Viral video of Big Ben on fire is fake

A video posted to TikTok on Jan. 24 claims to show London’s Big Ben clock tower on fire.

The 15-second video contains multiple clips. The first portion shows what looks like fire crews attempting to put out the fire as sirens blare in the background. 

The video then cuts to what appears to be a screenshot of an image showing the purported fire from a distance. A caption on top of the image says, “Mate I can see it from here holy s***.” Other images from the video show a crowd watching as Big Ben is apparently engulfed in flames.

This is not the first video of a European landmark on fire to go viral this week. VERIFY confirmed a recent viral video of the Eiffel Tower on fire was created using CGI. 

THE QUESTION

Is the video of Big Ben on fire real?

THE SOURCES

• Livestream of Big Ben, filmed by a web camera at London’s Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel
• InVid and RevEye, footage forensics tools
• YouTube profile for @LumiVerseHQ

THE ANSWER

No, the video showing Big Ben on fire is fake. The images in the video are AI-generated.

WHAT WE FOUND

The viral video is fake and has visual elements that indicate it was made with AI technology.

As of Jan. 26, Big Ben was still standing with no signs of fire damage. This was confirmed by a 24-hour livestream of Big Ben from a web camera located at London’s Park Plaza Westminster Bridge.

In addition to confirming there is no evidence the tower was recently engulfed in flames, we isolated a keyframe of the viral video and conducted a reverse image search with RevEye, a reverse image search engine. If Big Ben were actually on fire, there would be news reports, video and images of the tower ablaze. There were none.

This video was created using generative artificial intelligence technology. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce new content, including images, videos, audio and text. 

There are clues that confirm the video was digitally created with AI. Generative AI software struggles with minor details. For example, at the 9-second mark of the video, the time shown on each face of the clock is different. 

In each frame of the video, the clock times are different and the clock face styles are also different. 

When we analyzed the actual fire itself, the location of the flames are inconsistent and appear stylized.

These examples, along with what appears to be stylized crowds, are clues this entire video was created using AI.

The video was posted by TikTok user @LumiverseHQ, who also has a YouTube channel. VERIFY looked at their YouTube profile and it says this user creates content using AI, which is another sign this video is also AI.