This viral video of the Gyro Drop ride is fake

A viral video shared on Instagram in March shows what appears to be a terrifying freefall tower amusement park ride labeled the “Gyro Drop.”

In the video, which has more than 330,000 likes, a circular disc carries riders up a tall tower. As it nears the top, the riders drop down on bungee-like cords and the disc spins, swinging the riders out and around the tower.  Similar versions of the same video have been circulating on social media since 2019.

Some of the people in the comments of the viral video claim it’s fake.

“That video is fake. The ride doesn't do all of that!” one person said.

THE QUESTION

Is this viral video of the Gyro Drop ride real?

THE SOURCES

• Lotte World Adventure, an amusement park in Seoul, South Korea
• Lotte World Adventure's official Facebook and YouTube pages
• Videos of the real Gyro Drop ride from 2006, 2011, 2013 and 2016
• TinEye, reverse image search
• InVID, reverse video search
• Google Maps

THE ANSWER

No, this viral video of the Gyro Drop ride is not real.

WHAT WE FOUND

The viral video of the Gyro Drop ride is fake. It is unclear who created the fake video, but the first instance VERIFY found of the fake video online was posted in 2019 by Lotte World Adventure, an amusement park in Seoul, South Korea, presumably as a publicity stunt to draw attention to its real Gyro Drop ride.

Lotte World Adventure shared the fake video on its official Facebook and YouTube pages on June 13, 2019, which is the same day it started to go viral on social media, according to TinEye, a reverse image search tool. The fake video also shows the tower of the ride extending to double in height, high above the nearby high-rise buildings. When translated from Korean to English, the YouTube video’s caption partially reads, “Real or fake? What if the Gyro Drop doubled?”

The real Gyro Drop is a 230-foot freefall tower-style ride that carries about 40 people, according to information found on Lotte World Adventure’s website. Unlike the ride portrayed in the fake video, the real Gyro Drop does not double in height nor does it swing riders around. Instead, it takes seated riders to the top of the tower and spins them around before it quickly drops back down to the ground. When geolocating the real Gyro Drop using Google Maps, VERIFY found the ride remained at this height.

On its website, Lotte World Adventure describes the ride as: “Thrill of nose-diving, starting from a height where it almost touches the sky! The first playing facility in Korea for high-altitude, free-fall experience.” Click here to watch a video of the real Gyro Drop ride.

Lotte World Adventure has shared videos of the real Gyro Drop ride on its official YouTube page several times over the years, including in 2011, 2013 and 2016. VERIFY also found other videos of the real ride online.

One video, which is titled “Gyro Drop, Lotte World, Jamsil, Seoul, South Korea,” was posted on YouTube in 2006. In that video, the Gyro Drop ride slowly takes about 40 seated riders to the top and spins them around before dropping them back down to the ground.

Other news outlets, including Lead Stories, CNN and Snopes also labeled the viral video as fake in their own independent fact-checks in 2019. VERIFY reached out to Lotte World Adventure for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.