Fact Check: Photo Of Aircraft Carrier In Suez Canal Is NOT Related To The Container Ship Grounded There

Fact Check

  • by: Sarah Thompson
Fact Check: Photo Of Aircraft Carrier In Suez Canal Is NOT Related To The Container Ship Grounded There Old Photo

Was an aircraft carrier with 38 military jets deployed to the Suez Canal to the scene of the grounded container ship that conspiracy theorists claim was carrying trafficked children and nuclear weapons? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found the post's photo -- which was taken 30 years ago -- of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the National Archives. Caption information stored with the photo shows it was taken on August 22, 1990, when the USS Eisenhower was deployed in support of Operation Desert Shield.

The claim originated in a post (archived here) where it was published on March 28, 2021. The photo was captioned:

Approximately 38 military jets on a carrier heading down the Suez Canal towards a stuck container ship suspected of carrying trafficked children and nuclear weapons.
Fun times.
What could possibly happen?

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

Facebook screenshot

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Mar 29 14:30:23 2021 UTC)

This Department of Defense photo by Navy photographer PH3 Frank A. Marquart is cataloged in the National Archives, and titled, "The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN-69) transits the Suez Canal en route to the Mediterranean Sea following a deployment in support of Operation Desert Shield."

The Ever Given container ship, after being stuck for six days in the canal, was refloated on March 29, 2021.

Lead Stories recently addressed other unsubstantiated QAnon conspiracy claims that the ship Ever Given was associated with human trafficking and Hillary Clinton.

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  Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson lives with her family and pets on a small farm in Indiana. She founded a Facebook page and a blog called “Exploiting the Niche” in 2017 to help others learn about manipulative tactics and avoid scams on social media. Since then she has collaborated with journalists in the USA, Canada and Australia and since December 2019 she works as a Social Media Authenticity Analyst at Lead Stories.


 

Read more about or contact Sarah Thompson

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