Fake-News Report Claims That Ruins of Viking Trade Center Found in Western Australia

This story was first published on November 5, 2015

According to a report that has been making its way around the Internet since August 2015, archaeologists working in Western Australia have unearthed the remains of an 11th century Viking settlement. The message claims that foundations of three large buildings and a number of artefacts discovered at a location near Derby were almost certainly the remains of a Viking colony.

The report features a photograph of the building foundations.

However, the claims in the message are utter nonsense. No Viking settlement has been discovered in Australia. The report is a work of fiction first published by the notorious fake-news website World News Daily Report (WNDR). Nothing published on the site should be taken seriously.

The site includes the following disclaimer in its About section:

WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.

The photograph does depict the remains of a Viking building but it was taken at the Belmont Longhouse Excavation in Shetland, not Western Australia.

An earlier – and equally fake – WNDR report claimed that the ruins of an ancient city had been discovered in an Australian desert. Another claimed – again falsely – that giant human skeletons had been found at a site near Uluru in central Australia.