Disney Filmmakers Faked Lemming Suicide

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide, despite a myth popularized by Walt Disney's 1958 documentary "White Wilderness." To create its dramatic ending, filmmakers threw lemmings from a cliff and presented the footage as a suicidal plunge into the sea. In 1983, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer named Brian Vallee also revealed that the crew staged the mass migration using careful editing, tight camera angles, and a snow-covered turntable. In reality, crowded lemmings disperse in search of food and may accidentally drown while crossing water, but they do not deliberately kill themselves.

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