Does a photo show an Iranian missile with "In memory of the victims of Epstein Island" written on it? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool found that the image shows signs of digital manipulation, with portions edited or generated using Google AI. A "clean" version of the image without any writing on it also dates back to January 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on March 10, 2026. It said:
⚡️ "In memory of the victims of Epstein Island"
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @ME_Observer_ on X.)
Conflict in the Middle East
The United States and Israel launched an ongoing military operation against Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, that killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an airstrike on his compound in Tehran. Iran has responded with drone and missile strikes against the U.S. and allied targets across the Middle East.
Image analysis
Lead Stories ran the image through Gemini (archived here), Google's AI assistant. It reached these conclusions:
Based on a visual analysis and digital verification, here is what I found regarding the image:
Translation: The Persian text on the missile does indeed translate to "In memory of the victims of Epstein Island."
Authenticity: This image is not real. Fact-checking sources and digital analysis indicate that the text was digitally added to an existing photo of an Iranian Khorramshahr-4 missile. The original version of this photograph was published earlier and does not contain any such writing.
AI/Editing Detection: The image shows signs of digital manipulation. Specifically, the SynthID tool detected that most or all of this image was edited or generated with Google AI, suggesting that AI tools may have been used to modify the original photo or add the text. Additionally, the watermark "Iranian_Militarism" visible in the center of the image points to a social media source known for sharing such edits.
Original image
A reverse image search (archived here) on Google Images uncovered "clean" versions of the photo -- without the Epstein message -- dating back to Jan. 16, 2024, more than two years before the war began. Here are a few examples:
(Image source: Google Images.)
A second tool, Hive Moderation AI-Generated Content Detection, confirmed that the image combines a real photograph with digitally added text. It concluded the photo was "likely to be: AI-Generated" with a score of 77.7%. The higher the score, the greater the AI content.
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
