WTHR appears to have been trolled during its coverage of the storms that rumbled across the state when an image of a fake tornado that included a UFO and bigfoot was uploaded to its viewer photo iwitness site.
Jim Romenesko reported that Indianapolis Star reporter Eric Weddle found the mistake and tweeted about it,
Uh, some news site posting this fake Lafayette funnel cloud photo (theres a UFO too); friend shot orig: pic.twitter.com/FvV7lghUar
Advertisement— Eric Weddle (@ericweddle) November 18, 2013
You can see the original and doctored image in the tweet above. Weddle told TVSpy the photo has been making the social media rounds with students of nearby Purdue University and residents of Lafayette, IN.
>UPDATE: WTHR news director Kathy Hostetter told TVSpy, “The photo was published to the wthr.com photo gallery by someone outside our building. At the height of the storm and in the aftermath of it, we received a lot of viewer photographs & video, and this one slipped through our verification protocols. We have since removed the photo from our gallery, and we’re reviewing our internal processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
The UFO is in the photo’s top right. If you look down at the sidewalk right of center you’ll also see bigfoot walking towards the street.