Fake News – ‘Ruins of Ancient City Discovered in Australian Desert’

The claims in the message are nonsense. No such ruins have been found in Australia. The image actually depicts the 2000-year-old foundations of pyramids found at Sedeinga in northern Sudan. The fake report was published by World News Daily Report, a site that bills itself as satirical. Nothing published on World News Daily Report has any credibility and its reports should not be taken seriously.

According to a message that is currently circulating via social media, the ruins of an ancient city have been discovered in the Australian desert. The message links back to a longer report that claims that a team of archaeologists working for the Australian National University made the discovery near Uluru, in central Australia.

The report includes a photograph of the ruins, along with other images depicting skeletons and artefacts discovered at the site.

The report further claims that many skeletons and precious artefacts have been found on the site. Supposedly, the lead archaeologist at the site has claimed that the city was the centre of a vast empire that engaged in international trade.

However, the claims in the report are utter nonsense. No such ruins have been found anywhere in Australia.

The image of ruins featured in the story actually depicts the foundations of ancient pyramids discovered at Sedeinga in northern Sudan. The skeleton image was taken from a report about an archaeological dig in Libya. And the gold bowl shown in a third photograph is part of the Mapungubwe Collection of artefacts housed at South Africa’s University of Pretoria. The images have no connection whatsoever to Australian archaeological discoveries.

The bogus story comes courtesy of fake-news ‘satirical’ website World News Daily Report. The website includes the following disclaimer :

World News Daily Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction.

The site has been responsible for a string of viral hoax reports in recent months, including false claims that giant human skeletons have been found in Iran and that a dinosaur egg has hatched in a Berlin museum.

Nothing published on the site should be taken seriously.

A number of fake-news ‘satire’ sites have appeared on the Internet over recent years. Because the stories published on these sites are presented in news format and do not always have clearly visible disclaimers, many people are apt to believe them and share them far and wide.

It is therefore wise to verify any ‘news’ reports that come your way via social media before you share them. Some minimal research via Google should quickly reveal if a story is genuine.