Even after the Calgary Herald's goof and apology, the above image and several others have making their viral way around the 'net, showing up on weblogs, message boards , even reportedly appearing on AOL's startup page and an Australian television network. It's hard to say where these things start, but a good guess might be somebody named Corey Koberg. Somewhere around Dec. 29, Koberg put up a bunch of dramatic shots, saying "These were taken by my former roommate's co-worker who was visiting Thailand." The site was quickly linked by a lot of people, including Instapundit (who quickly corrected himself) and, as recently as yesterday, the estimable BoingBoing.net (who still haven't corrected themselves).

Even though he's still getting approving links, Koberg's apparently feeling the e-mail heat. He's edited the sentence about the photos' provenance to say "These were forwarded to my (sic) by a friend, supposedly taken by a co-worker's friend who was visiting Thailand." And he's added an update to the page that says: "I've gotten tons of emails with opinions on the origins of these photos, although nothing which has conclusively proven it one way or another (despite adamant claims)."

Well, here's a September 16, 2002, page with the fleeing people image and what appears to be the original wire service cutline: "Spectators "flee" as huge waves of the Qiantangjiang River approach in east China's Zhejiang Province Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002. Huge tides occurred as Typhoon Sinlaku swept through the southern part of the East China Sea at 5:00 a.m. since last Saturday, with the maximum wind force of 40 meters per second. (AP Photo/Zhan Xiadong, XINHUA)". And here's Archive.org's archive of the Sept. 13, 2002, Drudge Report, which contains the image. And, just for overkill, here's some contemporaneous banter in the National Review's blog, The Corner, about Drudge's link.

Also, Snopes weighed in today with the determination that they're old photos from China.

Looks a lot like proof to me.

*Update: Koberg's come around. He says "Aaron R. has succeeded in proving to me that the pictures are not of the tsunami in Asia." And then says: "In the end time&place are only slightly relevant.  The original point of the images was to show the kinetic power of large masses of water, which is certainly still true." Sure! Facts, schmacts! An earthquake and tsunami and a couple hundred thousand dead people, a tidal bore and a few dozen wet people, the difference is only "slightly relevant"! It's all about the kinetics!

*Update2: Damon Kiesow, manager of photography for AOL, e-mails that the photos were never used on AOL's startup page or anywhere else on the service. They knew of the photos, but determined they weren't real. Obviously, I should have checked that out before publishing. I apologize for the error.

*Update3: Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing says that the link above was accidentally published instead of saved as a draft pending fact check. It was deleted within 5 seconds, she says, but it still went out on the RSS feeds. The post is no longer in the BB January archives, but for some reason you still get it if you go directly to the permalink. She says, and I quote, "Arrrgh!"