This giant sculpture of a baby in the womb was carved into a mountain near the town of Santo Domingo, Colombia, in 2012. Strangely, a photo of it is now going viral on Twitter, thanks to a tragic and totally false story about the man who carved it.
The @therealbanksy Twitter account, which has no connection with the artist of that name, shared the photo with a caption claiming it was "carved by a father who lost his wife and unborn child to a drunk driver." That tweet quickly racked up thousands of retweets.
The photo has in fact been making its way from one dubious Twitter photo account to another since July. That was the month when the @incredibleviews account first tweeted the photo and the false caption.
Each of the above tweets received thousands of retweets.
Of course, the false backstory has now also spread to Facebook.
But as noted by the @hoaxeye Twitter account, that's not why the artist, Dubian Monsalve, created the sculpture.
The background story is false. This sculpture titled "Pregnant Mountain" is a tribute to the woman that gives life… https://t.co/CspfG93M9P
Last year, a Catholic news website interviewed Monsalve about the carving. The website reported that the work "emerged first as a tribute to the residents of the area because their community was hit by violence (social crisis, political and drug trafficking) in the ’90s."
Monsalve said that after those difficult times, the community "returned to the fields, decided to plant again, and started living in the homes."
"It was like a tribute to being born again," he said.
He also said that the image of the baby in the womb represents his Christian conviction that "life has value from conception to its end."
After @therealbanksy tweeted the story with a false caption, people tried calling out the account for pushing a fake story.
People started warning others that it was fake.
