Is an image of a U.S. Navy Blue Angels flyover on Pensacola Beach in Florida real? No, that's not true: Although the Blue Angels ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a low flyover during the July 15, 2026, air show, the image in question is not from that event. Instead, the image contains signs that it was created using artificial intelligence.
The claim appeared in a post featuring an image (archived here) by the @bourscheid account on X on July 16, 2026. It read:
hegseth worried about low T in the military when he should be worried about low IQ because what is this???
This is what the post looked like:
(Image source: post by @bourscheid on X.)
The fake image contains garbled lettering on the bottom of the fighter, where it should say "US NAVY." The yellow-and-blue color scheme also does not match what the Blue Angels use on their F/A-18 Super Hornets.
(Image sources: screenshot of a video posted by @Hayes Air Experts on Facebook and post by @bourscheid on X.)
The real image of the Blue Angels plane is a screenshot of a video (archived here) posted by Hayes Air Experts at the Pensacola air show on Facebook on July 15, 2026. It is embedded below:
This official U.S. Navy photo, taken during the Blue Angels' winter training in El Centro, California, on Feb. 11, 2026, more clearly shows the aircraft's "US NAVY" lettering beneath the wings and its color scheme:
(Image source: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Crayton B. Agnew.)
AI indicators
Beyond the color and lettering discrepancies, the image shows additional signs of AI-generated content:
- There is no exhaust from the jet engines.
- The plane's wake does not interact with the water, as it would if it were only a few feet above the surface.
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and found many matching reports from credible news outlets using the search terms: "Blue Angels," "Florida," and "Beach." However, none of the reports included the fake AI image.
