Fact Checked: Yellowstone Accident Did NOT Unleash Lava Geyser

Local satire social media page, Casper Planet, has once again put the country in a state of confusion.

Recently (Sunday, April 27th, 2025), one of their posts has gone viral. It shows a very convincing photo of oil drilling equipment on fire, next to an erupting volcano, with very Yellowstone National Park-like trees in the background. The words "BREAKING YELLOWSTONE DRILLING ACCIDENT UNLEASES LAVA GEYSER".

The average Casper resident knows (almost immediately), that posts like these are for comedic purposes only, but there are the conspiracy theorists that buy into these types of hilarious posts, without doing any research (like double checking that the original source who published it doesn't clearly say satire on their homepage).

The post has already been shared over 3400 times and garnered almost 600 comments.

Also, the post was stolen (at least once), and shared by a woman from Atlanta, Georgia, Lily Knight, and shared as her own. That version has been shared an additional 1500+ times, even making it's way back to Casper audiences.

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Apparently, the post was so believable that fact checking website, Lead Stories, did a complete write up to debunk it.

For those that are interested, it is worth noting that drilling for profit in Yellowstone National Park (or any national park), is generally prohibited and is protected area under the National Park Service "9B rules", with a mandate to preserve it for future generations. This includes protecting its natural resources and ecosystems.

Personally, I love Casper Planet and think it's truly entertaining whenever these stories take off. It really does prove how gullible a large portion of our country truly is.