Did "United States Special Forces" save children from "deep state ritual sacrifice"? No, that's not true: A Pentagon duty officer confirmed for Lead Stories that this claim is false. The claim is in an article on a website that regularly publishes fabricated content.
The claim appeared in an article published by Real Raw News on October 2, 2023, titled "Special Forces Save Kids from Deep State Ritual Sacrifice" (archived here). It opened:
United States Special Forces on Sunday propitiously disrupted a satanic ritual at which Deep State lawmakers had strapped two prepubescent children--a boy and a girl--to sacrificial alters with plans to exsanguinate them for Baphomet--a demon allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar in the 1300s--hoping the creature would destroy President Trump and his progeny.
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Special Forces Save Kids from Deep State Ritual Sacrifice
United States Special Forces on Sunday propitiously disrupted a satanic ritual at which Deep State lawmakers had strapped two prepubescent children--a boy and a girl--to sacrificial alters with plans to exsanguinate the kids in the name of Baphomet--a demon allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar in the 1300s--hoping the creature would destroy President Trump and his progeny.
Lead Stories contacted the Pentagon to ask about the claim. In an email on October 5, 2023, a duty officer responded:
The claim is absolutely false.
Real Raw News
Real Raw News is a website that consistently publishes made-up stories about U.S. politics. The well-written English and news-style layout of the website make it look like a legitimate news source, so it often fools people into believing the stories are real. Screenshots and copies of the stories regularly turn up on other websites or on social media where they are presented as real.
It bills itself as "humor, parody and satire" on the "about" page (archived here):
Disclaimer:
Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody, and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on legal counsel.
The same "about" page claims the main author is a man named Michael Baxter. In 2021 a PolitiFact article (archived here) identified the writer as a "Michael Tuffin" in Texas based on records found in a GoFundMe campaign set up to support the site.
NewsGuard, a tool that provides credibility ratings for websites, published a five-page PDF report (archived here) in 2021 describing realrawnews.com as, "An anonymously run website that has published baseless and debunked conspiracies about COVID-19 and U.S. politics." It cautioned that the website "severely violates basic journalistic standards."
Lead Stories has covered claims published by Real Raw News in the past. Previous Lead Stories debunks of Real Raw News items are collected here.
