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Does a post about Mark Zuckerberg's supposed subpoena accurately reflect recent reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein front company, Butterfly Foundation, named in the Tehran files? No, that's not true: Media reports don't support that. Lead Stories found no news articles corroborating the claim. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on March 4, 2026. It opened:…

Do the Epstein files reveal that "cannibal" Ellen DeGeneres ate Anne Heche after murdering her? No, that's not true: The only mention of Heche in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Epstein files is from a newspaper headline in the sidebar of another article. There is nothing in the Epstein files suggesting DeGeneres murdered Heche or cannibalized her body. Heche died…

Does a video show a real fire on board a U.S. destroyer or aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool rated the image as 100% likely to be AI-generated. A separate analysis found it has several hallmarks of AI-generated or digitally simulated content, such as unusually uniform smoke and fire, distorted aircraft shapes, unrealistic water-heat…

Does a video show an American destroyer that was damaged by Iranian missiles in Cypriot territory in the Mediterranean? No, that's not true: This footage is from 2017 and the damage pictured is not from a missile attack. The video clip shows the USS Fitzgerald, which was damaged when it collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan.…

Does a photo show "Halach Boome," a real pilot from the Israeli Air Force who took out Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? No, that's not true: An online detection tool rated the image as 100% likely to be AI-generated, and it contains a watermark from an AI image generator. Additionally, the name given to the supposed pilot appears to…

Is a video of Donald Trump with blindfolded children that claims to have come "out of the Epstein files" real? No, that's not true: There is no record of an image or video showing President Trump with blindfolded children with Jeffrey Epstein. The video is a mashup of footage of Trump and Epstein and children that appears to be AI-generated.…

Does a real video show Iranian rockets coming in at a tremendous speed, exploding targets near the Tel Aviv marina? No, that's not true: This video is fake and bears many of the hallmarks of AI-generated imagery. The video is represented as showing Tel Aviv, Israel, but the marina does not look like the waterfront of that city. There is…

Does a video actually show the moment "when Iran destroyed the US Navy fleet in Bahrain"? No, that's not true: The viral clip, which purported to show that, originated from an account that disclosed it was AI-generated. It also contained glitches typical of AI-generated video. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on March 4, 2026.…

Does a photo show damage to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the American ship was damaged during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. The image actually shows repair crews in 1967 working to fix the damaged deck of the USS Forrestal after a deadly fire in the Gulf…

Does a video show a nuclear test carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran? No, that's not true: The video clip shows a nuclear test in the Nevada desert in 1957. The mislabeled video clip bears the watermark of the YouTube channel @atomcentral who posted the old footage of the atomic test in 2023. The mislabeled…