EXPOSED: India's 'NASA Scientist' is a fraud!

Twenty seven-yr-old Arun P. Vijayakumar, a native of Manimala in Kottayam district, had  shot into fame following reports that NASA  had even relaxed certain rules on citizenship for him as it was so impressed with his knowledge and patriotism.

Arun P. Vijayakumar, hit the headlines after saying he'd been selected as a research scientist for the US space agency.

According to a vernacular daily reports, Arun confessed that all these reports were blatant lies spread by him. He has admitted he made the whole thing up, it's been reported. Arun  has not been in the US so far for a Nasa  project. His claims of meeting  Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his closeness with an internationally- acclaimed scientist, Barbara Lesko, are also fake.


His Nasa work would involve exploring "extraterrestrial elements with the use of remote sensing", he told in an interview last month. He also claimed to be studying for a PhD at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.

But now Mr Vijayakumar, from Kerala in south-west India, admits none of it was true, including claims that he had met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The news of Arun joining NASA had gone viral in the recent months. The lies of Arun were nailed by a senior police officer who tracked down the antecedents of the claims after getting an input on ‘Netizen police,’ a Facebook initiative by the police department.

 "Police officers said that the intention of Arun was only to gain fame and that the details were being released now in order to ensure that he does not come out with similar claims in future," the sources says.

When INNLIVE called Arun first, he claimed that he had restrictions from NASA  and that he could not reveal the details. He promised  that the photograph of his speaking to Modi would be made available. But later, when the details were revealed, Arun confessed everything. 

Arun  had claimed that he is a doctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doing research under Dr. Barbara Lesko in learning theory.  But according to Tshten Dorji, the head of department of information and technology, Royal University of Bhutan, Arun was working as a lecturer there between July 2013 and July 2014.

Arun admitted this and said that he indeed was working in Royal University of Bhutan and had never been to MIT.  In 2012, he had claimed that he had got admission in MIT for PhD, but the fact remains that one cannot complete  PhD in just one year. Some of the members of the Netizen Police, who visited the MIT,  conducted an inquiry and disproved the claims made by Arun.  He  also lacks a legitimate social profile on internet.