In February 2025, the story of a young man from Krasnodar began to gain popularity on the Web, who allegedly discovered two brilliant objects on the seashore, who turned out to be shells with pearls inside. We decided to check if these publications correspond to reality.

The story of an amazing find of a successful teenager became popular primarily by VKontakte users. Publications about her are gaining thousands of likes and reposts and millions of views, for example, in groups "Fitness for the brain | Facts"(5.2 million views at the time of writing this analysis),"Interesting from the world"(5.1 million), EVERYDAY BULLSHT (3.6 million), ""Dangerous land ..."(1.4 million) and others wrote about this and users of others social networks. The text in most posts is identical: “A teenager from Krasnodar discovered two brilliant objects on the seashore, which turned out to be shells. Inside them lay large black pearls, its size was 5 cm. The jewelry house, estimating the find, offered 27 million rubles for it. It turned out that the shell is over a thousand years old. ” Most publications are illustrated by three pictures of certain round brilliant objects.

“Verified” failed to find the news about the millennial shells found with pearls in any authoritative Russian media or on the information portal - both federal and regional. There are no details in viral posts that could help verify the information: neither the name of the young man, nor an indication of the place where the find allegedly occurred, nor the name of the jewelry house, presumably so highly evaluating it. The only thing that can at least somehow help with the search for additional information is photos.

The reverse search for the image of Google Images indicates that all the pictures appeared on the Internet long before the history we are considering. The image with a large brilliant ball was the first time Published In British Media In 2019. Journalists reported that then the British amateur archaeologist Aaron Smith found several fossils on the beach in Yorkshire, one of which belonged to the Jurassic period-its age was about 185 million years old. The differences from the viral news are not only in the origin of her protagonist and the place of the find: the golden ball was not at all a thousand-year-old shell, but with a mineral pyrite (it is sometimes also called gold of fools because of the appearance, distant resembling gold). There was no pearl inside either, but there were fossilized remains of Clevicras - extinct head -legged mollusks.

Despite the fact that the second photo with two brilliant balls in media publications about the find of Aaron Smith is not found, it was done to him and, apparently, also in Yorkshire. Amateur archaeologist Published He was on his Instagram on January 10, 2019 and noted that inside the mysterious balls were the ammonites Eleganticras (another name for the same Clevicras), which, according to Smith, can only be found in Yorkshire. Smith's account posts hundreds of posts with photos and videos dedicated to other archaeological surveys and interesting finds.

As for the last photo with a black pearl, allegedly estimated at 27 million rubles, then it is also Used The network has not been the first year, and has been found in thematic Collections Among other images of this precious stone. Presumably, it was first published in one of the ads in the online store "Fair of Masters", Where goods for creativity are sold, including remarks of precious stones. Moreover, the pearl size specified in the announcement is far from the 5 cm viral publications - it amounted to only 2.18 carats (about 8.5 mm).

The earliest publication with the story of a successful teenager, found “verified”, was done on April 8, 2024 in the group “Obi"On the social network" VKontakte "(487,000 views). This group is not the first time for the first time it became the primary source partially or completely invented news, which then spread widely over the network. For example, "verified" already Disassembled A fictional story about the resident of Kamchatka, who went to the forest for mushrooms, and found a treasure in the amount of 79 million rubles. The first publication about this find also appeared in the Ob group, and after some time it scattered along other sites.

Thus, “verified” did not find evidence that a teenager from Krasnodar found a shell on the seashore for more than a thousand years with unique large pearls inside. No details with which this story could be confirmed is not given in the posts, and the only clue - photographs - definitely have nothing to do with the published story.

Photo on the cover: social networks