Did the White House post an alert that all flights were grounded, airspace was restricted and the National Guard had been activated on Feb. 6, 2026? No, that's not true: Nothing on the White House website, the FAA alert history or in real news reporting shows any such actions were taken. The hoax has circulated through traffic farming accounts and social media accounts associating themselves with the QAnon conspiracy theory network. Identical copies of the hoax were recycled on successive days starting Jan. 24, 2026.
One version of the claim appeared in a Feb. 6, 2026 X post (archived here) on the @WHPostNews account, which is not the official White House account. It read:
🚨🚨🚨 MAJOR ALERT: ALL FLIGHTS HAVE BEEN GROUNDED, AIRSPACE HAS BEEN RESTRICTED !!!
THE NATIONAL GUARD HAS BEEN ACTIVATED.
Here's what that version looked like on X at the time this fact check was written:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at https://x.com/WHPostNews/status/2019746225864524175.)
Just in case the hoax inadvertently matched real events, Lead Stories searched the White House, Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense public information pages, as well as the Google News index of thousands of news sites.
White House: No such alerts
Searching the White House's press alerts, Lead Stories found no statements about flights grounded (archived here), using search terms "grounding OR grounded, OR ground".
Searching White House press alerts for "airspace AND restricted" (archived here) Lead Stories found no airspace closure announcements.
Searching the White House press alerts for "National Guard" and "activated" (archived here), Lead Stories found no such announcement. In general, state governors activate the National Guard units in their jurisdiction. The President, as Commander In Chief, can "nationalize" National Guard units to put them under central command, but must fund that work.
FAA: No such alerts
Searching the FAA's public information page for "airspace" and for "airspace restriction" (archived here) generated no announcements of airspace restrictions and flight groundings.
Department of War: No Guard mobilizations
Searching the Department of War information page for "National Guard activated", (archived here), Lead Stories found no announcements matching the claim that the White House had activated National Guard troops and closed airspace, grounding flights, between Jan. 24 and Feb. 6, 2026.
Google News: No real news outlets report such events
Lead Stories queried the Google News index of thousands of news sites, using the search terms "White House," "Airspace restriction", "National Guard activated", Grounded. The index found zero news reports (archived here) mentioning all the keywords found in the hoax.
Accounts with names like @real_Qpatriot, @Qsource and @johnkennedyjrQ were among those reposting the identical hoax wording. A segment of the QAnon conspiracy movement believes Kennedy, who died in a plane crash, will return to life to lead their movement.
Here's a GIF of the identical posts dating back to Jan. 24, 2026, found by a search on X using the language of the hoax post:
