Telephone wires stretch across the tops of buildings in what seems to be an empty street late at night. In the middle of the street, a reindeer’s enormous, orange antlers glow as bright as the neon pharmacy sign to its left.

 A July 9 Facebook post shared more than 50,000 times claimed this photo shows the result of an experiment by the Finnish government. According to the post, Finland painted the reindeer antlers with reflective paint to make them more visible to motorists and avoid collisions, which kill roughly 4,000 reindeer each year.

Many Facebook users were skeptical of the story, but it's real. The photo, however, is not.

The Reindeer Herder's Association, which operates under Finland's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, experimented with spraying reflective paint on reindeer fur and antlers in 2014. The test ultimately failed, but the organization has since found more success with an app that alerts drivers to reindeer crossings. 

However, the photo used in the post is not real – it's an illustration, made using 3D software by visual designer Vasjen Katro. The author of the viral Facebook post, Samit Parab, edited the post on July 15 to credit the artist, but other posts continue to present the photo as reality.

USA TODAY reached out to the people who posted the illustration for comment.

There's no doubt that the image attached to the post helped it go viral. But it's an illustration, done entirely using 3D software. 

Truth or Fiction, a research-based, myth-busting website,  found that Katro, a visual designer with over 127,000 followers on Instagram, posted the artwork in February 2020. As Katro notes in the post's caption, the idea came from an article about Finland's spray-paint experiment. 

“(The photo) is not real but I was inspired by the story I read on this last year,”  Katro told USA TODAY over Instagram.

The viral Facebook post initially didn't mention that the photo used is a 3D graphic or credited Katro. However, the author updated the post on July 15 to include that information. 

News outlets that covered the Finnish reindeer experiment have posted real photos of the reindeer. There are a few differences between the real photos and the version that Facebook users have attached to posts. 

The paint in Katro's illustration appears to glow on its own, but only outside sources of light like a car's headlights can illuminate the real reflective paint. And the Reindeer Herder's Association also tested the spray paint on the animals' coats, so it could be seen on their backs and in speckles on the rest of their bodies. 

Painting reindeer antlers with reflective paint is one of a number of methods the Finnish government has tried over the years to prevent the animals from dying in car crashes.

The herder's association reported 4,731 reindeer died this way in 2020.

However, the reflective paint campaign wasn't as successful as the association had hoped, it says on its website.

"The spray does not yet last enough long in the antlers, but the work on the development continues," the Association states on its website. "In any case, the trial got so much attention that it has been the best campaign on reindeer and traffic so far."

In 2016, the Associated Press reported that the herder's association pivoted to smart technology and distributed an app that allows drivers to report reindeer sightings on their phones, creating a warning zone of 1.5 miles in radius. For an hour after a reindeer sighting is reported, drivers approaching are warned to slow down. 

This seemed to be more effective: In February 2016, there were 300 fewer reindeer accidents than in February of the previous year.

Other methods that officials have tried include hanging reflective panels on reindeers’ necks and employing portable traffic signs to mark where they wander.

According to our research, the claim that an image shows a reindeer whose antlers the Finnish government covered with reflective paint is MISSING CONTEXT. A Finnish government organization indeed used reflective paint to make reindeer antlers more easily visible to motorists. However, the image used to represent this effort is an illustration by a graphic artist and does not show a real reindeer.

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Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.