Oceangate

Did President Joe Biden announce that the "US dollar will now become cryptocurrency"? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to back that claim. While the president did issue an executive order (EO) on March 9, 2022, on "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets," it called on government agencies to look at the risks and benefits of digital currencies. Additionally,…

Does a video really show "recovered" footage of the OceanGate Titan submersible imploding? No, that's not true: This is a fake animated video clip, as confirmed by the Twitter account in which this claim is found. Also, this video derives from a Twitter account with a sham blue "verified" checkmark. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Twitter,…

Did Hamish Harding, an aviation businessman and aircraft pilot who died in the OceanGate Titan submersible disaster, tweet on June 17, 2023, that the Biden family tried to hire his aviation company for human smuggling? No, that's not true: No credible evidence exists that Harding ever published any such tweet, and his company tells Lead Stories this claim is false.…

Did Al Jazeera media network publish a video reporting that Ukrainian social media users accused the passengers of the OceanGate Titan submersible of spending too much money on the trip when that money could have been used to support Ukraine? No, that's not true: The video was falsely attributed to Al Jazeera, according to Al Jazeera itself. Other major news…

Does this photo show the controller belonging to OceanGate's Titan on the seafloor after the submarine vessel suffered a "catastrophic implosion" while descending to the wreckage of RMS Titanic? No, that's not true: An image shared on social media that claimed to show the "cheapest part" of the vessel having "survived" was, in fact, an altered version of a photograph…

Did MSNBC try to pass off a fake picture of the Titan submersible wreckage found on the sea floor in a live broadcast of breaking news footage? No, that's not true: The image of the debris did not originate on a live MSNBC broadcast and does not show a piece of debris from the Titan submersible, or wreckage from any…

Does this post include a recording of the sounds detected during a search for the Titan submersible? No, that's not true: This audio comes from some other source and is not an authentic recording of sounds reportedly detected by sonobuoys deployed by Canadian search and rescue aircraft. No recordings of the detected sounds had been released to the public by…

Was the "missing OceanGate submarine found empty" at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by search-and-rescue teams? No, that's not true: The U.S. Coast Guard said on June 22, 2023, that the OceanGate Titan suffered a "catastrophic implosion," killing all five men on board the submersible craft. The claim appeared in a post on Facebook on June 21, 2023, under…

Was OceanGate's Titan, the submarine vessel that disappeared while descending to the wreckage of RMS Titanic, rescued with all passengers alive three days after going missing on June 18, 2023? No, that's not true: In a news conference held June 22, 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) found a debris field consistent with the…

Is Shahzada Dawood, one of five people who went missing on June 18, 2023, when the submersible Titan vanished on its way to the Titanic wreckage, the vice chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF)? No, that's not true: The Pakistani businessman is many things but he's not in a leadership role at the WEF. However, Dawood is the vice…