Does footage on social media show Israelis panicking and running after Iranian missiles and drones hit Israel's airspace April 13, 2024? No, that's not true: The footage had already been on social media for a week when Iran attacked Israel. It shows a crowd running on April 6, 2024 toward the Four Seasons hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where former…
Does a video on social media document a barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles and drones launched into Israel by Iran on April 13, 2024? No, that's not true: The video, found in a variety of posts, appeared on social media several years before Iran's 2024 attack on Israel. Lead Stories found examples of the clip dating back to 2022…
Did a viral post share authentic visuals of Iranian drones in the sky over Israel during Iran's aerial attack of April 13, 2024? No, that's not true: Those images and clips had been circulating on social media for at least half a day before the attack. At the time they were used with reports about an unrelated event involving flares…
Does a photo on social media show a retaliatory strike on the Iranian capital of Tehran, following Iran's drone attack on Israel on April 13, 2024? No, that's not true: The picture is not from 2024. It is a photo from the Getty Images catalogue, taken in June 2021 during an oil refinery fire south of Tehran. The claim appeared…
Did Iran attack the Navy vessel USS Liberty off the coast of Bahrain in April 2024? No, that's not true: The U.S. Navy does not have an active ship by that name at the time of writing, and there were no reports of any other U.S. vessel being hit by Iranian missiles as of April 2, 2024, the day the…
Does a video show a U.S. "bunker buster" missile strike in Yemen against an Iranian facility, as claimed in a Facebook post? No, that's not true: The video is a copy of YouTube video of gameplay from "Arma 3," a tactical shooter video game. Since the game is highly customizable, it has frequently been used to spread online misinformation. The…
Did a guest on the talk show "The View" tell actress Whoopi Goldberg, one of the show's co-hosts, that she was "full of shit"? No, that's not true: A self-described social media personality named Damon Imani, who has appeared in previous Lead Stories fact checks, edited himself into an episode of "The View" for satirical purposes. Imani does not appear…
Did a Danish scientist discover a 14-foot-tall white bird in Antarctica? No, that's not true: This fictional scientific discovery video was fabricated with artificial intelligence and follows a recently trending formula to produce eye-catching conspiracy content to monetize it on social media. The images of the scientist and his purported discovery, and the voice of the script reader resembling that…
Were the Twa tribe the first people to live in modern-day Ireland? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no evidence supporting this claim. An archeologist and professor of African history interviewed by Lead Stories was not aware of any facts pointing in that direction, either. The claim reappeared in a post (archived here) on TikTok where it was published…
Is it true that the Lunar Roving Vehicle could not have fit inside the Lunar Module on the Apollo 15 mission, meaning moon missions after that were faked, as a post on Instagram suggested? No, that's not true: The Apollo 15 mission was a 1971 space program that genuinely landed the Lunar Module on the moon with the Lunar Roving…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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