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Viral Story On Married Couple Who Are Twins Appears To Be Fake

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A story that’s going viral claims that a married couple who supposedly found out that they were biological twins through IVF appears to be fake.

The article, published in the Mississippi Herald on Thursday, was picked up by media outlets all over the world, MirrorOnline reports. It said that a man and a woman who had been married for years went to a fertility clinic, after which it was discovered in a routine DNA test that they were biological twins.

The same story had no byline, and the information reportedly came from an unnamed doctor at an unnamed clinic in Jackson, Mississippi. But readers were quick to pick up on the fact that there appeared to be no newspaper or online news source called the Mississippi Herald.

According to the Mississippi Sun-Herald, a publication which has been in circulation since 1884, “There is not a Mississippi Herald.” The Night editor, Kim Anderson, confirmed this. “Our web editor is aware of this story and the Mississippi Herald appears to be the only source of this news.”

Anderson added, “We’ve certainly never heard of the Mississippi Herald, there’s certainly no bricks and mortar building to my knowledge. We suspect it’s a fake news story.”

Other indications are proof of this, including that the supposed news outlet only started publishing stories on April 10. In addition, there are no phone numbers, email addresses or physical addresses, and the doctor or clinic involved cannot be found. The MirrorOnline asked for a comment from the Mississippi Herald using a generic online form.

A similar story came out in the Denver Inquirer in December of 2016. This publication had an identical design and layout, and also did not have any way to be contacted.

Other media outlets, mostly online, have continued to run the story, which has gone viral and has since garnered worldwide attention.

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