By: Praveen Kumar
September 7 2023
Old video of jeep stuck in mud shared is not from 2023 Burning Man festival
Share Article:
This video of a white jeep stuck in the mud is being shared as an incident from the 2023 Burning Man festival (Source: X/Screenshots)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
An old video of a jeep stuck in mud has been falsely circulated as being from the 2023 Burning Man festival.
Claim ID af248f89
Unexpected rains caused 2023 Burning Man Festival attendees in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, to be stuck on-site without being able to leave, as all road traffic was halted until September 4. The rainstorm turned the site into mud, leaving the festival-goers having to conserve food, water, and fuel, CNN reported. On September 4, festival organizers reopened the road, allowing attendees to leave the desert. However, drivers were urged to delay their departure until the next day to reduce traffic as people had started to leave, causing heavy traffic, reports said.
What is the claim?
Following the rainstorm, social media users shared images and video footage of a white jeep stuck in mud and rocks in the middle of an arid landscape. The video has text inlaid that reads, “Someone who tried to escape Burning Man.” One X post shared on September 3 with over 848,000 views shared it with the caption, part of which reads, “When you go to Burning Man for fun in the desert but it rains six inches and floods, and you think you're just going to drive out of the mud because you have a Jeep Wrangler,” with the hashtag "BurningMan2023." The same video was also shared on TikTok, garnering about 13.6 million views and over 635,200 likes.
These posts gained hundreds of thousands of views on social media. (Source: X/TikTok)
However, this video predates the 2023 Burning Man festival.
What we found
A reverse image search of the footage led us to the same video posted by multiple accounts on TikTok and Instagram in August 2023, about two weeks before the festival and the rainstorm.
The viral video has existed online for at least two weeks before the 2023 Burning Man festival. (Source: Instagram)
The earliest upload of this video we found was on TikTok by an account named @mvnueeel, which posted it on August 15.
The earliest upload of this video that can be found online is from TikTok, dated August 15, 2023. (Source: TikTok)
This TikTok video caption includes hashtags with text such as “tx, 956, 956valley, rgv, rgv956,” hinting at where this video may have been filmed. According to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the 956 area code is for the Rio Grande Valley, the southernmost point of Texas.
Logically Facts was unable to confirm the exact location or the context of the viral video. However, based on the earliest date of upload for the viral video, we can confirm that this is not from the recent Burning Man festival.
The verdict
This video of a jeep stuck in the mud in the middle of an arid landscape predates the 2023 Burning Man festival. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.
