Did the U.S. Navy use a 40,000-pound explosive to blow up a sea monster from the bottom of the ocean that was heading toward Florida? No, that's not true: This detonation of a 40,000-pound explosive in the Atlantic Ocean was part of a Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST) conducted by the U.S. Navy on June 18, 2021, to be sure that an aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was hardened to withstand battle conditions and performing at the expectation of its design.
The original edition of this video was posted on TikTok by @tythecrazyguy on July 8, 2021. In the video he discusses a shock trial that took place off the coast of Florida on June 18, 2021. He adds his own sea monster conspiracy to the real footage of the shock trial. A shortened one-minute version of the original TikTok video was posted to Facebook on June 7, 2022, by the page Complexed. The title and post caption reads:
Something's FISHY about this... researching this scared me so much #conspiracy
This is how the post appeared on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jun 15 14:56:55 2022 UTC)
The one-minute video on Facebook cut off @tythecrazyguy before he was done talking about the possible sea creature. This cut portion is transcribed from the original TikTok video below in brackets. The TikTok video then abruptly switches to a fire burning in the Gulf of Mexico near an oil rig without making any further comment about the baseless conjecture about the U.S. Navy blowing up a sea monster.
Is there a sea monster that the government is hiding from us? We need to talk about this.
OK, so within the last few weeks, there's been a lot of suspicious things happening off the coast of Florida now specifically, just the other day the US Navy set off that 40,000-pound bomb right outside the Florida coast. Just watch. Yeah. Yeah.
This huge ass explosion came out of nowhere. Now obviously people were confused, upset and wanted answers and what the US Navy said was that they were testing a new ship to see if it could withstand the bomb. Now the video made it look like the boat was directly impacted by the explosion but this photo was leaked and it shows the boat is literally behind it. So something's not adding up because they didn't blow up a boat. They literally blew up the middle of the ocean. Now keep in mind that this was a 40,000-pound bomb. Not only does that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that also killed so much wildlife. While many people believe that this explosion was meant to kill. Many people believe that there is a sea creature that made its way from the bottom of the ocean and was ... [ going towards Florida and they needed to kill it.]
Lead Stories did not uncover any evidence of a sea monster at the site of the FSST, nor could we find any evidence of @tythecrazyguy's assertion that "many people believe that there is a sea creature that made its way from the bottom." We did identify the background image appearing about 58 seconds into the video -- it's from a September 7, 2010, article posted during "Ocean of Pseudoscience Week: on southernfriedscience.com titled "Our favorite sea monsters - Ningen (#4)." Also, there were some joking references online comparing the appearance of the oil pipeline fire to Godzilla, a comparison @tythecrazyguy did not make.
The U.S. Navy Press Office published a release on June 18, 2021, the day of the FSST, that included videos and photos and explained:
The first-in-class aircraft carrier was designed using advanced computer modeling methods, testing, and analysis to ensure the ship is hardened to withstand battle conditions, and these shock trials provide data used in validating the shock hardness of the ship.
The image that @tythecrazyguy suggested was "leaked" was included in that press release. There were other boats as well as the USS Gerald R. Ford in the ocean near the site of the detonation, which was filmed from many angles, including the air. The Twitter account of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) also shared a video on Twitter showing the FSST footage from the bridge of the aircraft carrier. No one but @tythecrazyguy suggested that the test was supposed to make a direct hit on the carrier.
Ever wonder what a 40,000 pound explosive looks like from the bridge wing of a @USNavy aircraft carrier?
-- USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) (@Warship_78) June 20, 2021
Watch footage from #USSGeraldRFord's first explosive event of Full Ship Shock Trials and find out! 🤯#ThisIsFordClass #WeAreNavalAviation #Warship78 pic.twitter.com/2kbeEkF0g1
