The Claim: The pictures show the wreck of the OceanGate submarine
A June 22 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) features four images of what appear to be underwater debris.
“Here are pictures of the debris found from the Titanic submarine,” reads the post’s caption. It also includes hashtags like “#OceanGate” and “#submarinemissing”.
The post garnered more than 400 shares in one week. Similar versions of the statement have been shared on Chirping.
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Our assessment: False
The images do not show the OceanGate Titan submarine. Three of the images were created by a digital artist and one was taken during the sinking of the Titanic in 2004.
The pictures do not show the wreck of the submarine
Five people aboard a Titan submarine died in June when the vehicle imploded on its way to the Titanic sinking site. Some of the debris from the submersible has since been recovered and brought to the surface.
The images in the Facebook post, however, do not show the wreck of the submarine.
A Coast Guard spokesman told USA TODAY on June 28 that no images of the submersible’s wreck had been released at that point.
The only photos of the debris that have been posted were taken after parts of the submersible were surfaced in Newfoundland, Canada, and look nothing like the images featured in the Facebook post.
Also, the images in the post are inconsistent with an implosion, which would have instantly crushed the ship and been the equivalent of the capsule “suddenly vanishing,” according to NBC News.
The first three images of what appears to be a rusted and overgrown ship they were originally shared on Chirping on June 22 by an account called “Prince of Deepfakes (Parody)”.
The account, which regularly shares digitally created images, such as that of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump pointing guns at each other, describes himself as a “Parody Guerrilla Satirist” in his biography. The biography also includes a link to a website called the “Pan-Global Agency for Research, Technology and Innovation on Artificial Intelligence”.
The user mentioned the Midjourney AI generator tool in many of their previous tweets.
Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, also claims that the images are 99.9% likely to be generated by AI.
Fact check: Viral audio of underwater shots unrelated to the search for the Titan submersible
The fourth image of several shoes on the ocean floor was captured during a voyage to the Titanic in 2004 by the University of Rhode Island and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration, according to imagery website Stock Alamy .
The photograph was featured in numerous articles long before the OceanGate submersible disappeared, such as two 2020 articles published by ABC News and the Los Angeles Times.
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
The claim was also denied by Reuters and the Associated Press.
Our fact-checking sources:
- USA TODAY June 29, Photos show debris from Titan submarine returns to land for first time: Human remains ‘probably recovered’
- USA TODAY June 28, Photo that appears to show the controller of the Titan submarine is altered | Fact check
- Prince of Deepfakes (parody), June 22, Tweet
- Prince of Deepfakes (parody), June 22, Tweet
- Prince of Deepfakes (parody), June 22, Tweet
- Prince of Deepfakes (parody), June 26 Tweet
- Prince of Deepfakes (parody), June 23, Tweet
- Prince of Deepfakes (parody), May 3, Tweet
- Twitter, accessed June 29, Prince of Deepfakes (Parody)
- Pan-Global Agency for Research, Technology and Innovation on Artificial Intelligence, accessed June 29, Home
- Alamy April 14, 2012 This 2004 image provided by the Institute for Exploration and Center for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island…
- Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2020, Plan to salvage Titanic’s radio spurs debate over whether wreck still contains human remains
- ABC News (web archive), October 18, 2020, Plan to recover Titanic radio spurs debate over human remains
- NBC News June 23, What is an implosion, and what would it have been like for passengers on the Titan submarine?
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, accessed 29 June RMS Titanic 2004 Expedition
- Moderation of the hive, June 29, image
- Moderation of the hive, June 29, image
- Moderation of the hive, June 29, image
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Image Source : www.usatoday.com