What was claimed
A video shows the water of the River Nile has turned red.
Our verdict
False. The video shows a lagoon in Chile known for its red-pink water.
Facebook posts show lagoon in Chile, not ‘blood red’ River Nile
23 November 2023
A video is being shared on social media with false claims it shows water in the River Nile has turned red.
The video shows a large body of pinky-red water with hills visible in the background. It has been shared across social media platforms—including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok—with claims it shows the River Nile in northeastern Africa.
Multiple posts have shared the video with references to passages in the Bible where water is turned into blood. One post describes the water in the video as “blood red”. Several posts suggest this comes as a kind of religious sign with one post saying “for all us believing people we know what this means”, while another post uses the hashtags “God”, “bible” and “prophecy”. There are several references in the Bible to the water in the River Nile turning into blood.
The same video has also been shared on TikTok with the claim it shows a “River in Palestine”.
However, neither of these claims are true. The video actually shows the Laguna Roja in Chile, which translates to the Red Lagoon.
The view at timestamp 0:07 in the video on social media can also be seen in a YouTube clip captioned “Laguna Roja”, while the same view at 0:14 seconds can also be seen in photos of the lagoon on a Chilean travel agency website. There are many other images and videos of the lagoon available online. Mexican media outlet Millenio has confirmed the viral video shows the Chilean lagoon
There is reportedly no conclusive explanation as to why the water is red, although research suggests it is likely due to the presence of sediments and certain algae.
Full Fact could find no recent reports of the River Nile, or the Jordan River in Israel and the West Bank, turning red.
Full Fact has seen many miscaptioned images and videos as part of our work countering online misinformation. This is especially common during significant global events such as natural disasters or conflicts. It’s always important to check whether content shared on social media shows what it claims to before sharing it online—we’re written guides on how to do this here and here.
Image courtesy of Kateregga1
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the video shows the Laguna Roja in Chile, not the River Nile.