A video showing military aircraft flying above warships is being shared on social media with the claim that it shows a recent instance of United States military aircraft flying near Taiwan.
BOOM found this claim to be false; our fact-check revealed that the video being shared is more than a year old, and does not show any recent activities by US military aircraft near Taiwan.
This claim is viral in the wake of US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Taiwan, making her the highest US official to visit the country in more than 25 years.
The video, seemingly taken by a handheld camera, was shared by multiple users on social media. One such Facebook post contained the caption, "US Navy Warplanes flying near Taiwan..‼️ ▪️ Very harsh statements from China continue to come before US House of Representatives Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan ▪️ Tension in the region has risen to its highest level.😳"
Click here to view the above post.
You can view similar Facebook posts here, here and here.
The same was also shared on Twitter multiple times recently.
Fact-Check
Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist working for the BBC, shared screenshots of posts that contained captions similar to the viral posts. Sardarizadeh shared the screenshot of another YouTube video, which appeared to have similar visuals to the viral video.
Searching for the captions of the YouTube video in Sardarizadeh's tweet, we were able to find the video uploaded on YouTube on April 15, 2021.
The video was titled, "JUST IN, US NAVY WARSHIP umaaligid na sa WEST PHILS. SEA...Magkakagirian na ata." We ran the title through Google Translation, which detected the language as Filipino, and translated the title to, "JUST IN, US NAVY WARSHIP Hovering over WEST PHILS. SEA...It's going to be a fight."
We also found it being uploaded to TikTok on April 16, 2021.
BOOM could not independently verify the origins behind the video. However, it was uploaded on the internet more than a year before Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, and is unrelated to the ongoing US-China tensions.
This has also been fact-checked by Reuters Fact Check.