iRumorMill.com Determination: Hoax
The video is quite funny but chances are that it was staged and very possibly with a fake iPhone.
According to a December 27, 2012 article by News.au, an Internet based news service in Australia, there are doubts that an iPhone would have been swallowed whole by the elephant. The article said that as soon as the video hit social media, many dubbed it a fake.
The
iRumorMill.com examined the video and noticed that in scenes before the iPhone
was eaten by the elephant there was no image on the phone's display. Normally,
when in camera node, you see an image. The iPhone in question may have been a
baked grain molded and dyed to resemble a mobile device.
Later when the phone is retrieved in the elephant's stall there did not appear to be any image on the phone as it was ringing while the elephant caretaker was wiping the dung from it.
The pros at NBC News thought it best to open up an investigation and contacted elephant expert Murray E. Fowler. Fowler is a professor emeritus at the UC-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and also credited as the co-editor of a textbook titled "Biology, Medicine and Surgery of Elephants." Fowler told NBC that he lost a car key to a peckish elephant and had to get a spare from the school where he worked. Four days later the missing key turned up in the elephant's stool. Fowler added that it could be possible for an elephant to eat a mobile phone but not to expect it back so soon. The NBC article said, "Experts say it takes between 18 hours and several days for an elephant's alimentary canal to do its work."
Also, there are stomach acids at work during the digestive process in all mamals. Smartphones are not water (or digestive enzyme) proof and the chances are that liquid immersion would probably have shorted out the iPhone, resulting in permanent damage.
Video found on YouTube
Posted 11/24/14
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