Climate

Does the Coriolis effect fail to affect aircraft trajectory, which proves that the Earth is flat, as is implied in a video shared on social media? No, that's not true: A professor emeritus of physics and astronomy told Lead Stories that "the Coriolis effect is, of course, well known and thoroughly analyzed." Though airplanes experience Coriolis force, it is "pretty…

Did King Frederik X of Denmark wave a Palestinian flag from a balcony in Copenhagen as a crowd of protesters were passing below? No, that's not true: This video was filmed in Malmo, Sweden, about 17 miles away and across the Øresund strait from the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark. The man on the balcony waving the flag is not…

Does a viral video show actor Harrison Ford advocating for Palestine? No, that's not true: A fragment of his speech was taken out of context. Ford was discussing the Amazon rainforest at a 2019 United Nations climate event, over four years before the Hamas-Israel war that began on October 7, 2023. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on…

Does a picture of palm trees bent in half surrounding a disguised "5G tower" confirm that they were killed by the tower? No, that's not true: A post on social media recycled a previously debunked claim, as the tower in question did not emit a 5G signal and the trees died from lack of water. Lead Stories found no credible…

Are officials in London legally prohibited from removing bat boxes that protesters place on the city's traffic surveillance cameras? No, that's not true: It's illegal to install anything over these traffic cameras, which monitor vehicles entering and exiting the Ultra Low Emission Zone in and around the British capital. A spokesperson for Transport for London, which runs the city's transportation…

Did environmental activists protesting against the use of oil and gas in the U.K. glue themselves to a container transporting cooking oil? No, that's not true: The labels on the tank excluded the possibility that it contained vegetable oil, two independent sources confirmed to Lead Stories. That was consistent with publicly available information found on credible resources. A social media…

Did Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg make remarks about how racism went into design choices after the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed in Baltimore on March 26, 2024? No, that's not true: The video clip in a social media post dates back to a November 9, 2021, White House daily briefing. Buttigieg's 2021 remarks were a response to a direct question…

Did NASA announce it is planning to inject millions of tons of ice into the atmosphere? No, that's not true: NASA has no plans to carry out such a large-scale intervention in the atmosphere. This claim is a misinterpretation of a proposed geoengineering concept, which suggests using ice particles to reflect sunlight and potentially moderate the effects of climate change.…

Did Joe Biden let slip that there is a "right roof" with a certain color that will protect a home from being destroyed by lasers or directed energy weapons during wildfires as some conspiracists suggest? No, that's not true: In a video clip of Joe Biden speaking in Brownsville, Texas, he does say how in the aftermath of a wildfire…

Does mercury generate "free energy" as a post on Instagram claimed? No, that's not true: Mercury is a metal that can "conduct electricity in ways similar to copper," an industrial chemist told Lead Stories and the clips shown in the video on Instagram are "all demonstrations of electromagnetism," not energy production. Furthermore, an inorganic chemist told Lead Stories that mercury…