Back to Africa Check

Demon angel at the Vatican? No, computer-generated video from Nicaragua

A video fit to send chills down your spine is doing the rounds around Facebook and WhatsApp.

It shows a dark-winged creature climbing the dome of a church, settling on a cross at the top and then flying off.

“A demon angel at Vatican today midday,” the video’s caption reads. It was posted in late March 2020.

Was the creature filmed in Vatican City, the headquarters in Rome, Italy of the global Roman Catholic Church?



‘All images shown are fiction’


The video shows “JJDP Producciones” in the top right corner and a JJPD logo at bottom left. We searched YouTube for the name and found the verified JJPD Producciones channel. It’s run by the Perez brothers from Nicaragua, Jose Joaquin and Jimmy Jose.

The channel’s “about” section, machine translated from Spanish, says its videos are created by using special effects. 

“We are two Nicaraguan YouTubers brothers, creators of: videos with special effects, videos of paranormal encounters, fiction short films, horror tales and more.” The brothers also have a Facebook page.

They uploaded the “Vatican demon” video on 3 June 2019. 

Translated text below its description reads: “These are paranormal videos created by us to entertain. All images shown are fiction. CGI video (computer generated image). Creature creation and video editing: Jose Joaquin Perez. Animation and assembly: Jimmy Jose Perez.”

And the fictional video is set in Granada, “one of the major tourist attractions in Nicaragua”, not the Vatican. In the video you can see a few of Granada’s landmarks, including the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption and a gazebo and fountain in the city’s central park.

The video was created 10 months before the Facebook post, shows Grenada in Nicaragua, and is computer generated. Vincent Ng’ethe




 

Republish our content for free

We believe that everyone needs the facts.

You can republish the text of this article free of charge, both online and in print. However, we ask that you pay attention to these simple guidelines. In a nutshell:

1. Do not include images, as in most cases we do not own the copyright.

2. Please do not edit the article.

3. Make sure you credit "Africa Check" in the byline and don't forget to mention that the article was originally published on africacheck.org.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.