would still have the rocks analyzed “in the hope that it’s not a wasted discovery.”
Dubliners Charlie Wallace and Peter Mc Evoy dig a big [email protected]/Instagram
“It wasn’t really a cosmic event but rather it was dug up the day before by 2 young men with beach spades,” read a fact-checking notation since added to Virgin Media’s original broadcast to X.
The two young men, Charlie Wallace and Peter Mc Evoy, both Dubliners, did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.
It’s not clear if the couple meant the hole as a hoax, but they seem to have gas about the situation.
“Hahahahahahahaha” Wallace wrote on Instagram.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
