A video claiming to show the rescue of a “188-year-old man” from a cave near Bengaluru, India, has gone viral, amassing over 34 million views on social media platform X.
The post, shared by the account ‘Concerned Citizen,’ features a 24-second clip of two men assisting an elderly individual with a hunched back, white beard, and walking stick. The caption read, “This Indian man has just been found in a cave. It’s alleged he’s 188 years old. Insane.”
This sensational assertion ignited widespread discussion and intrigue, but fact-checkers quickly stepped in to investigate. Reports soon clarified that the man in the video is Siyaram Baba, a Hindu saint from Madhya Pradesh, and not the 188-year-old as claimed.
Further investigations revealed that Siyaram Baba is around 110 years old, significantly younger than the viral allegations suggested.
The social media platform X has intervened by attaching a disclaimer to a viral post.
The message alerts viewers to the misinformation, stating, “Misinformation! The elderly man is a Hindu saint named ‘Siyaram Baba’ who resides in Madhya Pradesh, India. He is approximately 110 years old.”
Data verification group D-Intent Data also confirmed the inaccuracies, labelling the video and its claims as misleading. They noted, “A video showing individuals assisting an elderly man has been circulated with the false assertion that a 188-year-old Indian man was discovered in a cave. In reality, these claims are false; the man is a saint named ‘Siyaram Baba’ from Madhya Pradesh.”
Further confirmation came from a July 2024 article in Navbharat Times, which identified Siyaram Baba as 109 years old at the time. The piece highlighted that “he is a respected saint in the Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh, held in high regard by the local community.
Despite the rapid spread of the video on social media, it has been thoroughly debunked. Experts have raised alarms about the increasing prevalence of sensationalized and unverified claims on these platforms.
D-Intent Data cautioned against this trend, noting that influencers are often sharing misleading information to attract attention. “Influencers are propagating videos with fabricated claims to gain visibility on social media,” the group stated in their analysis.