HAKUBA, Japan, April 13 (UPI) — A snowboarder using a selfie stick in Japan claims her footage shows a bear chasing her down the mountain — but the video’s authenticity is in question.
Australian woman Kelly Murphy posted a video to YouTube Sunday that purports to show a bear chasing her down a mountain at the Hakuba 47 winter sports park near Nagano while she obliviously sings along to Rihanna’s “Work.”
The bear eventually loses interest and calls off the chase when Murphy gets too far ahead of it.
“OMG! I was going through my snowboarding videos and I found a bear chasing me!!! I nearly got eaten!!!” Murphy wrote in the video’s description.
However, several online commenters have called the authenticity of the footage into question, with many arguing the bear appears computer-generated and its roars seem unrealistic.
Bear sightings in the area are not uncommon, but urban legend debunking site Snopes, which labeled the video’s authenticity as “unconfirmed,” said the type of bear seen in the video is not common in the Nagano area.
“While it’s possible that a snowboarder could encounter a bear in the Nagano prefecture of Japan in April, it would most likely be an Asiatic black bear. The animal featured in this, however, appears to be a brown bear,” the Snopes post says.
Murphy defended the video as authentic.
“The video is real,” she told CNET. “I couldn’t believe it myself when I watched it back but there it was! So scary! I’m going to stick to the easy slopes with my friends from now on, no more back country runs.”
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