Does a video on social media show the U.S. Navy deploying from Miami in response to "Russian warships" on June 12, 2024? No, that's not true: The scene was from an annual aerial show held at Miami Beach. Additionally, the sunny, clear sky in the video does not match the stormy weather that the area actually experienced on June 12, 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on June 12, 2024. The post included a video of military aircraft flying above a beach with text that read "Breaking: US Navy deploys in Miami due to Russian warships 6/12." The caption of the post read:
⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING: THE US NAVY HAS NOW BEEN DEPLOYED IN MIAMI DUE TO RUSSIAN WARSHIP AND NUCLEAR POWER SUBMARINE THREATS !!! ⚠️⚠️⚠️
This is how the post looked on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Jun 19 19:16:29 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories used Google and Yandex to reverse-image search several stills from the video included in the post. We could not locate the origin of the video.
However, Lead Stories found that the scenes from the video are similar to those of this year's Hyundai Air & Sea Show held at Miami Beach over Memorial Day weekend (archived here). We contacted the event organizers for comment on the video. In an email sent on June 18, 2024, a spokesperson told us:
I can confirm that this video is from the Hyundai Air and Sea Show, which took place during Memorial Day weekend.
Clips of the weekend performance, posted on the event's official Facebook and Instagram channels, show aircraft that are similar to those seen in the video the post making the deployment claim.
The post also incorrectly names the U.S. Navy as the military branch shown in the video. Lead Stories only identified U.S. Air Force aircraft in the video, as shown in the aircraft descriptions (archived here) on the event's page.
Lead Stories also reached out to the U.S. Navy about the claim. We will update this story with any relevant response.
The weather in Miami Beach on June 12, 2024, also does not match the scene shown in the video, indicating that it was not from that day. On June 12, the area experienced heavy rain and flooding.
In 2023, Lead Stories fact-checked another claim related to the Hyundai Air & Sea Show, which can be found here.
