In May 2025, online users shared a rumor claiming a video authentically showed a helicopter pilot's view of dozens of massive anacondas swimming in a river.
For example, on May 27, an X user posted (archived) the 10-second clip with the caption, "INSANE Footage Captured from Helicopter in the Amazon! Could this be REAL footage of the legendary Titanoboa, the largest snake to ever exist." The post received nearly 9 million views. Other users also shared the video with similar captions on Facebook, Instagram and X.
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no reports from news media outlets about this specific clip. Had a videographer genuinely captured such a striking video, the footage would likely have appeared on televised newscasts and news websites.
The video displayed signs of someone generating the clip with an artificial-intelligence tool. For example, the pilot's controls do not legibly display any letters or numbers. Also, the video shows at least one anaconda visible in the center of the clip appearing to move not over but through another snake, as if the second snake doesn't occupy physical space. Further, that second snake features heads on both ends of its body, as opposed to having a head and a tail — a mistake made by the generative-AI tool.
One of the anacondas in the video appears to slice through another one of the snakes, which displays heads on both ends. (Image courtesy of Alhaji Jay Tee/Facebook)
A reverse-image search with Google Images for the first frame from the clip located numerous users reposting the footage. One of those search results displayed a May 11 post (archived) with the video from Instagram's Jonathan Michaud @wonderful_midjourney — a handle referencing the generative-AI platform Midjourney. The post received more than 222 million views, and featured a caption reading in part, "INSANE Footage Captured from Helicopter in the Amazon!" The caption also referenced the extinct giant snake Titanoboa.
Snopes sent a private message to Michaud via their Etsy page to confirm they created the video and will update this story if we learn more details.
Second anaconda video post receives 23 million views
A TikTok search for similar clips posted in May 2025 found results for other AI-generated videos showing massive anacondas, all supposedly taken from helicopters. Some of the clips depicted anacondas as measuring many times longer in length and wider in girth than their actual maximum recorded dimensions.
One TikTok video (archived) allegedly showing a helicopter pilot's view of a single, distant anaconda received more than 23 million views from just one upload of the clip. An X user sharing the same video (archived) also received more than 6 million views. The clip displayed at least one sign someone potentially generated its contents with AI. At the 8-second mark, the video displays a second snake's body coming out of an area somewhat near its head. By the 11-second mark, that second body disappears. Also, separate from the visuals, the audio track repeats a sound effect of a helicopter engine starting up — something that wouldn't occur midflight.
According to National Geographic, green anacondas belong to the boa family, originated in South America and can potentially grow to measure 20 to 30 feet in length and weigh up to 550 pounds, with females outsizing males. Brittanica published that although anacondas occasionally attack people, such encounters are rare.
For further reading, previous fact checks examined both fake and genuine videos of large snakes, including clips depicting the reptiles chasing a man on a street and crawling from the roof of a house to a tree.