Luigi Mangione’s viral countdown video is fake, YouTube says.

Have you seen the mysterious video with a countdown clock from Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old ‘person of interest’ in last week’s murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York? The video went viral on YouTube on Monday and gained attention on sites such as: hacker news. But it’s completely fake.

Mangione reportedly had a “manifesto” along with a ghost gun and was arrested Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He is charged with five crimes, including possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery, false identification to authorities and possession of instruments of crime, according to a criminal complaint. posted online. However, Mangione was not charged with Thompson’s murder and was never named as a suspect, despite the internet treating him as a murder suspect.

A video appeared Monday that appeared to come from a YouTube account linked to Mangione. It started with the words ‘truth’ and ‘if you see this, I’ve already been arrested.’ It features a countdown clock that initially counts from 5 to 1, then flips to 60, and continues counting down from there to 0.

The bottom right contains the word ‘soon’ and the date December 11th flashes briefly before disappearing again less than a second later. It ended with a message to be patient as everything is planned. “Goodbye for now.”

If you’re curious about what the actual video was like, Check it out hereI’m assuming YouTube doesn’t remove this video too. We promise we won’t try to fool anyone with that. However, after some hoaxes went viral and you missed it, it might be interesting to see what the fuss is about.

The account was created in January 2024, and it’s entirely possible that someone has set up an account of some sort. dead man’s switch—They schedule videos to be posted at a future time with the intention of stopping automatic posting if they are not arrested (or killed, or whatever scenario). However, YouTube confirmed to Gizmodo that it’s not real.

“We have terminated the channel in question because it violated our impersonation policy, which prohibits content intended to impersonate someone else on YouTube,” a spokesperson for the video platform told Gizmodo in an email Monday.

“Following widespread coverage of Luigi Mangione’s arrest, the channel’s metadata has been updated, including updates to the channel name and handle,” a spokesperson said. “We have also shut down three other channels owned by the suspect in accordance with our Creator Responsibility Guidelines.”

The spokesperson also noted that these accounts have been dormant for several months. Who is behind the video? Not yet known. But our money is on things related to cryptocurrency. Who knows?