A photo supposedly showing a "fire rainbow" lighting up the sky above Alaska was shared to Facebook in July 2024.
That post had amassed more than 42,000 reactions as of this writing.
The picture also appeared on other platforms, such as X, Instagram, Threads and Reddit.
Multiple artificial intelligence (AI) image detection tools concluded the photo was likely generated using AI or photo editing software.
Together, IsItAI?, AI Image Detector, AI Detect Content and Hive Moderation determined that there was a 69-81% chance the picture was AI-generated or created using deepfake software.
(Clockwide from top left): AI Detect Content, Hive Moderation, IsItAI?, AI Image Detector)
However, this alone did not confirm that the photo was digitally created.
The earliest example we found of the "fire rainbow" photo was posted to Facebook on July 19, 2024, by an account called The Space Academy, a self-described "digital creator" whose page included the following disclaimer:
All about Space. Some images may be depictions with sole purpose of sparking interest in Space and nature. #artwork
A link in The Space Academy's Intro directed users to TheSpaceAcademy.org, a website that, as of this writing, does not allow users to access its "About" page.
Snopes contacted The Space Academy to ask whether the image in question was real or if it was one of its "depictions." We will update this article if we receive a response, but, until then, we have rated this claim as research in progress.
The so-called fire rainbow phenomenon is a genuine atmospheric occurrence, technically known as a circumhorizontal arc, however it has nothing to do with fire, according to the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Below are three examples of circumhorizontal arcs posted by the department, collected in northern Idaho (left) and Portugal (middle) in 2006, and Michigan (right) in 2008.
(Snopes compilation/UCSB Geography)
The World Meteorological Organization noted that a circumhorizontal arc extends parallel to the horizon, adding that it only occurs when the elevation of the light source is more than 58 degrees. In locations north or south of 58 degrees latitude, the circumhorizontal arc cannot be seen because the sun is not at the correct angle.
Latitude measures the horizontal coordinates around the globe. The 58th parallel north is a circle of latitude 58 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane.
Hayley Drennon, a senior research assistant at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that only a small portion of Alaska sits below the 58 parallel north, as shown via the red line in the image below.
(Drennon)
Given that some of Alaska does sit below the red line above, it remains possible that the picture in The Space Academy's post was captured in the U.S. state. Therefore, we could not reach a conclusive rating without confirmation from the Facebook page.
As Snopes reported in 2006, a circumhorizontal arc occurs when sunlight "passes through diaphanous, high-altitude cirrus clouds made up of hexagonal plate crystals." That article added:
Sunlight entering the crystals' vertical side faces and leaving through their bottom faces is refracted (as through a prism) and separated into an array of visible colors. When the plate crystals in cirrus clouds are aligned optimally (i.e., with their faces parallel to the ground), the resulting display is a brilliant spectrum of colors reminiscent of a rainbow.