“A lot of people have taken it as a lighthearted thing-kind of like our Loch Ness monster.”Īs media buzz grew, Westbrook officials sent a sample of the snakeskin off to John Palcyk, a biologist at the University of Texas at Tyler, for genetic analysis. “It’s kind of picked up steam with each sighting, and the social media thing has been big,” says Westbrook Police Captain Sean Lally. One local brewery even made a special-edition beer in honor of the snake. Clothing stores began selling Wessie-themed shirts. With each sighting, the mystery deepened- and the local community’s fascination with its strange new mascot grew.
And on August 20, a man walking along the Presumpscot River stumbled across the molted skin of a 12-foot-long snake, near the other two sightings. Soon thereafter, a late-shift police officer patrolling near the first sighting saw a large snake eating a mammal, possibly a beaver. Sightings of the snake began in June, when a woman filed a report with the Westbrook police department claiming to have seen a snake as large as a truck, with a head the size of a basketball. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Ī snakeskin found on a picturesque riverbank in the northeast United States belongs to an anaconda-the latest twist in the baffling story of “Wessie,” a supposedly enormous snake that has become a local legend in the town of Westbrook, Maine. Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.Please be respectful of copyright.
Factly and Snopes found that the photograph was manipulated from an image of a regular anaconda. The photo used to make the false claim has also been fact-checked by other organizations in the past. This is a far cry from the 135-foot, 3,000-kilogram anaconda indicated in the claim. According to National Geographic, South America’s green anaconda is the largest snake in the world, and it can measure 20 to 30 feet and weigh up to 550 pounds or around 249.5 kilograms. The measurements provided are also exaggerated.
No official news organizations have reported a large anaconda being found in the province of Zamboanga Sibugay, nor were there any reports of numerous deaths caused by an anaconda in this location.
The facts: There are no reports of such a sighting in Zamboanga Sibugay, and the photo was manipulated. This claim was flagged by Facebook’s Claim Check, a tool for detecting posts with potentially false information. The photo has been posted several times even as early as 2015, and is being circulated again as of posting. is 135 feet long and 3 inches and about 3,000 kgs.” Claim: A photo shows the world’s biggest anaconda found in the province of Zamboanga Sibugay, Philippines.Īn image of a large snake surrounded by people was posted on Facebook with the caption: “ biggest anaconda snake found in the Philippines in Zamboanga Sibugay province.
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