Australian man attempts to take selfie in front of outback tornado, backfires

DAREDEVIL or drongo? An outback Australian explorer attempted to take a selfie in front of a dirt tornado with terrifying results. But is there more to this video than meets the eye?

THOSE crazy Aussies.

An Australian man has been dubbed a “daredevil” after incredible footage reveals the adventurer narrowly avoiding a dirt tornado in the outback while attempting to take a selfie.

Authentic? Fake? A seriously lucky escape? Or a seriously big prank? We’ll get into that later.

What we do know, however, is that the video of the man approaching the tornado was uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday and has since gone viral.

According to the footage, the man had been watching the “Willy Willy” (for international readers, that’s what us Aussies call a small tornado) and attempted to approach it for a closer view.

“I’ve been watching this Willy Willy forming, check that out,” he can be heard saying.

“That is one of the big ones I’ve seen in a few years. That is absolute daredevil status right there. Far out. If I can run into this thing ...”

But the tornado makes a swift change in direction and its path of destruction heads straight for the man.

“Jesus Christ, he’s huge,” he screams before the tornado almost swallows him whole.”

The man scrambles to his car as the tornado sweeps over his car.

Don’t look back!

Here’s the thing.

The footage was uploaded by renowned prankster Terry Tufferson, whose video of a great white shark in Sydney Harbour earlier this year turned out to be a cleverly-made fake.

So, what do we make of the tornado footage?

“Since posting the shark vid I’ve been getting heaps of videos sent my way. I couldn’t pass this one,” Mr Tufferson wrote alongside the clip.

We here are news.com.au are going to call it a big, fat, fake, but in any case, the footage is so awesome we think it’s well worth the watch.

Tornados are surprisingly common in Australia. The last recorded report was in November last year, when four tornadoes destroyed homes in Tenterden, in country New South Wales.