Greta Thunberg, time traveler
November 21, 2019
Twitter blew up a tiny bit this week after users identified a girl in an old photo as Greta Thunberg. The similarity between the climate activist and the girl in the picture is striking, right down to the long braids the two wear.
The original image is part of the University of Washington Libraries' photo collection. It is credited to photographer Eric A. Hegg and titled "Three children operating a rocker at a gold mine on Dominion Creek, Yukon territory, ca. 1898."
Hegg was a Swedish-American photographer who documented the Klondike and Alaska gold rushes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The real deal
DW investigated the photo for telltale signs of fakery but was unable to find any.
A reverse-image search showed the same picture has been used in the past, long before Greta Thunberg began her "school strike for the climate" in 2018, in which she made her name as an activist.
Read more: Greta Thunberg, the teenage eco-activist who took the world by storm
A forensic investigation of the photo showed no signs of manipulation (see top photo).
A Facebook user posted the picture on November 8, writing that she had seen it at Seattle's Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination. The image with comments about time travel appeared days later on Twitter.