Fact Check: That Was NOT JFK Jr. Spotted At July 3, 2020, Mount Rushmore Celebration

Fact Check

  • by: Alan Duke
Fact Check: That Was NOT JFK Jr. Spotted At July 3, 2020, Mount Rushmore Celebration JFK Jr Is Dead

Was JFK Jr. spotted at the Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore on July 3, 2020? No, that's not true: John F. Kennedy Jr. died in plane crash in 1999, which makes it a certainty that the son of the 35th president of the United States did not attend the Mount Rushmore speech of the 45th, President Donald Trump.

The claim appeared in a video posted by the "Alice Down the Rabbit Hole" YouTube channel on July 5, 2020, titled "Was that #JFKJR?!!!!" (archived here). The description read:

Was JFK Jr spotted at the July 4th Celebration on July 3rd at Mount Rushmore? Did we hear his voice?

Click below to watch the video on YouTube:

The short video opens with a cartoon "Alice" -- from the Alice in Wonderland story -- weeping because John F. Kennedy Jr. apparently failed to re-appear as she had hoped at Mount Rushmore event. (Watching for JFK Jr's return is a basic part of many QAnon believers' lives, which we will discuss below.) The crying stops with the words:

HOLD ON! SOMEONE SAW JOHN JR.?

The we see this tweet that claims JFK Jr. "revealed himself" at Mount Rushmore:

The video offers a blurry image of a human figure on the top of George Washington's head as evidence JFK Jr. was present at Mount Rushmore on July 3, 2020:

The video correctly reports that JFK Jr. visited Mount Rushmore in 1999 and requested permission to rappel down the face of the mountain. The National Park Service denied Kennedy's request.