Does a viral video show a real scene where lightning struck a fishing lake and caused a massive spout of water and many fish to fly high into the air? No, that's not true: This video was posted by a TikTok account which posts AI-generated videos with no disclaimer. Many of the videos feature unlikely scenarios involving wild animals -- at least four videos feature fishing scenes with explosive lightning strikes and flipping fish.
The video (archived here) was published by @helpsizis on Nov. 23, 2025. It was captioned:
Lightning Strikes the Lake and All the Fish Jump Out ⚡️🐟#fyp #tiktok #foryou #foryoupage #viral
This is a screenshot of the video:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from tiktok.com/@helpsizis/video/7575981058206813456.)
The composite image below shows the sequence of events in the brief video; a bolt of lightning strikes the water surface which shoots up a tall spout of water, then fish fly out of the water in the direction of the unflinching anglers.
(Image Source: Lead Stories composite image from tiktok.com/@helpsizis/video/7575981058206813456.)
This video was posted with no disclaimer. The account which published it, @helpsizis, has posted many AI-generated animal videos including lions, tigers and grizzly bears, sharks, hamsters, penguins, wolves and octopuses. In addition to the video in question, there are three more which feature a nearly identical sequence to the one pictured above (these are pictured below in the order mentioned). In one video (archived here), rather than a bolt of lightning, a man hurls a cartoonish fused explosive into the lake with the same end result. In another video (archived here) rather than a quick crack of lightning, the fishermen wonder in awe as they watch a blue ball descend slowly from the sky. In a third video (archived here) a fisherman in a boat is using his phone to film his friends in a second boat when a bolt of lighting hits very close, he seems to drop his phone in the water and does not react to his friend's near miss or the loss of his phone.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from tiktok.com/@helpsizis/video/7577072765908307216.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from tiktok.com/@helpsizis/video/7577671207336627457.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from tiktok.com@helpsizis/video/7570730265287347472.)
The National Weather Service has a page on lightning and fish (archived here) on the safety section of their website. It explains:
Bodies of water are frequently struck by lightning. So why don't all the fish die?
Before a lightning strike, a charge builds up along the water's surface. When lightning strikes, most of electrical discharge occurs near the water's surface.
Most fish swim below the surface and are unaffected. Although scientists don't know exactly just how deep the lightning discharge reaches in water, it's very dangerous to be swimming or boating during a thunderstorm.
