In the past couple of days, you may have seen what appears to be footage of Disney World’s Cinderella Castle on fire. Big if true, right?!
That footage was posted to Instagram by an outlet calling itself “Mouse Trap News,” and shows a clip of black smoke billowing from the castle towers before cutting to a still image of the castle at night engulfed in flames. “A lot of people are claiming that Disney intentionally started this fire,” announces the voiceover on the video.
Nope and nope! Cinderella Castle is very much still there.
The video looks fake (the bit about Spirit Halloween might have tipped you off, too) and it is. Such is the cultural weight that Disney holds that you would expect a burnt-out Cinderella castle to be front-page news as soon as it happened, but there’s been none of that. Rest assured, this was merely a piece of pretty lazy satire. The footage of the smoke pouring from the castle was most likely taken after a fireworks show, and the image of the flames is probably a Photoshop or AI job.
Snopes, which is your one-stop shop for debunking dodgy fake videos, has picked up the story too:
Snopes compared that footage, which did not show active flames, to videos of firework shows at Cinderella Castle and determined that a firework show was the likely origin of the footage.
As for the photos showing flames within the castle, Snopes could not find an exact match using a reverse image search. We concluded that these photos were either edited by hand to add the flames or created by an AI art generator.
What is Mouse Trap News?
The site that caused this minor commotion advertises itself as a satire site, though it’s unclear they actually know what that word means. From the site’s “about” page:
Mouse Trap News is the world’s best satire and parody site. We write fake stories about Disney Parks stuff. From Disney Park announcements to Disney Hotel and resort news to made-up Disney partnerships, you can be assured that anything you read here is not true, real, or accurate, but it is fun. So technically our slogan The Moused Trusted Name in Disney News isn’t true, but we thought it was creative and funny, so we are running with it.
Mouse Trap News was created on a whim to have some fun and write stories about Disney we wish were true. Some Disney sites write deceptive stories for clicks. We write 100% made-up parody and satire stories for your enjoyment. We also hope that Disney sees how much people like some of our stories and decide to actually make one of our stories a reality!
While you read our articles, be sure to keep your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and remember these are strictly fictional for your enjoyment.
The front page currently contains headlines such as “Disney Officially Launches Only Fans with Adult Content” and “BREAKING: Mickey Mouse is Running For President of The US.” There’s not a shred of real Disney news in there.
This is not to say that fire incidents don’t actually happen at the Disney parks occasionally, though. Back in 2018, a parade float dragon caught fire in front of everyone, and then in 2022 another dragon met its demise during the Fantasmic fireworks show. That was a serious enough incident for Disney to release a statement saying, “The continued safety of our cast and guests is of the utmost importance.”
Plenty of footage exists of those two incidents and you can hear and see people being concerned in the background. But in the “castle fire” video, nothing, no reactions at all. Disney World doesn’t dull your senses that much, come on.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
