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This happened today in Argentina:

something is damaged something is damaged, and a car and persons in between something is damaged

Some people said they saw a bright light coming from the sky, and one big newspaper published the following photo, allegedly taken just before the explosion:

red lights

However, the photo seems somehow strange to me. Is there a way test whether it is fake?

Edit

The photograph "was taken" with a cell phone:

red lights on a cell phone

Edit

Examples of local media coverage:

Diario La Nación
Diario Página12
Diario Clarín

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  • The damage in the photos do not look like damage from a meteor to me. Craters caused by explosive events don't usually leave that much debris laying around. Also, a meteor that would show up that big on a older cell phone photo would create a much bigger fire ball in my opinion.
    – SteveGSD
    Sep 27, 2011 at 1:54
  • @Sklivvz They are all embedded in the link to the newspaper provided. However, newspapers are not a stable source, so I can't guarantee it working more than a few days (that is the reason to upload the images to imgurl). I'll edit the post with other links
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 27, 2011 at 12:04
  • Gizmodo seems to think it's baloney. Love their comments about how the "photo" was faked... :)
    – Shaul Behr
    Sep 27, 2011 at 12:49
  • From the uppermost image, we can see, that a car hit the house, and destroyed it. The second photo shows even more cars. Red light could be the rear light of the cars.
    – user unknown
    Sep 29, 2011 at 0:01
  • No way to tell from that 20k super low resolution image of the alleged meteor. I think they used a flaming marshmallow.
    – Moab
    Sep 29, 2011 at 1:57

1 Answer 1

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The media coverage you link has clear answer:

La Nación:

Un chico del barrio que afirmaba haber retratado el fenómeno desde el patio de su casa. Todo era falso. Por la tarde, el joven fue detenido por falso testimonio.

which translates to:

A neighborhood boy who claimed to have photographed the phenomenon from the backyard. Everything was fake. This afternoon, the young man was arrested for perjury.

Clarín:

Lo primero que encontraron es un horno pizzero y garrafas, por lo que están siguiendo la hipótesis de que la explosión posiblemente fue por escape de gas.

which translates to:

The first thing found was a pizza oven and gas tanks, so they are following hypothesis that the explosion was probably due to gas leak.

And yet another one, by BBC:

Según las autoridades de la municipalidad bonaerense, habría sido una fuga de gas en un horno de pizzas lo que inició la explosión, que también destruyó varias viviendas. El intendente de la municipalidad, Fernando Gray, dijo que se estaban precisando aún varias hipótesis, pero descartó que se tratase de la caída de un meteorito.

translation:

According to the Buenos Aires municipal authorities would have been a gas leak in a pizza oven that initiated the explosion, which also destroyed several houses. The mayor of the municipality, Fernando Gray, said they were still considering several hypotheses, but ruled out falling meteorite.

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  • After reading carefully the full articles, they contradict each other in several points.
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 27, 2011 at 22:52
  • @b: the only "contradiction" I see, is that in earlier ones meteorite was not ruled out. All of them talk about pizza oven and 45kg gas tanks.
    – vartec
    Sep 28, 2011 at 8:42
  • For example, only one of them wrote about "perjury", and if you check the newspapers today, everybody except the government is saying that "something fell from the sky". Anyway, my question was about testing the photo.
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 28, 2011 at 10:12
  • @b: all of them wrote about perjury. The only person claiming that something "fell from the sky", was the author of the fake photo. Rest said, that they saw a "fireball lit up the sky", which isn't quite the same.
    – vartec
    Sep 28, 2011 at 10:25
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    @belisarius if, as you say, your question was about testing the photo, you may want to consider changing the title. Vartec's answer thoroughly addresses the question you ask in the title, and makes answering the question about the photo completely moot.
    – Beofett
    Sep 29, 2011 at 14:29

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