A video showing US military jets and vehicles in a destroyed, abandoned condition is going viral with a false claim that it captures visuals of US Air Force fighter jets after being hit by Iran.
The video is being circulated with claims linked to a recent CNN report, which, citing sources, stated that a US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at a US air base in the Middle East after being hit by suspected Iranian fire.
BOOM found the video to be generated using artificial intelligence. Google’s AI detector tool SynthID confirmed that the video was generated using Google AI.
The recent escalation in the West Asia conflict has seen multiple intense combat actions between Iran, the US, and Israel, sending economic shockwaves across the globe. Amid this, Iran claimed it shot down a US Air Force F-35 fighter jet during the conflict, a combat aircraft regarded as one of the most advanced in the world. However, it was not immediately clear which version of the Lightning II F-35 was involved, as there are multiple variants of the Lightning II.
The Claim
The video was posted with the caption, "Iran hit the 5th generation F-35 fighter of the US Air Force. An American F-35 fighter made an emergency landing at an air base in the Middle East after coming under Iranian fire, sources told CNN".
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
What We Found: Video Is AI-Generated
1. No Credible Source For The Video: We ran a reverse image search on keyframes but found no reliable source. A related keyword search also did not yield any credible news reports featuring the video. Additionally, the aircraft, which appears to be a US military fighter jet with a flag insignia, looks unusually shaped, particularly its nosecone and wings.
We also observed that the aircraft in the video differs from official images of the F-35 manufactured by US-based company Lockheed Martin.
2. Confirmation From Google's AI Detector Tool: Taking a cue, we first checked the video using the AI detector tool Hive Moderation. The tool confirmed with 99 per cent confidence that the video is generated with the help of artificial intelligence.
Furthermore, we tested the video using SynthID to check if it was made with the help of Google AI. Google's AI detector tool SynthID confirmed that both the audio and video were made using Google's AI generator tool.