Was The NYC Subway Rat Real?

INSIDE EDITION talks to the man who shot a video of a rat crawling over a man’s face on the New York subway, as he thwarts suggestions that the rat may have been his pet.  

It's the video that's giving everyone nightmares. A rat crawls up the leg of a dozing passenger right up to his face.

The video went viral getting a million hits on You Tube.
But today it's got many asking, is it real?  

The Today's Show, Hoda Kotbe says, "I don't know if that video is true."

Some say the rat looked a little too clean to be a New York City subway rat, and that it might have been someone's pet. Like maybe the guy who shot the video.

21-year-old Jeffrey Forde shot the video that's got the whole country saying yikes!

Forde says, "I'm telling everyone right now all across the world that's seen the video, the rat is not mine!"

INSIDE EDITION's Diane McInerney went back with him to the number 4 subway line in Manhattan, the exact spot where he shot his now famous video.

"Some people are actually saying well that rat looked too clean and too well fed," says Diane.

Forde replies, "The rats are well fed, there's a lot of garbage for them to eat here!"

Forde says he heard a woman scream on the train and that's when he got his camera out. He shows Diane where the rat ran under the seats and down the isle of the subway train. He says there was almost no one on the train because it was around 2 o'clock in the morning.