This photo of the Old Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington was actually taken in September, not during Hurricane Sandy. )(Courtesy Karin Markert)
Courtesy Karin Markert
This real photo was posted on Instagram by Anna Dorfman, with username doorsixteen, of the Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn, Ny. It has the caption, "PM. Plymouth St & lower park areas flooded, water now breaching carousel. #dumbo #brooklyn #sandy" (doorsixteen via Instagram)
doorsixteen via Instagram
NY-SUPERTORMENTA Photos like these may look fake, but they are real. This one was taken in New York City on Monday night. (AP/John Minchillo)
AP/John Minchillo
Superstorm Sandy A 168-foot water tanker, the John B. Caddell, sits on the shore Tuesday morning, Oct. 30, 2012 where it ran aground on Front Street in the Stapleton neighborhood of New York's Staten Island as a result of superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Sean Sweeney)
AP Photo/Sean Sweeney
Superstorm Sandy A fallen tree rests beside a parked car on East Broadway in Manhattan's Lower East Side neighborhood, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. New York City awakened Tuesday to a flooded subway system, shuttered financial markets and hundreds of thousands of people without power a day after a wall of seawater and high winds slammed into the city, destroying buildings and flooding tunnels. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
AP Photo/John Minchillo
APTOPIX Superstorm Sandy Waves pound a lighthouse on the shores of Lake Erie Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, near Cleveland. High winds spinning off the edge of superstorm Sandy took a vicious swipe at northeast Ohio early Tuesday, uprooting trees, cutting power to hundreds of thousands, closing schools and flooding parts of major commuter arteries that run along Lake Erie. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
AP Photo/Tony Dejak
APTOPIX Superstorm Sandy Cars are submerged at the entrance to a parking garage in New York's Financial District in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. New York City awakened Tuesday to a flooded subway system, shuttered financial markets and hundreds of thousands of people without power a day after a wall of seawater and high winds slammed into the city, destroying buildings and flooding tunnels. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
AP Photo/Richard Drew
Superstorm Sandy Sand and debris covers the streets near the water in Atlantic City, N.J., Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm which was downgraded from a hurricane just before making landfall, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Superstorm Sandy A park floods along the Susquehanna River in Havre de Grace, Md. is flooded as the aftermath of superstorm Sandy continues to disrupt routines on the East Coast Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)
WASHINGTON – As the hurricane raged toward shore Monday, a number of incredible photos created a storm of response on social media. But as some may have wondered, many of them were too incredible to be real.
One photo out of D.C., picked up and passed around Monday wasn’t what it seemed.
The photo shows the Old Guard standing at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington as rain pours around them.
Unfortunately, the photo isn’t related to Hurricane Sandy. It wasn’t even taken in October.
The photo is from a changing-of-the-guard ceremony at the tomb in September, photographed by Karin Merkert, a military spouse. Many news organizations and social media users thought it was taken during Hurricane Sandy.
While Merkert says it was unexpected that her older photo was picked up and shared Monday, she is happy it brought deserved attention to the Old Guard, who were working through the storm.
“It was nice to recognize not only were the guard in the Tomb yesterday, they were also participating in funerals at Arlington National Cemetary, filling thousands of sandbags, prepositioning sandbags … They were very busy yesterday,” Merkert says.
In response to the photo’s popularity, the Old Guard responded to multiple re- tweets of the doctored photo, and released new photos ahead of the storm.
As misleading photos go, it wasn’t the only one. As Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast, more doctored photos began making their own waves on social media. The Atlantic did some digging and discovered which were real and which were fake.
As the Atlantic reports, the fake photos come in three types: Real photos taken long before the storm that were re-released in anticipation of Sandy, Photoshopped photos that are not real and a combination of old photos that are Photoshopped pictures being sent out again.
That said, there are plenty of real photos of storm damage. There is the photo of a facade that fell off a New York apartment building, leaving it looking like a dollhouse; the photo of flood waters rushing into the Hoboken, N.J. PATH station and another photo of water spilling into the construction site at Ground Zero. Those are all real.
The photos of sharks swimming in New Jersey’s flood waters are not.
For more storm photo confusion, check out Buzzfeed’s story featuring the notorious images often sent circulating onto social media during bad weather.
