Fact Check

'Rain Falling in One Spot'

A video purportedly showing "mysterious rain" all falling in "one spot" doesn't show rain at all.

Published May 30, 2016

Claim:
A video shows a "mysterious rain" all falling in "one spot."

On 20 May 2016, the video shown above, purportedly capturing "rain falling in one place" in Togo was posted to YouTube. However, what was depicted in the video did not occur "this morning" (i.e., 20 May 2016), nor did it take place in Togo. The video has been circulating online since at least June 2015, when it was shared under the title "Sources of water, water sources of well digging." While that version of the video did not include mention of a location, other postings of it have placed the incident in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam.

This video also doesn't show "rain falling in one place." In fact, it doesn't show rain at all. The water in the video is coming up from the ground (not down from the sky), either from a natural geyser or a burst pipe.

The water spurt displayed in this video appears as if it were coming from the sky largely because its peak is hidden by tree branches or is simply out of frame. When the peak is in view, the color of the water and the sky are too similar to easily distinguish one from the other. However, a careful examination of this footage shows that the water clearly originates from the ground and not the sky.

The first clue is that a central water column can be periodically glimpsed throughout the video. The water is erupting from a hole in the ground and then falling back to the ground:

central water column


The peak of this geyser can also be glimpsed at several points in the video, and at the 1:17 mark viewers can actually see the height of the geyser briefly change:

A simliar shot of a burst high-pressure water main on Akosombo Road in Ghana has also been circulated with the same claim of its depicting "rain falling on only one spot":

The true nature of the phenomenon is more obvious in this clip taken from a different angle:

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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