Video of Michael Jackson drone show at Dubai's Burj Khalifa goes viral. Here's the real story

Dubai: A video showing thousands of drones forming the iconic silhouette of Michael Jackson in front of Burj Khalifa has taken over social media feeds across the UAE and beyond.

The clip, set to some greatest hits by the King of Pop on different social media channels, sent viewers into a frenzy, with many believing they were watching a real drone spectacular staged in Dubai.

Influencer and X host Mario Nawfal was among those taken in by the image of one of the moves from MJ’s iconic "Smooth Criminal" lean performance –fedora tilted, one foot slightly raised, right arm stretched to the sky with index finger pointing out, left hand resting at the hip.

"Thousands of drones lighting up the sky right in front of Burj Khalifa… pure magic. Dubai never misses!," he posted to his 3.4million followers on X.

X user @Terminus_2F406, listed as a TV show host, wrote: "Just wonderful. If anyone deserves it, MJ does. I hope that wherever he's at, he's happy and that all the lies that he endured will soon be forgotten."

Another verified user, @augusttherain, added with applause: "Dubai really said 'how do we make Michael Jackson moonwalk across the SKY'."

News outlets bite

The frenzy was not limited to social media. India-based News X ran a full report declaring the show had "left the internet stunned," describing how drones "soared into the sky" and recreated MJ's iconic "Smooth Criminal" lean and his gravity-defying moonwalk which it went on to say "stretched across the skyline of Bluewaters Island."

None of it was verified. None of it ever happened.

Gulf News can confirm that the video is entirely computer-generated and it was made by Andrii Zakharov, a Ukraine-born VFX professional based in the UAE for eight years, as content for his agency's social media page unreel.ae .

Tribute to Michael

Zakharov told Gulf News on Sunday the video was inspired by the release of Michael, the long-awaited biopic directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring MJ's nephew Jaafar Jackson, which hit cinemas on April 24.

"I personally love him as an artist, so I thought it's a must-needed homage to him and the movie," he said.

The clip combined traditional CGI with AI tools, built around techniques designed to blur the line between real and fabricated.

"Usually, I come up with crazy ideas, what you would call unhinged, and use different tools like old-fashioned CGI and newer tools like AI to make people actually think 'is this real?'" Zakharov said. The final output was AI-generated, he clarified.

Going viral

The video first gained traction on TikTok, where Zakharov used Beat It as the soundtrack and on Instagram with Billie Jean, a deliberate split to test which platform's algorithm performed better.

"At 4k views, I was just chatting with my friends how it's picking up traction, until it became a daily ritual to check how much traction it's getting," Zakharov recalled.

It then spread to X this weekend through organic resharing, according to Zakharov.

Why Dubai worked

He says Dubai's real-world reputation for grand spectacles is precisely what made the AI video so convincing and so shareable.

"The Dubai brand plus some techniques that make the video look hyper-realistic is the magic combination because it's something Dubai will and can actually do,” he said.

Though Dubai has been praised for the seemingly real show, the video has become yet another reminder that the line between the spectacular and the fabricated has never been thinner and that not everything flooding your feed has been through a fact-check.