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. The creator of the image later posted he "memed" the…
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…
Did a U.S. military commander tell troops that President Trump was "anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon"? Here's what we know so far: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) said on its website that it has received hundreds of similar complaints. Asked to provide the original email or identifying information, the organization declined,…
Does a viral video show a real-life scene from Tel Aviv when the city was hit with Iranian missiles in March 2026? No, that's not true: The clip originated from an account that disclosed the video was generated by AI. Both online AI detectors and Lead Stories' manual analysis of the video strongly suggested that it was not real footage…
Does a viral photo show the damage from an airstrike against an early warning radar system in Qatar? No, that's not true: This picture is fake and does not show the radar system in question. There are many differences between the fake image and the real facility visible on satellite images. The fake image appeared in a post (archived here)…
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