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There are a lot of conspiracy theories going around about Covid-19. We've seen people claim there was a patent filed for the coronavirus in 2015 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, snorting cocaine can prevent it, drinking silver or injecting disinfectant can cure it, and the virus came from space on an asteroid. Spoiler alert, no the coronavirus did not come from space.
A new fun one that has surfaced claims that Captain America predicted the pandemic, or the people making the movie knew it was going to happen and dropped clues into the franchise as a neat little Easter egg for true Covid-19 fans.
First off, yes that is a screengrab of a real scene from the first Captain America movie. An image of a Corona beer advert and a fuzzy image of something resembling anything from Covid-19 to a firework doesn't quite warrant a "let that sink in" moment but it's a conspiracy theory that's taken off nonetheless, with the image being posted across the Internet.
Corona beer could probably change its name to "Gonorrhea Juice" right now and see its sales increase, but back when the film was released – and before the pandemic somewhat ruined its branding – it was quite popular. So that explains the billboard on the left. But what of the suspicious image on the right?
Well, enter TV critic turned Internet sleuth, William Mullally. Mullally was sent the conspiracy theory and decided to dig a little deeper, to try and figure out what the hell was going on. We're sure glad he did, because the explanation was great.
At first, he thought that the billboard was from the cover of Divergent, a young adult book series that was popular around 2011 when the movie came out, but it didn't quite fit. Then he managed to get a clearer image of what was on the billboard, which looked oddly familiar but still identifiable.
Despite pinning down the date of filming and looking at other films that were out from around that date, nothing looked like the mysterious Covid-19 billboard.
"I started watching random YouTube videos and looking for images from April 2011 in Times Square," Mullally explained in a Twitter thread. "No clear view of the poster. Wes started scouring Bing and Google street view."
Let's have a closer look.
And now for the big reveal.
Conspiracy theorists have been losing their shit about an image of a bottle of beer and some spaghetti. You love to see it.
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