Debunked: 'First' FEMA Camp opens in Arizona

[Graham2001]

First up the original story as it appeared on a Fake News site ('The National Report') seeking to keep the 'Jade Helm' clicks'a comin and which was repeated by various people as 'real news'.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has officially opened their first "Political Realignment Facility," more famously known as a "concentration camp" or "death camp," in an area southwest of Willcox, Arizona on Thursday, according to an official FEMA press release. The agency plans on opening another four such facilities in 2015, and plans to have twelve up and running before the 2016 elections.

The first facility, designated as "Camp Alpha," is built on nearly 500 acres of Federal property near the Chiricahua national park in southwest Arizona. FEMA says the camp can hold as many as 10,000 Americans

http://www.donotlink.com/gy6j

The debunking thanks to the people at Snopes.com

As the portion excerpted made clear, the all-caps "WARNING" issued by the site was in actuality based on an article from the fake news site National Report. Digging a tiny bit further revealed that the "breaking" update originally appeared on that satirical web site on 22 March 2015 (so it was hardly even an imminent fabricated threat), from an article titled "FEMA's First Concentration Camp Officially Opens In Arizona."

http://m.snopes.com/obama-opens-first-concentration-camp/

 

[NoParty]

Besides...attitude is soooooo important!

 

[Heather S.]

Listening to CTists for years now, I figured they had already been opened.

 

[Trailblazer]

Nice of them to include a swimming pool for the inmates. Or is that the governor's house?

 

[TheRevWells]

I still, to this day, cannot believe people will fall for that site and their news. Heck, one of their headlines was just - Sarah Palin bans Muslim's from entering Bristol Palin - I do wonder how long before the CT's grab that one and go with it. Despite The National Report stating that their site is satire, people still believe its "news".

 

[derrick06]

I've seen people believe the Onion as real news. They ran a fake article about a microchip being found in Napoleon Bonaparte's skull and people were literally believing in when it is a known fact that the onion is purely for entertainment purposes. It's sad how gullible people are.

 

[Chew]

NaturalNews fell for an article by World News Daily Report about Monsanto genetically-engineering ants to replace honeybees but gave it their own idiosyncratic twist on it: "Monsanto wants to replace the bees they are killing with genetically engineered flying ants".

They even wrote,

The following quotes are from the World New Daily Report.

NaturalsNews link: http://www.donotlink.com/gjp9 ( https://archive.is/2uwKO )

World News Daily Report: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/gen...ld-replace-honey-bees-claims-monsanto-expert/

 

[Graham2001]

I still, to this day, cannot believe people will fall for that site and their news. Heck, one of their headlines was just - Sarah Palin bans Muslim's from entering Bristol Palin - I do wonder how long before the CT's grab that one and go with it. Despite The National Report stating that their site is satire, people still believe its "news".

The Strange Frequencies Radio covered the whole phenomenon in their latest episode, the example they started with was a bogus quote attributed to a Democratic Senator about Gun Control, which had as shown on the Snopes page linked below came from a fake news site. What it looks like is that people will repeat (even if told it is false) that which supports their personal beliefs.

Strange Frequencies Radio (Episode 355): https://strangefrequenciesradio.wordpress.com/2015/12/13/sfr-355-the-madding-crowd/

Snopes (Gunman Gambit): http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/feinstein.asp


Also last year, Sharon Hill when she was a member of the Virtual Skeptics discussed another Fake News site (Cryptozoology News) that was getting its material repeated in the mainstream press.