South Africa

Did a U.S. Air Force A-10 drop a "500-Pound BDU-50 bomb," destroying a 40-mile Russian tank convoy? No, that's not true: This is a clickbait headline with an eye-catching image, but this did not happen. The article paired with the false headline does not even repeat what the headline claims. The article is copied from a June 10, 2022, article…

Did the restart of the CERN subatomic particle collider on July 5, 2022, open portals to other dimensions or release phenomena like the Mandela Effect, 5D or timeline shifts? No, that's not true: There's no evidence that that anything spiritually or cosmically unique or unexpected happened when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) switched on after more than three years of…

Do "trans kids" not exist in the "rest of the world" outside the United States or only in "certain countries"? No, that's not true: There have been multiple news reports about transgender children around the globe, from Japan to South Africa to Colombia and more. The United Nations runs an international campaign that began in India to "raise awareness among…

Is a post saying "Harriet Tubman is not a real person" accurate? No, that's not true: Multiple historians told Lead Stories this claim is false. One of them, the author of "Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom," wrote, "I can suggest that the notion that Harriet Tubman was not a real person, but a manufactured piece of fiction is categorically…

Was this an actual child mermaid who cried in distress with the voice of a pig, reeled in or washed up on a beach in Africa, amazing onlookers who poked and videoed the half-human half-fish creature without trying to help? No, that's not true: This video is a creative work of fiction: a mix of acting, artful makeup, costuming and…

Are people in Zimbabwe "selling their toes for as much as US$40,000 for the big toe, US$25,000 for the middle toe and US$10,000 for the tiny toe because of high costs of living"? No, that's not true: This claim originally circulated on social media as a joke. Several news outlets report that the deputy information minister of Zimbabwe has denied…

Are governments waging biological war via monkeypox? No, that's not true: There's zero evidence monkeypox virus, the virus that causes monkeypox, is being used by governments to cause disease. Monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) by RED PILL USA 17 on May 22, 2022. The post includes a short…

Is this a real photo of a town on Mississippi Highway 14, either past or present, that has a road sign that warns, "Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark"? No, that's not true: This photo is a still frame from the 2018 movie "Green Book," which was set in the early 1960s, and this is not Mississippi, it is…

Did Adolf Hitler say that even in his death he would start World War 3? No, that's not true: This is a recycled conspiracy theory, and multiple historians told Lead Stories it didn't happen. Also, contrary to the claim's suggestion, Hitler and his Nazi regime were racist toward African Germans -- primarily based on skin color. The claim appeared in…

Was the existence of reptilian aliens living in underground bases confirmed by retired Romanian Gen. Emil Strainu? No, that's not true: Contrary to its headline, this article does not mention underground bases, and there is no evidence presented to confirm that claim. The body of the article is a recycled, translated and abbreviated copy/paste derived from a forward Strainu wrote…