Does a video show the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln burning in the Red Sea after being hit by Iranian missiles in 2026? No, that's not true: The video appears to have been generated by the Arma 3 video game. It first appeared online on June 23, 2025, in a post making a similar false claim during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel at that time. U.S. military officials said on March 1, 2026, that none of the missiles launched by Iran came close to hitting the American aircraft carrier.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @almohamadawi31 X account on March 1, 2026. The caption with the 13-second video read:
Targeting the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which America and its agents were boasting about...
4 ballistic missiles were enough for it!
This is what the first frame of the video looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: almohamadawi31 post on X.com)
استهداف حاملة الطائرات ابراهام لينكلن الذي كانت تتباهى بها امريكا وعملاءها..
-- صادق المحمداوي (@almohamadawi31) March 1, 2026
4صواريخ باليستية كانت تكفيها! pic.twitter.com/WP9lfVs11r
The video could not be related to the fighting between the U.S. and Iran that began on February 28, 2026, since it was also posted (archived here) on June 23, 2025. That was when Israel, the United States and Iran exchanged missiles in what became known as the Twelve-Day War.
The caption on the video in the earlier post, translated into English from Arabic, read:
Now, the first Iranian response targeting the American aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. (Join in sharing this, may God reward you)
The U.S. Central Command posted (archived here) a statement on X on March 1, 2026, denying the aircraft carrier was struck by any Iranian missiles:
🚫Iran's IRGC claims to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles. LIE.
✅The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn't even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM's relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.
🚫Iran's IRGC claims to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles. LIE.
-- U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 1, 2026
✅The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn't even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM's relentless campaign to defend the American people by... pic.twitter.com/AjaeHMemtA
While we know the video of the burning ship is not real, we can't conclusively determine its source. One possibility is it was created on the Arma 3 military simulation game. The developers at Bohemia Interactive, the studio that produced Arma 3, acknowledged the challenge of telling real war video from fake game images. They shared tips on how to tell if it is fake in a blog (archived here) titled "Arma 3 footage being used as Fake News."
The recycled video demonstrates a common misinformation tactic: using old fabricated footage to make false claims during breaking news events. The same fake video was used to make similar false claims during two different conflicts eight months apart.
