Social media platforms, particularly Facebook, have been buzzing with claims suggesting that the popular animated show, The Simpsons, had predicted the tragic events that unfolded on Titan.
Check out some of Facebook posts here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
Fact-Check
The investigation conducted by Rumor Scanner has found that the claim circulating on social media, stating that The Simpsons cartoon series predicted the recent tragedy involving the submarine Titan, is incorrect. In reality, the episode of The Simpsons bears numerous inconsistencies when compared to the actual events of the Titan submarine tragedy.
At the beginning of the investigation, Rumor Scanner Team observed the cartoon video of the Simpsons. In the video, two riders went to the bottom of the ocean in search of treasure in two separate submarines. Later, the first rider successfully returned from there, but the second rider got hit by a rock in his submarine on the way back and his submarine ran out of oxygen after that accident. However, despite facing danger, the rider later returned alive.
Check out the full video of the episode on YouTube here.
On the other hand, the riders of the submarine Titan were five in total and none of them went to the bottom of the ocean in search of treasure but they went to see the wreckage of the Titanic. None of them survived in the end. Moreover, it is believed that they died in the submarine implosion before the oxygen crisis.
That is, the Titan tragedy has little in common with the video of the Simpsons cartoon, but there are a lot of dissimilarities.
Basically, recently information has been circulated on social media Facebook claiming that the cartoon series Simpsons had predicted the Titan tragedy earlier. However, according to Rumor Scanner’s investigation, there are several dissimilarities between the Tragedy of Titan and the episode of the Simpsons cartoon. In the video of the Simpsons cartoon series, two riders went to the bottom of the ocean by two different submarines in search of treasure. One of them successfully returned but the other met with an accident which caused a shortage of oxygen but the rider survived in the end. On the other hand, there were five riders on the Titan and all of them died due to an implosion.
Relevantly, the submarine Titan of the US-based private company OceanGate dived with five riders to show the underwater ship Titanic on June 18, but within two and half hours of the journey, the submarine lost contact with the control ship and disappeared with five riders including the pilot. Later, on June 22, rescuers reported finding the wreckage of the submarine after an extensive search at the bottom of the ocean.
Notably, the previous time, Rumor Scanner published a fact-check report identifying misinformation regarding the Simpsons cartoon’s prediction of the earthquake in Turkey.
So, The claim that The cartoon series Simpsons had predicted the Titan tragedy is false.
Sources
- Nina Simon: The Simpsons Homer finds his real dad
- REUTERS: Titanic sub destroyed in ‘catastrophic implosion,’ all five aboard dead
- The New York Times: Your Friday Briefing: The Titan Sub’s ‘Catastrophic Implosion’
- CNN: What it was like inside the lost Titanic-touring submersible
- Rumor Scanner’s Own Analysis