A prominent Greek scientist is under investigation for spreading fake news following a Facebook post on April Fool’s Day warning that a sizable “funnel” could form beneath Santorini island.
The head of Greece’s Geodynamic Institute and Tsunami Center, Akis Tselentis, uploaded a photo of himself on Facebook on Wednesday in the stance of a mock mugshot while carrying a sign that said, “guilty of April Fool’s hoax.”
“We live in a country where humor is persecuted,” he added.
The controversial post on Facebook read:
“Unfortunately we are not doing well as far as Santorini is concerned. Since October we have been monitoring the island with 20 additional seismographs and we have noticed that since January we have had a gradual disappearance of the magma under the volcano. At the same time, on the opposite of the Earth, another volcano, the well-known Tripanteco, presents the opposite phenomenon according to the Japanese Institute of Volcanology. In other words, magma is rising.
“Recent measurements made by a team of Japanese volcanologists show that there is a high probability that all the magma that was under Santorini is moving towards the Tripanteko volcano in Pinokistan creating a huge funnel under Santorini.
“If this happens we will have the absorption of the waters of the Aegean which will turn into a lagoon with what this entails for tourism. Of course, this has its advantages because we will now be able to go to many islands by road! The probability of this happening is not at all negligible and exceeds 30%,” Tselentis wrote on April Fool’s Day.
Volcano April Fool’s joke “is criminalized”
On Tuesday, a prosecutor ordered a preliminary investigation to determine whether Tselentis’ April 1 posting qualified as spreading false news.
Speaking to MEGA, the Greek scientists blasted the decision by the prosecutor accusing him of selective targeting. “Should I laugh or cry? I should probably laugh. We are in a country where jokes are criminalized,” he said.
He added that prosecutors did not probe other Greek scientists who were, in all seriousness, predicting earthquakes.
“One year ago someone came out and said about a magnitude 7 earthquake in Thebes. It took me six months to calm people down. After the earthquakes in Turkey, some people came out and said they were expecting a magnitude 8 earthquake in the Ionian. Now they say in the middle of the tourist season that there will be a big earthquake in the Corinthian and Ionian Seas.”
On the possibility of being prosecuted, Akis Tselentis humorously commented “I wish I will be prosecuted, it will be great publicity for me.”
He said however that he believes the prosecutor will eventually understand that his post is humorous and fitting for April Fool’s Day.
Related: Can AI Predict Earthquakes?
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