WATCH: Montana River Lightning Strike Not What It Seems

Earlier this week my wife showed me a video that supposedly shows what happens when lightning hits water. The video claims to have been taken in Montana during a storm when lightning struck the water and caused a massive explosion of water. I watched it a few times, and really it looks awesome and like something you’d see in a Michael Bay war movie. This led us to look up what actually happens when lightning hits water, because we have always been told it is dangerous. Apparently it isn’t as dangerous as in this video though.

While the video is convincing, maybe because we want it to be real, it is fake. Sort of. The video is real, but it wasn’t a lightning strike in Montana. It also isn’t a new video. 

If you search for ‘porapaalutusta’ on Youtube the same video shows up from back in 2012. That’s where the truth comes in and we learned that it was a video from a Finnish drilling company, not an act of God. They set explosives in the river to deepen it for better water passage.

A news crew also investigated this story about three years ago and got into the science of how to know it is fake and what really happens when lightning hits water. So it’s not a lightning strike video or from the United States, but still a super cool video to watch a few times.