Bear chasing a snowboarder caught on video?
Real or "Revenant"? A viral video of a bear running after an oblivious snowboarder may be a hoax but is still entertaining.
A video of an Australian woman snowboarding while singing Rihanna's "Work" -- with a bear in pursuit -- has roused the doubters.
In the video description, Kelly Murphy wrote: "OMG! I was going through my snowboarding videos and I found a bear chasing me!!! I nearly got eaten!!! This was at Hakuba 47 in Japan, filmed yesterday! Be careful people!!!"
When watching the YouTube video, which starts out as a typical snowboard GoPro selfie footage, the ride down the mountain takes on a more sinister note when in the background it appears that a bear has decided to chase a clueless Murphy on her snowboard.
The dramatic video, posted Sunday, has become a viral sensation, racking up nearly 2.4 million views and counting. But some viewers aren't convinced of the video's authenticity and question whether the bear was added to the footage digitally.
Is that a real or digital bear chasing a snowboarder down a mountain?
According to urban legend debunking blog Snopes.com, not only does the bear element of the video seem to appear and reappear thanks to computer-generated images, but the audio of the bear is unrealistic.
"The bear's intermittent (and ominous) growl appears to be at the same volume regardless of its distance from the snowboarder," Dan Evon of Snopes wrote. "It's also unlikely that the camera could capture such clear audio of the bear galloping while Murphy made her way down the hill. While the video features clear audio of Murphy singing, the bear growling, and the bear running, wind interference (which should be clearly audible) is noticeably absent."
Not only is the footage hard to believe as legit, according to Snopes, but brown bears aren't even common in the Nagano region of Japan where the video was supposedly shot. Japan has two species of bears -- Asian black bear and the Ussuri brown bear -- and the latter lives 500 miles away from Nagano, in Hokkaido.
Even though the facts are stacked against this video being the real deal, Murphy stands by the video shot during her vacation at a Japanese ski resort.
"The video is real," Murphy told CNET. "I couldn't believe it myself when I watched it back but there it was! So scary! I'm going to stick to the easy slopes with my friends from now on, no more back country runs."