'Golden Eagle Snatches Kid'

An image-forgery detection authority has concluded that a dramatic video of an eagle trying to carry off a child, titled "Golden Eagle Snatches Kid" isn't real, but instead is partially computer generated.

The video, which spread quickly around the Internet, frightening park-going new parents everywhere, was the work of four 3D-animation students Normand Archambault, Loic Mireault, and Felix Marquis-Poulin, pupils at Centre NAD (National Animation and Design Center) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The tools of digital design have great control over our perception of reality. We want things to be real, and digital design techniques are capable of making the unreal look perfectly real. The emotional awe we experience suspends belief of what is likely the truth behind the scenes. We have seen it and therefore believe it.

Take a look at a few of these viral videos that seemed so real but were in fact well choreographed performances of digital design.