By Chayan Kundu: The race to develop a cure for Covid-19 is in full swing with more than 150 coronavirus vaccine candidates being developed worldwide, 26 of them in the human trial phase.
On social media, a message has gone viral warning people not to use the Covid-19 vaccine as a microchip will be implanted in the body along with the vaccine. In a video accompanying the post, a man claiming to be a project engineer says he was part of the team that developed the microchip.
The nearly 8-minute-long video clip has been posted by several Facebook users with the caption, "A project engineer who made the microchip that will soon be implemented along with the covid vaccine WARNS US NOT TO TAKE IT. Please listen carefully to his story and his message in this video.. After watching, please share also to save lives. God bless!"
Referring to the Bible, the speaker claims over a million dollars of taxpayers' money was spent on the chip but no one should take it as it is a "mark of the beast".
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the video to be almost 12 years old. The speech was being given by an American pastor named Carl Sanders. It is true that he was speaking about microchips but there was no reference to Covid-19.
The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here.
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A closer look at the video gives us more reasons to be suspicious about the viral claim. The video has been altered as there are several jump cuts. At 7 minutes and 17 seconds, the audience behind the speaker and interpreter disappeared, and so did the flower on the pulpit in front of the speaker.
The speaker, at no point in the video, says the microchip will be implanted along with the Covid-19 vaccine. In fact, he doesn't mention Covid-19 or coronavirus in his entire speech.
With the help of InVID and reverse image search, we found that the video is at least 12 years old. The original video is much longer than the viral one and was uploaded in several parts on YouTube.
The entire speech by American pastor Carl Sanders was uploaded by multiple YouTubers in several parts.
One such YouTube video, posted in 2008, is titled "Carl Sanders – Mark of The Beast (666) [Part 3 / 28]". In this original video, we found his speech on the microchip was being interpreted simultaneously by another man. But these interpretations were edited out in the viral video.
Using relevant keywords, we found articles published as early as 2002 on Carl Sanders's theory of the impending danger of microchip implantation in humans.
As per these articles, Dr. Carl W. Sanders was an electronics engineer and an inventor, who had worked for many government organisations and private firms such as IBM and General Electric. For 32 years, he had worked in the field of bio-medicine, focusing on microchips.
But the viral video is in no way connected to the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier, global news agency Reuters had debunked a conspiracy theory that claimed microchips would be implanted with Covid-19 vaccines.
A project engineer who made a microchip that will be implanted in a Covid patient along with the vaccine has warned us not to take it.
The video is of one Pastor Carl Sanders and almost 12 years old. Its content has no relation to Covid-19. There is no evidence that a potential vaccine will include a microchip.
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