'Solar Panels Drain the Sun's Energy' Declared a Hoax

An article claiming that solar panels drain the sun's energy has turned out to be a hoax.

The story was posted on National Report, a satirical website well known for publishing fake stories with sensational headlines.

The bogus report read: "A scientific research facility in Wyoming made a startling discovery that is certain to change the way millions of Americans look at the environmentalism movement, after they found conclusive evidence that solar panels not only convert the sun's energy into usable energy, but that they are also draining the sun of its own energy, possibly with catastrophic consequences far worse than global warming."

"Scientists at the Wyoming Institute of Technology, a privately-owned think tank located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, discovered that energy radiated from the sun isn't merely captured in solar panels, but that energy is directly physically drawn from the sun by those panels, in a process they refer to as "forced photovoltaic drainage.""

Many Facebook and Twitter users took to social media to verify the news.

Such fake stories, including celebrity death hoaxes are increasing day-by-day.

In March, Tim Stevens, editor at large at CNET, told CBS: "A site like TMZ makes maybe 100 million page views a month. Obviously, these fake sites aren't getting anywhere near that, but if they can get really a fraction of that, they can make tens of thousands of dollars off of one of these fake stories over just a couple of days.

"If you're someone who just casually reads headlines or reads the first couple sentences of a story, you probably would never notice that these stories are fake," he added.