Category: Fact Checking

Dissecting complex, scientific literature is not for the faint of heart. Research, when done correctly, is nuanced and complicated. It’s systematic and follows a formula to ensure accuracy, transparency, and replicability — also known as the peer-review process.

But Reading Science Stories Doesn’t Have To Be Just for Scientists.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a steady stream of questionable scientific research and studies, and our newsroom an onslaught of reader questions about the legitimacy of so-called scientific study. When determining whether a study was conducted using verifiable methodologies, we often turn to the question of whether the research was reviewed by experts and institutions in its respective scientific field.

To help you navigate the digital barrage of “science,” let’s start with a definition of peer review and how to navigate a legitimate scientific study.

What is a Peer-Reviewed Study?

Peer-reviewed articles are those that have gone through a regimented evaluation process by journal editors and other experts in the related field. These reviewers check a given study for accuracy and ensure that it follows the scientific method.

“Peer-reviewed journal articles have gone through an evaluation process in which journal editors and other expert scholars critically assess the quality and scientific merit of the article and its research. Articles that pass this process are published in the peer-reviewed literature,” writes the National Library of Medicine (NIH).

This research may include experiments, surveys, or an analysis of existing research on a given topic, as examples. Peer review ensures the quality of the research and makes it accessible via academic, established databases, some of which may require a subscription.

Even in open-access journals that are available to the public without a paywall, studies can be overly complex or highly detailed to a person without a scientific background. That’s where this guide comes into play.

What Constitutes Sound Science?

Sound science is defined as a systematic collection of data that tests a specific hypothesis.

“Scientific research is the neutral, systematic, planned, and multiple-step process that uses previously discovered facts to advance knowledge that does not exist in the literature,” writes NIH.

“It can be classified as observational or experimental with respect to data collection techniques, descriptive or analytical with respect to causality, and prospective, retrospective, or cross-sectional with respect to time.”

Sound science follows a standard of ethics and requires a certain level of transparency from researchers. It also largely follows the scientific method, which establishes a testable hypothesis or research question that is transparently answered in a study. In all cases, it is open to scientific criticism and the way in which the research was conducted is explained in a way that can be replicated by other scientists.

How to Read a Study

Understanding what constitutes a solid study helps our team to determine whether a claim is legitimate. A key indicator of peer-reviewed research is confirming the following elements in a study:

• Abstract: A concise summary of the entire research paper or thesis.
• Introduction or Background: This provides background information about the topic at hand, including previously published research related to the hypothesis.
• Materials and Methods: Explains how the research, analysis, or experiment was designed and conducted in a manner that is thorough and replicable.
• Results: The findings of the study.
• Discussion: This establishes the greater meaning of the study in the context of this scientific field and sets forth areas of future study.
• Limitations: This category defines characteristics of the study that influenced or impacted the study findings. These are often flaws or shortcomings that might be addressed in future studies.
• Funding: Transparently lists partners or institutions involved in the study.
• Conflicts of Interest: Transparently lists financial or personal considerations that may compromise the conduct of its study or its how it may be publicly perceived.

As a general rule, transparency is key and studies are filled with nuance and context. Reading the entirety of the study is akin to reading beyond the headline of a news article.

What Is Pre-Publication?

In times where science is urgent and a steady stream of information and data is essential to supporting public health, as was the case at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts will often forego the sometimes-lengthy peer-review process to simply get their findings online for other researchers to reference.

A study in preprint means that it is in its early stage of production and has not yet been peer-critiqued by other scientists. As we has previously explained, research that has not been peer-reviewed has not been rigorously vetted for discrepancies, limitations, and other errors in observations or recording:

Research that has not been peer-reviewed is akin to a blog — anyone can publish one online with little expertise. A reviewed study, on the other hand, is on par with a well-vetted, expertly researched textbook. To facilitate the quick spread of new scientific information in the midst of the pandemic, prepublication research has become more common in order to facilitate the quick dissemination of important information, particularly as peer-reviewed research can take a long time to publish.

Two preprint journals our reporters keep their eyes on are Zenodo and arXiv, both of which allow scientists to submit their research directly without peer review.

What Is a Case Study?

Case studies are different than regimented scientific research in that they describe a specific event and do not establish a causation or correlation between one event and another. BMJ Case Reports is one such example that will publish case studies related to the medical world. As with pre-publications, case reports are a great way to push the science out into the broader community to establish areas for future experimentation and warning signs.

Illegitimate Study Red Flags

As a study will have gone through a thorough editorial vetting and standard publishing process before publication, typos and English grammar errors can sometimes point to the illegitimacy of a study. However, this is not always the case, particularly in non-Western publication houses. That’s why it’s important to look for several red flags, including a poorly designed website and lack of transparency in who is responsible for reviewing submissions and standards for submitting, as well as an inability to contact the journal or institution.

Also be on the lookout for processing charges required of submitters. In some cases, predatory publishing websites will require a researcher to pay a fee for their research to be published.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Determining Whether a Published Study is Peer-Reviewed

The University of Pittsburg Library System has published a step-by-step guide to help readers identify illegitimate and predatory publishers. We’ve summarized their advice below:

1. First search for the journal in the database list in the “Journal Databases for At-Home Research” section below.
2. If the journal did not appear in the database, look for the following red flags on its website:
   • What is the timeline from submission to publication? Peer editing is a long process and quick turn-and-burn times can be indicatory of a predatory publisher.
   • Look through the website content. What is the quality of both archived and published articles? Is the material and formatting standardized?
   • Determine usage fees. As the University of Pittsburgh points out, publication fees can be standard, but submission fees are not. Legitimate sites may also require a user pay for access to a website.
   • Research the journal editors. In some cases, predatory publishers may list academics as editors without their knowledge. Look through the list of editors presented on the website and first determine if they are real. If they are, check their websites or resumes to see if the journal in question is listed.

Journal Databases for At-Home Research

Aggregated Science News, Media Advisories, and Published Peer-Reviewed Studies:

This page is part of an ongoing effort by the Snopes newsroom to teach the public the ins and outs of online fact-checking and, as a result, strengthen people’s media literacy skills. Misinformation is everyone’s problem. The more we can all get involved, the better job we can do combating it. Have a question about how we do what we do? Let us know.

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Sources

“BMJ Case Reports.” BMJ Case Reports, https://casereports.bmj.com/pages/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2022.

Collister, Lauren. LibGuides: Illegitimate & Predatory Publishing: Legitimate vs Illegitimate Publishers. https://pitt.libguides.com/c.php?g=718064&p=5112543. Accessed 30 Mar. 2022.

“Did Chinese Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan Say COVID-19 Was Made in a Wuhan Lab?” Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/li-meng-yan-covid-19-lab/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2022.

“Did Scientists Find Mushrooms on Mars?” Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mushrooms-on-mars/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2022.

EROL, Almıla. “How to Conduct Scientific Research?” Archives of Neuropsychiatry, vol. 54, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 97–98. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.5152/npa.2017.0120102.

Peer-Reviewed Literature. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/stats_tutorial/section3/mod6_peer.html. Accessed 30 Mar. 2022.

“This Headline Doesn’t Tell You Everything You Need To Know.” Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/articles/401035/headlines-articles-context/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2022.

Claim:

A video shared widely in March 2022 showed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy performing John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Rating:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy became something of a cult figure during Russia’s invasion of his country in the spring of 2022. Many North American and European observers, in particular, found his daily speeches stirring, and marveled at his previous career as an actor and entertainer. 

However, a video shared widely in March 2022 did not, in fact, show Zelenskyy performing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Our rating is “Miscaptioned.”

On March 19, the video was posted to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook by Radio Salento, a radio station based in the southern Italian province of Brindisi. On YouTube, the title of the video was “ZELENSKY [sic] Volodymyr una cover di John Lennon — imagine” and a caption embedded in the video itself read: “Imagine — J. Lenon [sic] — Cover di Zelensky [sic] Volodymyr”:

The YouTube video was widely shared on social media and had close to 1 million views within 10 days.

Although the performer shown in the video did bear a passing resemblance to Zelenskyy, it was not him, but rather Alejandro Manzano — lead singer of the Florida covers band Boyce Avenue. The original video was in fact posted to Boyce Avenue’s YouTube channel in 2017, and can be viewed below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrpvq6xef2A
 
Earlier in March, another hoax falsely claimed to show Zelenskyy and his wife, Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska, performing a duet of Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love.” As we explained at the time, the video actually showed Manzano and the English singer Connie Talbot. 

Due to the slight resemblance between the two men, it’s unfortunately likely that future “singing Zelenskyy” hoaxes will emerge against the backdrop of the death and devastation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Claim:

Ben Shapiro tweeted about the idea of having a “beautiful” and “hot sister” and said he stares at her pictures for hours.

Rating:

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro never tweeted, “look how beautiful my sister looks,” nor did he post to Twitter fantasizing about having a “hot sister.” However, screenshots of the fake tweets made the rounds anyway and appeared to be believed as real by a number of social media users.

Here are the apparent origins of both screenshots.

‘Look How Beautiful My Sister Looks’

In one of the fake tweets, Shapiro supposedly said: “Look how beautiful my sister looks. Simply glowing. I’ve literally been staring at these photos for hours.” It included two photographs of Abigail Shapiro, one of Ben’s younger sisters pictured below in a light blue dress:

According to KnowYourMeme.com, the pictures had originally been captured at the sister’s baby shower while she was pregnant. The website reported: “Pregnant Abigail Shapiro Photos Broke The Internet Even Though They Were Photoshopped.” The fake tweet and doctored pictures appeared to originate from the r/196 subreddit on Reddit. The thread was posted on Feb. 14, 2022.

On Feb. 22, TikTok user @qveenjulia posted a video with the fake Shapiro sister tweet and the following caption: “The amount of people that tagged me in this tweet #fyp #abbyshapiro #jewish.” She uploaded the clip after her followers noted that they believed her physical appearance resembled Abigail’s.

By March 23, the TikTok video had been viewed more than 2.6 million times.

‘Say You Have a Hot Sister’

In the second fake tweet screenshot with a message about Shapiro‘s sister, it read: “The thing with homosexuality and transgenderism is that it simply boils down to exerting control over your impulses. Like, say you have a hot sister. You fantasize about it, maybe you steal her underwear a couple times, but it goes no further than that.”

Screenshots of this fake tweet have been going around since at least 2020. We found that it had previously been posted on the r/ToiletPaperUSA subreddit on Sept. 20, 2020.

A number of social media users appeared to believe the “hot sister” tweet was really posted by Shapiro. This tweet from @TheKeithiest boosted the viral shares:

@TheKeithiest’s tweet received more than 7,000 combined retweets and quote tweets. It also was liked more than 38,000 times.

Abigail Shapiro

Aside from the fake tweets and doctored photographs, Shapiro has tweeted before about his three younger sisters.

He once posted that Abigail is “a professional soprano.” He noted: “She’s classically trained, of course — full opera scholarship at USC, master’s in opera from Manhattan School of Music. I’m quite proud of my little sister.”

Shapiro has also shared several videos of his sister singing before, including this one of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. national anthem:

In sum: No, Shapiro never tweeted about the idea of having a “hot sister,” nor did he say, “look how beautiful my sister looks.” Screenshots with these words are fake.

Curious about how Snopes’ writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We’ve collected some posts that help explain how we do what we do. Happy reading and let us know what else you might be interested in knowing.

Claim:

A photograph shows Russian President Vladimir Putin riding a bear.

Rating:

In March 2022, as Russia continued its deadly attack on Ukraine, an old picture supposedly showing Russian President Vladimir Putin riding a bear was recirculated on social media:

This is not a genuine photograph but a digital composite created by combining at least two different pictures.

The image of Putin, for example, was taken from a different picture that showed the Russian president riding a horse in 2009. Here’s a comparison of the genuine photograph (left) and the doctored image (right):

The horse-riding photograph on the left is one of several released over the years by the Kremlin, apparently in order to bolster Putin’s masculine image. The New York Times reported on these photo-ops in 2021:

There are photo shoots, there are presidential photo shoots — and then there are Vladimir Putin presidential photo shoots. Rarely has the leader of a global power embraced the staged publicity still with such creative, yet clichéd, fervor, not just feeding the global desire for a caricature of himself, but actually creating it.

Cue, for example, his latest propaganda foray, released by the Kremlin … In a series of photos of Mr. Putin on a weekend jaunt to the snowy Siberian taiga, the 68-year-old president is shown in his usual favorite outdoor setting, displaying his connection to nature, manly toughness and appreciation of country. In the vastness of the largely empty landscape, he looms large. At least that was probably the idea.

This is not the only doctored image to show Putin riding a bear. An animated clip supposedly showing Putin riding a bear racked up tens of thousands of views in March 2022 on TikTok.

This video is also fake. Here’s the original footage of the bear before Putin was digitally inserted into it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OmZX-yTmrw
 

Sources

Claim:

Ukraine is not an independent country, as affirmed by former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Rating:

Curious about how Snopes’ writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We’ve collected some posts that help explain how we do what we do. Happy reading and let us know what else you might be interested in knowing.

During the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in March 2022, social media users enthusiastically shared a lengthy post that claimed back in 2014, United Nations (U.N.) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had declared Ukraine was not a independent state, and as a result, Russia’s military aggressions there eight years later were justified. 

Several Facebook posts, dated late February and early March, contained versions of the same post, which typically began as follows:

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has stated that Ukraine has not applied for border registration since 1991, so the state of Ukraine does not exist….And we don’t know about it!!!…

The earliest version we could find was posted by conspiracy theorist Simon Parkes, on Feb. 22:

To the untrained eye, the post might have appeared authoritative, with its citations of specific dates and self-assured discussion of various texts and reference points such as, “According to the CIS Treaty,” “Under international law,” and “According to the Budapest Memorandum…”

In reality, the screed was inaccurate, incoherent gobbledygook. Ukraine is indeed an independent nation-state, and has been universally recognized as such since 1991. We are issuing a rating of “False.”

Why Ukraine is a Sovereign Nation State

Article 4 of the UN Charter of 1945 sets out the requirements for membership in the U.N.:

1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.
2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. 

Two of the founding members of the U.N. were the Soviet Union and Ukraine — then known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).

In August 1991, upon Ukraine’s declaration of independence, the Ukrainian SSR’s representative to the U.N., Hennadiy Udovenko, informed the U.N. that the country’s new name was, simply, Ukraine. There was no other change to Ukraine’s membership of the U.N., which was retained in 1991, nor its status as a sovereign state. Nor was there any requirement for Ukraine to “register its borders.”

Furthermore, the U.N. lists Ukraine as one of its members — a prerequisite for which is the status of independent state — and former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has, of course, repeatedly referred to Ukraine as an independent state. So too has his successor, the current U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, who said just this week, in the context of Russia’s invasion, “The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine must be respected in line with the UN Charter.”

The CIS Charter, which established the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States, makes no reference whatsoever to the territorial integrity or sovereignty of Ukraine.

The Budapest Memorandum was a 1994 agreement between the U.S., U.K., Russia and Ukraine, which had to do with nuclear non-proliferation and the thorny question of how to manage Ukraine’s decommissioning of its nuclear weapons, in the post-Soviet era.

Not only does the Budapest Memorandum not state that “Ukraine has no borders,” as Parkes’ post bizarrely claims, it actually required the signatories — including Russia — to re-affirm the very opposite:

The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine…to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

 

Claim:

In 1928, Adolf Hitler said: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian.”

Rating:

Context

It’s true that Hitler said this in 1928. The original quote was slightly longer than what has appeared in memes. At the same time, history showed that Hitler’s National Socialist Movement later sought to destroy Christianity once in power. Citing evidence from the Nuremberg war-crime trials, The New York Times reported that, “the Nazis simply lied and made deals with the churches while planning a ‘slow and cautious policy of gradual encroachment’ to eliminate Christianity.”

For years, a viral meme has been shared that features a picture of Adolf Hitler with a quote about Christianity. It read: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian.”

The quote meme with Hitler‘s photograph has shown up in tweets from actor and comedian Ricky Gervais, on Reddit’s r/atheism subreddit, and in viral TikTok videos.

This quote about Christianity came from real remarks given in a speech by Hitler in the German city of Passau. The date in the meme, Oct. 27, 1928, is also accurate.

In 2003, author Richard Steigmann-Gall published the book, “The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945.” Hitler’s quote about Christianity appeared on page 60. The citation for the quote read: “BAZ NS 26/55 (27 October 1928: Passau).” “BAZ” stood for Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf. This citation led us to a book of speeches titled, “Bundesarchiv Hauptarchiv der NSDAP,” which was digitized to the online portal for the Berlin Document Center.

We looked at the original documents from 1928 and transcribed the theme, introduction, and relevant portion of Hitler‘s speech that was given in Passau.

Theme

The theme for Hitler‘s speech that mentioned Christianity was described as follows, first in English and then in the original German version from the book. Translations to English were made possible with Google Translate:

English

Theme: Our destiny is called Germany

Content: Everywhere you look today you can see the longing for a new idea. The destiny of Germany, not the individual destiny, must be decisive for these. All Marxist errors must be overcome. Successful economic policy requires power politics. To do this, Germany needs a new courageous attitude. Only the thought of the leader personality can save Germany. The question of the form of government is not up for discussion; it is necessary that the principles of the state correspond to moral feeling. This works in the unselfishness of the movement: the individual gets nothing for his sacrifices, but the future gets life!

German

Thema: Unser Schicksal heisst Deutschland

Inhalt: Wohin man heute sieht, zeigt sich die Sehnsucht nach einer neuen Idee. Für diese muss bestümmend sein dad Schicksal Deutschlands’ nicht das einzelne Schicksal. Es müssen alle marxistischen Irrtümer überwunden werden. Eine erfolgreiche Wirtschaftspolitik bedingt Machtpolitik. Dazu braucht Deutschland eine neue mutige Gesinnung. Nur der Gedanke der Führerpersönlichkeit kann Deutschland retten. Die Frage der Staatsform steht garnicht zur Eröterung, notwendig ist, dass die Staatsgrundstätze dem sittlichen Gefühl entsprechen. Das wirkt in der Selbstlosigkeitder Bewegung: Der Einzelne bekommt nichts für sein Opfern, aber die Zukunft bekommt das Leben!

Introduction

The documents with the speech contained details that set the scene of what it was like on that October evening in Passau in 1928. The translation and original German version are both below:

English

From the outset, the large National Socialist mass meeting scheduled for 6:00 p.m. in the Schmeroldkellersaal (Passau) was characterized by an overwhelming rush of people, which the spatial conditions were far from able to cope with. Countless Hitlerites and interested parties had gathered from near and far, especially a large number from our sister country Austria. All Volks-u. Professions could be seen represented here. The well-manned orchestra, consisting exclusively of uniformed Hitlerites, knew how to fill the musical part of the evening in an excellent way. Everyone was finally waiting with great excitement for the eight o’clock strike since Hitler was to appear and take the floor about today’s great battle. Precisely eight o’clock Adolf Hitler entered the crowded hall, shouting “Heil” incessantly. The orchestra let out a dashing march. Subsequently, the local group leader of the N.S.D.A.P. Passau, Herr Eichmeister Fischer, officially the meeting, greeted those who appeared cordially, paying special attention to the Austrians. At 8:12 p.m. Hitler then took the floor…

German

Die auf heute abends 6 h im Schmeroldkellersaal (Passau) anberaumte grosse nationalsozialistische Massenversammlung stand von vornherein im Zeichen eines überwältigenden Menschenandrangs, dem die räumlichen Verhältnisse bei weitem nicht gerecht zu werden vermochten. Aus nah und fern hatten sich unzählige Hitleraner and Jnteressenten eingefunden, so insbesondere such eine stattliche Anzahl aus unserem Bruderlande Oesterreich. Alle Volks-u. Berufsstände konnte man hier vertreten sehen. Das ausschliesslich aus uniformierten Hitlerleuten bestehende gut besetzte Orchester verstand es wohl, den musikalischen Teil des Abends in vortrefflicher Weise auszufüllen. Allseits harrte man schliesslich mit grösseter Spannung des Achtuhrschlages, da Hitler erscheinen und das Wort zu seiner heutigen grossen Hede ergreifen sollte. Präzize acht Uhr betrat Adolf Hitler unter mächtigen immerwährenden “Heil” Rufen den dichtbesetzten Saal. Das Orchester liess einen schneidigen Marsch vernehmen. Anschlussweise eröffnete der Ortsgruppenführer der N.S.D.A.P. Passau, Herr Eichmeister Fischer, offiziell die Versammlung, begrüsste in herzlichen Erschienenen, wobei er der Oesterreicher besonders gedachte. Acht Uhr 12 ergriff dann Hitler das Wort, wobei er im wesentlichen folgendes ausführte…

Hitler’s Christianity Quote

The part of the speech that appeared in the meme occurred in the second half of the prepared remarks. Before mentioning Christianity, Hitler appeared to have made references to the purported dangers of open borders.

The meme said: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian.” The actual quote, when translated with Google Translate, looked to be a bit longer. We bolded it below:

English

Through the limitless sense of sacrifice that already enthralls millions today, a sense of sacrifice that also reaches beyond the borders of the country. She has already driven a symbol beyond the marked German borders. It is the national color of the coming new generation. The bourgeoisie like it. Parties look beyond the border posts, the new Germany already sees the new form in front of it, which consistently overlooks this junk, a form that will create the prerequisites that are necessary on the outside. For us, Parliament is a fencing ground on which our world view is represented. In particular, we do not believe that Parliament will save Germany, that a German National Assembly could do that, rather that the idea of a leader can one day save Germany! This movement has received an extraordinary degree of freedom of operation, which in the highest sense of the word allows everything to be put aside that could in any way divide the people.

We have different faiths in Germany, but we are one: which faith conquers the other, that is not the question, rather whether Christianity stands or falls, that is the question! Today we see before us the inheritance of the people, touching everything. There is no then into which any piece of his heaven is pointed. We will never allow a religious quarrel to arise in this movement, we say rather: the church may educate the parties to religious service, we educate them to fight and to preserve its world view and its foundations! We are convinced that when Christ descends on earth today, that he will not refuse blessings to those who strive to put Christianity into practice, to remove mutual self-help, class struggle, and status arrogance, we will strive, strive to make it clear to everyone that it’s a shame not wanting to see the need after we’re trying to suppress German culture being dragged down. We do not tolerate anyone in our ranks who offends the ideas of Christianity, who stands up to a dissident, fights him, or provokes himself as a hereditary enemy of Christianity. This movement of ours is actually Christian.

We are filled with the wish that Catholics and Protestants may find one another in the deep need of our own people. We will stop any attempt to bring religious thought up for discussion in any way within our movement. And when we fight the Center [Party], we don’t do it for religious reasons, but because it makes fun of the word “Christianity” and scorns it because it is willing to throw Christianity overboard for the ministerial chair. We are fighting the Center for national political reasons, not because it wants to be a Catholic party. Beware of those who walk in sheep’s clothing! We reserve the right not to degrade Christianity to political service.

German

Durch den grenzenlosen Opfersinn, der Millionen heute bereits beselt, ein Opfersinn, der hinausgreift auch über die Grenzen des Landes. Sie hat ein Symbol bereits hinausgetrieben über die abgesteckten deutschen Grenzen. Es ist die Staatsfarbe des kommenden neuen Geschlechts. Es mögen die bürgerl. Parteien über die Grenzpfähle sehen, das neue Deutschland sieht bereits die neue Form vor sich, das durchgehend hinwegsieht über diesen Plunder, iene Form die voraussetzungen schaffen wird, die nach aussen hin notwendig sind. Für uns ist das Parlament ein Fechtboden, auf dem unsere Weltanschuung vertreten wird. Namentlich glauben wir nicht, dass durch das Parlament Deutschland gerettet wird, dass eine deutsche Nationalversammlung das vermöchte, vielmehr, dass der Gedanke der Führerpersönlichkeit Deutschland eines Tages retten kann! Diese Bewegung hat eine ausserordentliche Operationsfreiheit beokmmen, die im höchsten Sinne des Wortes gestattet, alles zurückzustellen, was irgendwie trennen könnte im Volke.

Wir sind verschieden gläubig in Deutschland, sind aber eins: Welcher Glaube den anderen besiegt, das ist nicht die Frage, vielmehr, ob das Christentum steht oder fällt das ist die Frage! Wir sehen heute vor uns den Erbteil der Menschen, sehen ihn alles antasten. Es gibt kein damals, in das irgend ein Stück von seinem Himmels hineingerichtet wird. Wir werden niemals dulden, dass in dieser Bewegung ein religiöser Streit entsteht, wir sagen vielmehr: die Kirche möge die Parteien erziehen zum religiösen Dienst, wir erziehen sie zum Kampfe und zur Erhaltung seiner Weltanschauung und seiner Grundlagen! Wir sind überzeugt: wenn heute Christus auf Erden herunter kommt, dass er den Segen denen nicht verweigern wird, die sich bemühen, das Christentum praktisch anzuwenden, gegenseitige Selbsthilfe, Klassenkampf und Standesdünkel herauszunehemen, werden wir uns bemühen, bemühen, jedem klar zu machen, dass es eine Schande ist, die Not nicht sehen zu wollen, nachdem wir bemüht sind, zu ünterdrucken, dass deutsche Kultur heruntergezerrt wird. Jn unseren Reihen dulden wir keinen, der die Gedanken des Christentums verletzt, der einem anders Gesinnten Wilderstand entgegenträgt, ihn bekämpft oder sich als Erbfeind des Christentums provoziert.

Diese unsere Bewegung ist tatsächlich christlich. Wir sind erfüllt von dem Wunsche, dass Katholiken und Protestanten sich einander finden mögen in der tiefen Not unseres eigenen Volkes. Wir werden jeden Versuch unterbinden, den religiösen Gedanken in unserer Bewegung irgendwie zur Diskussion zu setzen. Und wenn wir das Zentrum bekämpfen, tun wir es nicht aus religiösen Gründen, sondern, weilesmit dem Wort “Christentum” Spott und Hohn treibt, weil es bereit ist, für den Ministerstuhl das Christentum über Bord zu werfen. Aus nationalpolitischen Gründen bekämpfen wir das Zentrum, nicht, weil es eine katholische Partei sein will. Hütet euch vor denen, die im Schafspelz einhergehen! Wir verwahren uns, das Christentum zu politischen Diensten zu degradieren.

The end of the speech was signed by Max Vogl, who appeared to have recorded the remarks that evening.

‘The Nazis Simply Lied’

Despite these remarks from Hitler in 1928, history showed in the years to follow that his National Socialist Movement sought to destroy Christianity. The New York Times reported that the movement could not “adopt this radical stance officially until it had consolidated power,” so “the Nazis simply lied and made deals with the churches while planning a ‘slow and cautious policy of gradual encroachment’ to eliminate Christianity.” The source for the Times’ information was the Nuremberg Project, which outlined excerpts from evidence taken during the Nuremberg war-crime trials.

CatholicCulture.org also chronicled the Nazi’s violent persecution specificially of members of the Roman Catholic faith, which included mass arrests that sent scores of believers to concentration camps.

In sum, yes, in 1928, Hitler told a crowd to not tolerate anyone who offended or attacked Christianity and also said that his movement was Christian. It was one of many speeches he gave that year.

Claim:

A news report on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed a living person sitting up while in a body bag.

Rating:

Context

This video comes from a “die-in” climate protest in Austria in which protesters got inside of body bags to signify the catastrophic impact current climate policy could have on the world. This is not war footage, it was not taken in Ukraine, and it does not show the media using “crisis actors” to fake the growing death toll of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Origin

During February 2022, as Ukrainian cities were shelled by Russian missiles, as tanks were hit by Molotov cocktails, and as the death toll from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stretched into the thousands, a video started circulating on social media that attempted to show that this entire conflict had been staged. 

The viral video clip shows a reporter standing in front of dozens of body bags. As the clip goes on, one of the “dead bodies” in the background unzips the body bag and stands up. While social media users shared this clip as if it was taken in Ukraine and showed a reporter talking about the death toll, that is not what this clip shows. 

This video was not taken in Ukraine but in Austria on Feb. 4, 2022 (about two weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) and shows a climate protest. 

Here’s the original video. Note that the chyron reads “demo gegen klimapolitik” (translated from German as “Demo against climate policy”) and that the signs in the background read (translated via Google) “Climate Protection Act Saves Lives” and “Not Current Climate Policy”:

 This isn’t the first time this video has been miscaptioned. USA Today addressed a different iteration of this claim on Feb. 9 when the video was shared as if it showed COVID-19 “crisis actors.” 

An Austrian television clip has gained traction on social media, where some falsely claim it shows evidence of crisis actors … The clip has been taken out of context – it does not show crisis actors in Germany. In fact, it shows climate protesters in Austria.

And this isn’t the first “crisis actor” claim to emerge during Russia’s attack on Ukraine. A video showing the filming of a movie in England in 2013 was also re-captioned as if it showed Ukrainians staging an attack in 2022. You can read more about the disinformation that has been circulating about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine here. 

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Sources

It is a grim measure of the frequency of crisis events in recent years, and the ubiquity of online disinformation, that when a major story breaks — a terrorist attack, a mass shooting, or an act of war — the writers and editors at Snopes can typically predict what comes next. Recycled videos and photographs, stripped from their proper context, and the same old tropes, all designed to inflame or confuse, or even amuse, the reader.

Each fresh crisis brings its own new styles and variants of misinformation, of course, which require careful and patient analysis. However, we can quickly recognize much of what appears online for what it is — unoriginal and inauthentic. So it was during the week of Feb. 21, when Russian troops began their invasion of Ukraine.

The following is a rough overview of the familiar disinformation trends and recurring memes that the Snopes team recognized and addressed, in the opening days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Images: Rehashed, Recycled, and Repurposed

Misleading, decontextualized, and even fabricated photographs and video footage have long been a feature of conflicts and crises. Our collective experience and institutional memory of such major events means we’re immediately on the lookout for similar inauthentic content, with every new crisis.

For example, back in February 2019, a video emerged online that appeared to show an Indian air strike against Islamic militants in Pakistan. However, upon further inspection, Snopes was able to determine that the footage actually came from a military simulation video game called ARMA 2. Similarly, when a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020, we addressed rumors about a viral clip that was presented as showing the attack on Soleimani, but in fact originated with another video game.  

So, in February 2022, when widely shared social media posts appeared to show Ukrainian forces firing missiles at Russian artillery, in the context of the invasion, it grabbed our attention and prompted some digging. As it turned out, the video clip originated in yet another video game, this time ARMA 3 — the sequel of the game that gave rise to the fake Pakistani footage three years earlier. A different crisis on a different continent, but the same misinformation techniques.

On Feb. 25, we encountered a case of “art imitating life” when social media users enthusiastically shared a clip that appeared to show the “Ghost of Kyiv” — purportedly a Ukrainian fighter pilot responsible for shooting down six Russian military aircraft during the conflict. In reality, the fake footage came from Digital Combat Simulator, though its creator said it had been intended as a tribute to the legendary fighter pilot, whose exploits have not yet been confirmed as fact.

Troll Tropes: Sam Hyde and ‘Bernie Gores’

Sam Hyde is an American comedian whose face and name, or variations of it, have been linked with mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and other major news events, for several years, as part of a protracted and now grimly predictable collective acts of trolling. Those acts are popular among the alt-right and far-right pseudo-satirical, “post-ironic” internet users who frequent online forums such as 4chan.

In November 2017, for example, such individuals — typically young men — delighted in promoting apparently earnest posts that named “Samir al-Hajid” (a crudely modified version of Hyde’s name) as the suspected shooter in a mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Trolls have also named Hyde as a suspect in several other mass shootings such as those in: Kalamazoo, Michigan; Las Vegas, Nevada; Orlando, Florida; and San Bernardino, California. In 2017, U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, inadvertently named Hyde as a suspect in the Sutherland Springs shooting, during a live interview with CNN.

So in February 2022, when social media users shared what looked like a Ukrainian passport described as belonging to a “fallen Azov leader,” we immediately recognized the photograph as Hyde’s:

The fake passport appears to have originated on 4chan and Twitter, sometimes along with clues as to its pseudo-satirical origins, but screenshots of it were subsequently disseminated on Facebook, without such context.

Hyde’s face also featured in bogus social media posts that actually originated in authentic news reports published by the Irish Times and the Times of London. In one particularly egregious example, trolls digitally edited an authentic photograph of a real Ukrainian soldier, 29-year-old Andrey Valerievich, who died near Kramatorsk in Donetsk in May 2020, according to a Facebook tribute posted by the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi:

Hoaxers superimposed Hyde’s face on to Valerievich’s, edited the flag patch to show the Russian flag instead of the Ukrainian, and posted the resulting image online with the caption “Russian airborne troops have reported [their] first casualty”:

In a similar vein, trolls promoted another recurring hoax involving “Bernie Gores” — a fictional character whose name is a play on words which, when pronounced in a certain way, forces the speaker to utter an exceptionally offensive racist phrase. While “Gores” does not exist, the man in the photograph typically associated with him does. He is a YouTube personality and gamer named Jodie Johnston, who is also known as “Wings of Redemption.”

Since August 2020, trolls associated with the gamer and alt-right subcultures have used photographs of Johnston, along with the fictional “Gores” name, typically describing him as the victim of various disasters and acts of violence including: the August 2020 Beirut explosion; the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021; and a devastating tornado in Kentucky, in December 2021.

So when the name and face appeared again in February 2022 — this time “Bernie Goranov” as a “journalist” killed in Ukraine — we understood the background and could place it in the broader context of crisis-related alt-right trolling:

Crisis/Opportunity for Conspiracy Theorists

Because Snopes has been writing about disinformation for so long, we know that another common feature of global events is that conspiracy theorists and bad actors frequently take advantage of the uncertainty, confusion, and fear that surrounds major crises, in order to advance and spread their theory of choice.

In 2020, for example, conspiracy theorists used the COVID-19 pandemic to fuel and promote pre-existing, fear-mongering about the “New World Order,” mass surveillance, vaccination, and involuntarily implanted microchips and tracking devices. Similarly, conspiracy theorists repeatedly seize upon mass shootings to promote their baseless claims about gun control and authoritarianism.

Similarly, in February 2022, conspiracy theorists seized upon Russia’s air bombing of military targets in Ukraine to advance an old, baseless piece of Russian propaganda — given new life by COVID-era conspiracy theorists — that the United States has been developing a top-secret network of laboratories for producing biological weapons including coronavirus itself and, most insidiously of all, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was in fact a heroic campaign to disarm those biolabs.

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Claim:

A video shows a Russian fighter jet firing and the Ukrainian military exchanging fire in February 2022.

Rating:

ArmA 3 is a military game that was released for Microsoft Windows in September 2013. While this video game provides players with a realistic open-world environment, it has also given hoaxers ample footage to recaption and share out of context. In February 2022, as Russia invaded Ukraine, a clip from this game was circulated on social media as if it showed part of this attack.

The following video racked up more than 500,000 views after it was shared online attached to the claim that it showed a Russian aircraft exchanging fire with Ukrainian forces. This clip, however, comes from ArmA 3. 

Alt News, a fact-checking site from India, noted that the above-displayed clip was shared as if it were genuine by the Kerala-based news channel Mathrubhumi and TV9 Kannada.

It was originally posted by the YouTube Channel “Compared Comparisons,” which states that it makes “modern and realistic cinematic war films using ArmA 3 and DCS as the engine to create the stories and Simulations,” in January 2022. The original clip clearly identified it as footage as a simulation from ArmA 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERG5CkduphI
 
This isn’t the first time that clips from ArmA 3 have been miscaptioned and shared online during times of conflict. In September 2021, reporter Mohammed Zubair noted that a video supposedly showing Pakistan bombing Afghanistan also came from this video game:

In January 2020, Boom Live, another fact-checking website in India, reported on another ArmA 3 clip that was being shared as if it showed a conflict between American and Iranian military units. Boom Live reported:

A viral video claiming to show a war like situation where American anti-missile batteries are shooting down Iranian missile units, is false. The clip has been culled out of a user-generated video based on a video game. The 2 minute 50 second long video is originally from a video game called ‘ARMA 3’, a futuristic open military sandbox game that was released by Bohemia Interactive for Microsoft Windows in 2013.

Politifact reported in December 2021 that an ArmA 3 clip was being shared as if showed a “failed attempt by China to launch airstrikes near Taiwan,” and Reuters reported in May 2021 that footage of this game was being shared as if it showed Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system.

 

Sources

On Feb. 24, 2022, the first day (in local time) of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, social media users shared widely an insidious hoax that purported to provide details of the death of an “American journalist” or other U.S. citizens in a Russian bombing. 

The viral hoax typically had the following components:

• A “BREAKING” prefix
• The claim that an “American journalist” (with various different names provided) has been killed/seriously injured in Russian bombing in Kyiv
• The phrase “The White House is currently preparing a statement”
• A photograph of the purported victim

For example, not long after the invasion began, one Twitter account posted a message that read: 

BREAKING: American journalist Farbod Esnaashari has been severely injured in bomb blast in Kyiv, Ukraine. The White House is currently preparing a statement…

Esnaashari is a real reporter, but he covers basketball for Sports Illustrated, was not present in Ukraine during the invasion, and continued tweeting after the false and unsettling rumor of his demise had been posted. The photograph of him is authentic and appears to have been taken from his Twitter profile. Another figure from the world of basketball fandom, Arye Abraham, was featured in a second phony tribute to a supposedly deceased American journalist. 

Multiple examples of the hoax could be found on Twitter in the first 24 hours of the invasion. Some of the most prominent examples appeared to be linked to online trolling and gamer tropes, similar to the “Sam Hyde” hoax often seen in the aftermath of mass shootings and terrorist attacks.

For example, one prominent post, published by the relatively low-effort fake “CNN Ukraine” account @CNNUKR, read as follows:

We’re sad to announce that the first American casualty of the Ukraine crisis has taken place. Thoughts and prayers with the family of activist Bernie Gores who passed away this morning after a mine planted by Russian backed separatists exploded.

In reality, the man shown in that photograph was Jordie Jordan, a YouTuber and gamer also known as “Wings of Redemption,” who has been the target of similar trolling in the past.

For example, in August 2021, similar phony “BBC Afghanistan” and “CNN Afghanistan” accounts posted fake descriptions of “Bernie Gores” as the victim of Taliban violence in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from that nation. “Bernie Gores” is not a real person, but rather a fictional name which, when pronounced, requires the speaker to utter an exceptionally offensive racist phrase. 

Another phony account, @CNNUkrainian, posted a similar tweet containing a photograph of Jordan, along with a modified version of the fictional name, “Bernie Goranov”:

These trolling social media hoaxes subsequently gave rise to less-detailed and more generic online rumors about the supposed death of an American journalist in Ukraine. 

To be clear, it remains a possibility that U.S. citizens might ultimately be among those killed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, as of Feb. 24, there were no specific, credible reports of American casualties, and the formulaic social media posts shared widely in the first hours of the invasion were distasteful hoaxes that emerged from the darker corners of gamer culture and basketball fandom. 

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Middle names, tattoos, $1,000 bills and more — amaze your friends with these Presidents Day factoids from the Snopes archives: 

1. Presidents Day is not literally a federal holiday. 

Columbus gets one. So does Christmas Day. But the third Monday in February is, by federal law, “Washington’s Birthday,” even if it has become known, colloquially, by the rather more inclusive “Presidents Day.”

2. Political operative Roger Stone has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back.

3. Grover Cleveland’s face once adorned a $1,000 bill.

Between 1928 and 1945, the U.S. Treasury printed three rounds of $1,000 bills, featuring Cleveland’s visage. At various points, bills worth $5,000 and even $10,000 were also produced. The practice of circulating large-denomination bills ended in 1969, due to what the Bureau of Engraving and Printing described as “lack of use.” 

4. Donald Trump was the first president in history to lose the popular vote twice, fail to be re-elected, and get impeached.

Since 1789, five presidents have been elected despite losing the popular vote, 15 have failed in their bid to be re-elected, and three have been impeached by the House of Representatives. But only one, Trump, has “achieved” all three. 

5. Harry S. Truman’s middle name stood for, well, “S.”

As we wrote, 20 years ago:

Unable to decide between a middle name honoring Harry’s maternal grandfather (Solomon Young) or his paternal grandfather (Anderson Shipp[e] Truman), John and Martha opted not to give little Harry a middle name at all and settled on something that could represent either grandparent: the letter ‘S’ by itself. (As Truman biographer David McCullough noted, using a single letter that stood for nothing specific was “a practice not unknown among the Scotch-Irish, even for first names.”) 

6. Before Donald Trump, William McKinley was the last president not to have a pet dog in the White House.

In 2020, a pro-Biden group called “Dog Lovers for Joe” made Trump’s break from tradition a campaign issue, even releasing a political ad with the tagline “Choose your humans wisely.”

7. John Tyler, who was the 10th U.S. president and was born in the 18th century, had a grandson still living in February 2022.

As Snopes explained in 2013:

This remarkably short line of ascendancy is due to a confluence of factors that are not common in modern American society but once were not so unusual: men (particularly widowers) marrying much younger women late in life and fathering large numbers of children.

8. In 1992, Abraham Lincoln was honored by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

“Lincoln, an awesome physical specimen at 6-feet-4, was widely known for his wrestling skills,” the citation reads, “and had only one recorded defeat in a dozen years.”

9. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are the longest-married couple in presidential history.

In July 2021, the couple celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary. George H.W. and Barbara Bush were married for 73 years, from 1945 right up until the former First Lady’s death, in 2018. 

10. In January 2020, Jill Biden became the oldest First Lady in American history.

She is also the first septuagenarian FLOTUS, having reached that milestone on her 70th birthday, in June 2021. The youngest First Lady in history? That would be 20-year-old Sarah “Angelica” Van Buren, daughter-in-law of Martin, the eighth president, whose own wife, Hannah, had died several years before he reached the White House. 

Claim:

A photograph shows a 12-year-old Madonna getting an autograph from Elvis Presley in 1970.

Rating:

A photograph of Elvis Presley signing autographs for a group of young fans is often shared online along with the claim that one of the fans was a 12-year-old Madonna:

This is not a photograph of Madonna meeting Elvis. The Queen of Pop was likely too young to be the person in this photograph. Furthermore, Madonna, who has repeatedly been compared to Elvis during her career, has never mentioned this photograph. The singer is also on record saying that the first concert she attended was a David Bowie performance.

While Madonna is not pictured here, this photograph is real and it was truly taken near Madonna’s hometown.

Elvis, Detroit, 1970

This is a genuine photograph of Elvis Presley and a group of fans that was taken in Detroit, Michigan, in 1970. This photograph was originally published in the Detroit Times on Sept. 12, 1970, in an article about Elvis’ recent concert at Olympia Stadium. 

Madonna, who was then known as Madonna Louise Ciccone, grew up in the nearby suburbs and would have been about 12-year-old when this photograph was taken.

The Evidence Against

While this photograph was truly taken in Detroit near where Madonna grew up, that doesn’t prove she is the person in this photo. Detroit is a large city that had a population, including the rest of Wayne County, of more than 2.5 million people in 1970. The person in this photograph could definitely be another young woman who was in Detroit at the time.

It’s also worth noting that it doesn’t appear that Madonna has ever mentioned this photograph. We scanned a few biographies about the star and couldn’t find any anecdotes about Madonna meeting Elvis in 1970. In Matthew Rettenmund’s “Encyclopedia Madonnica,” for example, there are multiple references to the King of Rock and Roll, yet no stories about the two icons meeting. 

Madonna has drawn comparisons to Elvis throughout her career. If this photo truly showed Madonna, it would be a bit odd that she never mentioned it.

Rettenmund told us:

“That absolutely is not Madonna. She was nowhere near a concert of any kind until she snuck out to see Bowie YEARS later. Exactly right that there is no way she would make it to age 63 without mentioning she got Elvis’s autograph. I’ve been swatting this rumor down wherever I can, and have it slated for the update of my book, coming out this year.”

In 2016, after David Bowie’s death, Madonna posted on Facebook that she was “devastated” and wrote that Bowie was first concert.

Does Madonna Look Like the Person In This Photo?

This photo is real, Madonna was 12 in 1970, and Madonna grew up near Detroit. This claim, however, is largely based on the idea that the person in this photograph somewhat resembles the adult Madonna. We weren’t able to find a good picture of Madonna when she was 12, but here’s a comparison of Madonna when she was 14 (left) taken from a yearbook photo that went up for auction in 2012, and the “Elvis and Madonna” photo (right):

This photograph does not show Madonna meeting Elvis. Madonna was too young to be this person, she only bears a passing resemblance to this person, and she has never mentioned this photograph before. For these reasons, we’re marking this claim as false.

Claim:

In 1990, a British Airways flight crew saved dozens of lives by holding on to a pilot who was sucked halfway out of an airplane after explosive depressurization.

Rating:

In early 2022, an old story about an extraordinary mid-air near miss reemerged on social media. For example, on Feb. 10, “Historic Photographs” wrote on Facebook:

In 1990 the captain of flight 5390 Timothy Lancaster got sucked out of his own plane when the window of the plane fell off. The crew held the captains legs for 30 minutes while the plane performed emergency landing. Everyone survived. Here is a picture of the captain in a hospital few days later.

Another widely-shared post on the website Quora on Jan. 15 provided a similar account, which was subsequently reposted several times on Facebook:

In 1990, a badly installed window blew out of a BA flight from the UK to Spain, causing the captain to be sucked halfway out at an altitude of 17,000 feet. The crew had to cling on to the captain’s legs for over 30 minutes while emergency landing. All survived.

These popular social media posts referred to a real incident with a high degree of factual accuracy. The incident in question lasted 22 minutes rather than 30, but aside from that rather minor exaggeration, the posts accurately described the following key facts: On the morning of June 10, 1990, an improperly installed flight deck (cockpit) windscreen blew out during British Airways (BA) Flight 5390, causing explosive depressurization and sucking the pilot, Tim Lancaster, halfway outside the plane. Crew members did indeed prevent him from being blown entirely out of the plane by holding him by his legs, and everyone on board survived after an emergency landing. We are issuing a rating of “True.”

What Happened to Tim Lancaster During Flight 5390?

In February 1992, the U.K. Department of Transport published an authoritative, 62-page report on the incident, which can be read in full here. While social media posts captured some of the core facts, those posts actually tended to understate the near-miraculous nature of Lancaster’s escape from death or serious injury, and the official report contains some truly extraordinary details. The following summary is paraphrased from that 1992 report, unless otherwise stated.

BA Flight 5390 departed Birmingham, in central England, at 7:20 a.m. on June 10, 1990, headed for Malaga, in southern Spain. On board the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) One-Eleven jetliner, built in 1977, were 81 passengers and six crew members, including: 

• Captain Tim Lancaster, aged 42
• Co-pilot Alistair Atchison, 39
• Purser (Chief flight attendant) John Heward, 37 
• Second steward Simon Rogers, 29
• Third steward Nigel Ogden, 36
• Fourth steward Sue Prince, 33

After a smooth take off, Lancaster unbuckled his seatbelt and switched on the autopilot. However, at 7:33 a.m., as the aircraft passed over Didcot in Oxfordshire, 55 miles west of London, at an altitude of 17,300 feet, the pilot’s windshield blew out, causing sudden cabin depressurization and sucking Lancaster out the window. Government investigators would later conclude that the windscreen had been replaced just 27 hours earlier, but most of the bolts used were inappropriate. 

It is not entirely clear why Lancaster was not instantly sucked all the way out the window but, remarkably, it appears to be the case that one or both of his feet happened to be temporarily stuck under the control column — an extraordinary twist of fate that saved Lancaster’s life and, as we will explain later, potentially prevented a complete catastrophe. 

That initial explosive decompression, which lasted between 1.13 and 1.46 seconds, caused condensation mist and swirling winds to rapidly fill the flight deck, and left Lancaster suspended by his legs while airflow outside the airplane pinned his torso and head against the front of the airplane.

Third steward Ogden and purser Heward reacted quickly. While Ogden rushed over to Lancaster and grabbed him by the waist, Heward removed part of the flight deck door — which had been blown off in the initial force of the decompression — from the control column, allowing co-pilot Atchison to take control of the aircraft and attempt to arrange an emergency landing with local air traffic control. 

Then, while second and fourth stewards Rogers and Prince reassured the passengers, Heward reentered the flight deck and helped Ogden hold on to Lancaster’s waist and legs. Ogden, exposed to biting winds and air temperatures of -17° celsius (just over 1° fahrenheit) was rapidly developing frostbite and becoming exhausted, so Rogers took over.

The crew would later tell investigators that during this time, they all assumed Lancaster was already dead, and were relieved to discover he had survived when they saw him kicking his feet outside the aircraft, several minutes later. Interviewed for a later documentary film, Lancaster himself said he had managed to twist his torso around to face the inside of the airplane, so that he could breathe, but quickly lost consciousness and remembered nothing of the rest of his ordeal, until he woke up in hospital. 

Setting aside humanitarian and ethical considerations, letting go of Lancaster could have proven catastrophic, if his body subsequently caused damage to the wing or engine of the aircraft. As it turned out, Rogers held on until Atchison was able to make a successful emergency landing at Southampton airport, on the south coast of England.

The official transcript of Atchison’s conversation with air traffic control in Southampton contains the following remarkable exchange, as controller Chris Rundle attempts to clarify the nature and extent of the emergency facing BA 5390:

Rundle (Air traffic control Southampton): …What is your number of persons on board?
Atchison (Co-pilot BA 5390): We have eighty four passengers, sir, and I think that will be all until we’re on the ground.
Rundle: Roger, that’s copied. And we’ve been advised that it’s pressurization failure. Is that the only problem? Speedbird five three nine zero turn left heading one one zero.
Atchison: Turning left one one zero speedbird five three nine zero. 
Rundle: Five three nine zero we’ve been advised it’s pressurization failure, is that the only problem?
Atchison: Negative sir, the captain is half sucked out of the aeroplane. I understand — I believe he is dead. 
Rundle: Roger, that is copied.
Atchison: Flight attendant’s holding on to him, but requesting emergency facilities for the captain. I — I — I think he’s dead.
Rundle: Roger, that is copied. Continue your descent…

In the later documentary film, Rundle reflected on the surreal nature of that conversation:

It doesn’t actually happen. It’s one of these things that you see in films, that happens in films, but it doesn’t happen in real life…The hairs on the back of the neck go up and there’s this feeling down the spine, the tingle down the spine and you think “No, it’s not for real,” but it’s got to be. 

Atchison landed the plane in Southampton at 7:55 a.m. — 22 minutes after the incident had begun. None of the passengers were injured, Ogden was treated for frostbite, cuts and bruises on his arm, and bore lasting psychological trauma from the experience. Lancaster was brought to Southampton General Hospital where, remarkably, his only injuries were bone fractures in his right arm and wrist, a broken left thumb, frostbite, bruising and shock. The following photograph was taken the very next day, June 11, 1990:

Lancaster returned to commercial flying just five months later, and eventually retired in 2008. In December 1991, Queen Elizabeth II approved the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air for the other five crew members. The citation read:

For services in saving the captain of a British Airways, by holding on to him when he was partially sucked out of the cockpit, following decompression after the windscreen blew out in flight. The…officers were in danger themselves through the effect of the slipstream.

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Claim:

A video shows ducks and an alligator living in the same hole after the mother duck hatched and raised the alligator.

Rating:

WARNING: The videos in this article feature animal abuse. 

In February 2022, a video supposedly showing a group of ducks and an alligator living peacefully together in a small hole on the side of a hill was widely circulated on social media. A popular posting on the “AnimalsBeingBros” subreddit was captioned: “a duck hatched an alligator egg, now they’re a family.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAnFhUk3dxk
 
While this video is frequently attached to a cute caption, this is not documentary footage of a wholesome encounter as a family of ducks welcomed home their brother from another mother. This is an abbreviated version of a staged short amateur film.

The above-displayed video was one of several short amateur films produced circa 2020 that featured a “primitive man” “rescuing” various animals from dangerous encounters. These videos featured different combinations of animals [chickens attacked by pythons, doves attacked by snakes, turtles attacked by komodo dragons], but they all followed the same premise: “Primitive man saves [BLANK] from [BLANK].”

Here’s the full version of this video. As you can see, these ducks aren’t welcoming a predator into their home. 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=337021804409776
 
It appears that this same group of ducks were featured in another video showing them being attacked by a python. 

A collection of these “animal attack” videos can be found on the “CanhR LiveThree” Facebook page. While it’s not clear if this page belongs to the creator of these movies, it is clear that these videos were all created as a form of entertainment. They do not document natural occurrences, but man-made staged ones. 

 
The viral video does not show a duck that hatched and raised an alligator. The video really shows a group of ducks that were subjected to a close encounter with a dangerous animal in service of making a piece of entertainment. 

Claim:

Punxsutawney Phil is an immortal groundhog.

Rating:

On Feb. 2, 2022, Punxsutawney Phil, a weather predicting immortal groundhog that lives in a hole on Gobbler’s Knobb in Pennsylvania, crawled out of his burrow for the 136th time, and in his best groundhogese, declared that there would be six more weeks of winter.

At least, that’s how the legend goes. 

According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, Phil has been predicting the weather since 1886. This is a bit hard to believe, of course, as the average groundhog only lives between three and six years. So what’s Phil’s secret to longevity? According to the PGC, Phil drinks a secret elixir every summer that grants him seven more years of life:

There has only been one Punxsutawney Phil. He has been making predictions since 1886! Punxsutawney Phil gets his longevity from drinking the “elixir of life,” a secret recipe. Phil takes one sip every summer at the Groundhog Picnic and it magically gives him seven more years of life.

Where does this “elixir of life” come from? It’s a recipe? Does that mean someone makes it? And if this elixir gives Phil seven years of life why does he have to drink it every summer? Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find answers to these questions. 

To make matters a bit more confusing, it’s unclear how Phil was chosen for to take on this most important task. The traditions of “groundhog day” (predicting the weather based on an animal’s behavior) stretch back passed Phil’s first prediction in 1886 to the Christian feast day of Candlemas. Prior to Phil becoming the “prognosticator of prognosticators,” people attempted to predict the weather by observing bears, badgers, hedgehogs and other animals that tended to emerge from hibernation around this time. The groundhog likely became the prognosticator of choice in Pennsylvania as hedgehogs weren’t plentiful and bears were dangerous.

As we wrote in “The Origins of Groundhog Day“:

However, the groundhog only became the mascot of springtime after early German settlers migrated to the northeastern United States. Before that, the duty was given to bears, badgers, or hedgehogs, also hibernating species that emerge around the same time of year, but neither badgers nor hedgehogs are native to the Pennsylvania region, and presumably nobody wanted to hang around a black bear den long enough to see whether or not he was startled by his shadow.

A Groundhog Day Hunt?

The groundhog day tradition in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania stretches back to the late 1800s. And while the PGC would like you to believe that the original groundhog was kept alive with a secret immortal elixir, the truth is likely a little more gruesome: The original “Phil” was probably eaten. 

Before “Phil” became “Phil” (the groundhog wasn’t named Phil until the 1960s), the annual Groundhog day festivities centered around a groundhog day hunt. Pennsylvanians would gather up, go into the woods, and hunt groundhogs for a feast. A few groundhogs were kept alive to make weather predictions, an idea that the author of this newspaper clipping from a 1905 edition of the “Punxsutawney Post” apparently found ridiculous, as they wrote that anyone could if the weather would be wet or dry by simply looking up at the sky. 

04 Oct 1905, Wed Punxsutawney News (Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com

Punxsutawney Phil Has a 100% Accuracy Rate?

According to the PGC, the immortal groundhog Phil has never been wrong. Since he made his first weather prediction in 1886, the club claims, Phil has been correct 100% of the time. 

How often is Phil’s prediction correct?
100% of the time, of course!

That, however, doesn’t line up with statistics from meteorologists. Live Science reports that Phil has a lifetime accuracy rate of about 39%. Since 1969, Phil’s predictions have been right 36% of the time. 

Phil does a shade poorer when you check his performance against actual weather outcomes since 1969, when the accuracy of weather records is less in question, said Tim Roche, a meteorologist at Weather Underground. From 1969 on, Phil’s overall accuracy rate drops to about 36%.

The groundhog’s powers of prognostication are slightly better when he doesn’t see his shadow, though. “When Phil predicted a short winter, he was much more likely to be right,” Roche previously told Live Science. “Out of the 15 times that he didn’t see his shadow and predicted an early spring, he got it right seven times. That’s a 47% accuracy rate,” he said at the time.

So How Old Is Punxsutawney Phil, Really?

The tradition of Groundhog Day on Gobbler’s Knob exists in a state of suspended disbelief, where humans can understand groundhogese, where immortal elixirs are brewed to extend the life of a weather predicting rodent, and where the appearance of a shadow (or lack thereof) determines the next six weeks of weather. 

On any other day, we’d tell you that the “Punxsutawney Phil” that predicted the weather on Gobbler’s Knob today is probably the 30th groundhog to have held the title of “seer of seers,” that the current “Punxsutawney Phil” is probably about three-years-old, and that the original Phil was most likely eaten after predicting weather. But today, on Groundhog Day, we’ll buy into the idea that there’s an immortal groundhog living in Pennsylvania who emerges once a year to look at his shadow and tell the world about the weather. 

Claim:

French writer Voltaire said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”

Rating:

Context

This is a paraphrased version of a quote from a neo-Nazi named Kevin Strom. Voltaire did not write this sentence.

In January 2022, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, in a tweet that supposedly contained a quote from the 18th century French writer Voltaire. 

The quote shared by Massie — “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize” — is not a quote from Voltaire. Rather, this is a paraphrased version of a quote from a neo-Nazi, Kevin Strom, who pled guilty in 2008 to possession of child pornography.

The original version of this quote appeared in a 1993 essay by Strom in which he wrote: “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?”

Massie was not the first to erroneously attribute this passage to Voltaire. The earliest iterations of this misattribution that we could find came in a 2007 post on the neo-Nazi internet forum for the Vanguard News Network. Since then, it has been shared in a variety of forums. In 2013, a reader wrote in to the Herald and Review newspaper in Illinois and used this quote to criticize “politically correct” attacks on freedom of speech.

In 2015, an Australian senator deleted all of his tweets after he realized he had accidentally shared a quote from a neo-Nazi. Actor John Cusack issued an apology in 2018 after he mistakenly attributed this quote to Voltaire. In 2021, the quote was widely shared on social media in memes that featured images of Voltaire. 

It’s also worth noting that the artwork used in Massie’s tweet wasn’t originally created to represent some sort of science-based oppression (i.e., vaccination requirements). Rather, it originated with an anti-child labor cartoon from the 1910s. 

While misattributed quotes may often be viewed as trivial mistakes, it’s important to recognize that this is a common method used to spread discredited ideas and hateful rhetoric. By placing an extreme opinion into the mouth of trustworthy source — for example, falsely claiming that Morgan Freeman urged people to stop taking COVID-19 tests, that Jim Carrey said the media should be shut down, or that Mike Tyson wore an anti-vaccination shirt — one can make that extreme opinion seem more palatable. 

Sources

Claim:

The FBI sent Martin Luther King Jr. a letter encouraging him to kill himself and claiming knowledge of his sex life, his lovers, and more.

Rating:

Curious about how Snopes’ writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We’ve collected some posts that help explain how we do what we do. Happy reading and let us know what else you might be interested in knowing.

As he was venerated for leading the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was also targeted for surveillance and defamation by the FBI under the auspices of its first director, J. Edgar Hoover. King’s public criticism of the FBI in the early ’60s put him directly in Hoover’s crosshairs. Hoover once called King “the most notorious liar in the country.” 

Hoover’s efforts to damage King stemmed from King’s criticism of the FBI for failing to enforce civil rights, particularly in the South, and led to the FBI’s investigating the activist for alleged communist connections. The bureau began wiretapping King’s home and offices, and planted bugs in his hotel rooms when they learned that he was in contact with a former Communist Party member named Stanley Levinson. Under the guise of “national security” they even began looking into King’s private life and sexual liaisons. 

All of this culminated in a troubling anonymous letter sent to King’s wife that was later acknowledged by the U.S. Senate to be the work of the FBI. A partly redacted version of the letter was published by The New York Times after a Yale professor stumbled across it while conducting research.

In 2014, while searching through Hoover’s archives, history professor Beverly Gage found “a full, uncensored version of the letter tucked away in a reprocessed set of his official and confidential files at the National Archives.” 

Believed to have been written by William Sullivan, one of Hoover’s deputies, who sent an agent to Miami to mail the letter to King’s home in Atlanta in 1964, it claimed to have knowledge of King’s extramarital affairs. The letter was delivered to his wife, Coretta Scott King, along with a package that contained a tape that allegedly bore evidence of King’s sexual misconduct. 

The sender was masquerading as a Black person in the letter, with statements like: “King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes.” 

The letter continues with, “Your ‘honorary degrees,’ your Nobel Prize (What a grim farce) . . . will not save you.” It adds, “It is all there on the record, your sexual orgies. Listen to yourself, you filthy, abnormal animal. You are on the record. You have been on the record—all your adulterous acts, your sexual orgies extending far into the past. This one is but a tiny sample.”

The version of the letter published by The New York Times (seen above) omitted the name of an alleged lover, because the Times could not verify or disprove the claims regarding that individual. 

Finally, the letter appears to call on King to kill himself, “King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do  […] You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” 

King believed that the letter’s author wanted him to kill himself, and was certain it came from the FBI. More than a decade later, the Senate’s Church Committee on intelligence overreach confirmed King’s suspicions about the source of the letter. Sullivan admitted in a Senate committee hearing that he was involved in the plan, but was opposed to the idea. In 1975 Senate investigators said they found a draft copy of the letter in Sullivan’s files, which Sullivan claimed had been planted there. In a 1979 book, Sullivan said he knew about the tape but not the letter, and that Hoover was behind both. 

According to “Enemies: A History of the FBI” by journalist Tim Weiner: 

The FBI intelligence chief. Bill Sullivan, had run his own COINTELPRO against Martin Luther King. He had a package of the King sex tapes prepared by the FBI’s lab technicians, wrote an accompanying poison-pen letter, and sent both to King’s home. His wife opened the package. […] 

The president knew Hoover had taped King’s sexual assignations. Hoover was using the information in an attempt to disgrace King at the White House, in Congress, and in his own home.

Ultimately, the FBI never succeeded in seriously damaging King’s reputation.

But the effects of such surveillance and dirty tricks are worth analyzing in contemporary times. Gage, the Harvard professor, wrote in The New York Times after uncovering the letter, “Looking past the viciousness of the accusations, the letter offers a potent warning for readers today about the danger of domestic surveillance in an age with less reserved mass media.”

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Sources:

Gage, Beverly. “What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals.” The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2014. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html.

Parham, Jason. “The Uncensored FBI Letter to MLK Found Hidden in the National Archives.” Gawker, https://www.gawker.com/the-uncensored-fbi-letter-to-mlk-found-hidden-in-the-na-1657593062. Accessed 25 Jan. 2022.

Prokop, Andrew. “Read the Letter the FBI Sent MLK to Try to Convince Him to Kill Himself.” Vox, 12 Nov. 2014, https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/12/7204453/martin-luther-king-fbi-letter.

Pruitt, Sarah. “Why the FBI Saw Martin Luther King Jr. as a Communist Threat.” HISTORY, https://www.history.com/news/martin-luther-king-jr-fbi-j-edgar-hoover-communism. Accessed 25 Jan. 2022.

Weiner, Tim. Enemies: A History of the FBI. Random House, 2012.

Claim:

In January 2022, U.S. military officials executed former President George W. Bush at Guantanamo Bay.

Rating:

In January 2022, websites and social media accounts aligned with the QAnon cluster of conspiracy theories enthusiastically shared a false and distasteful post that claimed U.S. military officials had overseen the execution, at Guantanamo Bay, of former President George W. Bush. 

For example, on Jan. 6, TrustTheQ.com published an article with the headline “George W. Bush Hanged at GITMO,” which claimed that the 43rd president had been summarily convicted of “murder and treason” and, having been detained at Guantanamo, was executed by hanging there “on Tuesday morning” [Jan. 4].

The same piece was republished on BestNewsHere.com, and formed the basis of videos by various conspiracy theorists who evidently interpreted it as an earnest account.

In reality, though, the “Bush execution” story was not only utterly false, but originated on Real Raw News — a website that routinely publishes sensationalist conspiracy theories and QAnon-adjacent clickbait, while using the disclaimer that the site contains “humor, parody and satire”:

Snopes regularly debunks some of the gory fantasies published by Real Raw News about the fictional arrest and execution of various political figures, including Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Chelsea Clinton and, of course, Bush — who was the subject of a fake “arrest” story by Real Raw News just weeks earlier. 

As such, the stories’ trademark style — laughable dialogue, action-movie one-liners, and a seemingly infinite pool of anonymous “sources” inside the most elite and secretive U.S. military circles — will have become familiar to some readers, by now. 

However, most readers perusing the story on TrustTheQ.com, for example, or watching “gh05tR0b 5’s” YouTube commentary on it, would not have been aware of its true origins, and would not have been directed to the “humor, parody and satire” disclaimer on RealRawNews.com.

This is one of the reasons why Snopes sometimes writes about satire — because even content that was originally published with a “satire” disclaimer is routinely stripped from that context and republished elsewhere, without any such warnings. 

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Sources

Claim:

In a 1999 segment on “Newsnight,” musician David Bowie predicted phone addition, viral cat videos, and the phrase social media.

Rating:

Context

In 1999, David Bowie discussed the influence of the internet during a segment on “Newsnight.” Years later, a parody video was made that grossly exaggerated Bowie’s remarks.

In January 2022, a video went viral on social media that supposedly showed musician David Bowie giving an eerily accurate prediction of the modern internet age, including the rise in cute cat videos, phone addition, and the specific term “social media.” 

This is not a genuine video of Bowie. This is a parody clip by comedian Michael Spicer. 

The above-displayed video is a parody of a famous interview the real Bowie gave on Newsnight in 1999. In fact, Spicer’s clip above starts with the repetition of a quote from Bowie’s original interview (“I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable”) before launching into a humorous parody of Bowie’s remarks. 

You can see the original clip around the 6-minute mark of the following video:

https://youtu.be/FiK7s_0tGsg?t=365
 
In the original video, Bowie said that he was originally drawn to music because he felt that it was a rebellious act. In 1999, however, as music was no longer defined by “leaders” (one or two big acts, such as The Beatles in the 60s, Elvis Presley in the 50s, etc…), Bowie said that the “the internet now carries the flag of being subversive and possibly rebellious and chaotic and nihilistic” and noted how the internet was ushering in a “demystification process … between the artist and the audience.” 

When interviewer Jeremy Paxman provided some pushback, asking if the hype behind the internet was exaggerated, Bowie said that he absolutely disagreed. 

“I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying

[…]

I’m talking about the actual context and the state of content is going to be so different to anything that we can really visage at the moment where the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in simpatico that it is going to crus our ideas of what mediums are all about.

Claim:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter once helped contain a potentially dangerous accident at a nuclear reactor in Canada, back in 1952.

Rating:

In late 2021, we received multiple inquiries from Snopes readers seeking to verify the authenticity of a fascinating story, told in several widely shared social media posts, about one of the pre-White House accomplishments of former President Jimmy Carter. 

For example, on Dec. 14 Jeff Lundeen posted a very widely shared tweet that contained an old picture of a young Carter, a screenshot of the anecdote, and the following caption: 

Do you remember the world’s very first nuclear meltdown? That time the US President, an expert in nuclear physics, heroically lowered himself into the reactor and saved Ottawa, Canada’s capital? Sounds like schlocky action movie, but it actually happened!

That tweet was itself drawn from an earlier Facebook post by the Historical Society of Ottawa, which can be seen below:

The core claim from those accounts was that, as a young naval officer, Carter played a significant role in containing a nuclear meltdown. That claim was accurate, and we are issuing a rating of “True.” 

In main control room of USS K-1 (SSK-1) between June and October 1952. (Source: Naval History and Heritage Command).

Carter, who was born in 1924 and grew up in Plains, Georgia, had a relatively short but distinguished naval career, as summarized by the U.S. Navy itself:

President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946 with distinction, after which he was assigned to USS Wyoming (E-AG 17) as an ensign. After completing two years of surface ship duty, Carter applied for submarine duty. He served as executive officer, engineering officer, and electronics repair officer on the submarine SSK-1. When Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (then a captain) started his program to create nuclear-powered submarines, Carter wanted to join the program and was interviewed and selected by Rickover. Carter was promoted to lieutenant and from 3 November 1952 to 1 March 1953, he served on temporary duty with the Naval Reactors Branch, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, D.C., to assist “in the design and development of nuclear propulsion plants for naval vessels.”

From 1 March to 8 October 1953, Carter was preparing to become the engineering officer for USS Seawolf (SSN-575), one of the first submarines to operate on atomic power. However, when his father died in July 1953 Carter resigned from the Navy and returned to Georgia to manage his family interests. Carter was honorably discharged on 9 October 1953 and transferred to the retired reserve at his request with the rank of lieutenant.

On Dec. 12, 1952, an accident took place at the National Research Experimental (NRX) nuclear reactor at Chalk River, near the Canadian capital of Ottawa. A detailed, official Atomic Energy of Canada account of the incident and its aftermath can be found here and here.

Having been promoted to lieutenant in June of that year, Carter was at that time on secondment from the Navy to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s Division of Reactor Development at Schenectady, in upstate New York. A 2019 video, vetted and published by All Hands, the official magazine of the U.S. Navy, contained the following account of the future president’s involvement in the cleanup operation:

Due to a combination of mechanical failure and human error, a power surge of up to 90 megawatts caused some fuel rods to melt after rupturing in the NRX research reactor at Chalk River Laboratories. The reactor’s core was baldy damaged, requiring a massive cleanup operation. This was the first incident of this magnitude, and Carter was ordered to lead a team of 23 people to assist in the cleanup. 

When he arrived on the scene, there was a duplicate reactor set up on a nearby tennis court, where he and his team would practice removing bolts and pieces as quickly as they could. Once lowered into the damage reactor, each person would only have 90 seconds to work, due to the extreme radioactivity. The core was shut down, rebuilt, and put back into operation without further incident. 

Reflecting on the episode in 2008, Carter told the Canadian author Arthur Milnes that he and his team were exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation at Chalk River, as Milnes would later write for CNN:

“We were fairly well instructed then on what nuclear power was, but for about six months after that I had radioactivity in my urine,” President Carter, now 86, told me during an interview for my new book in Plains in 2008. “They let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would now. It was in the early stages and they didn’t know.”

Despite the fears he had to overcome, Carter admits he was animated at the opportunity to put his top-secret training to use in the cleanup of the reactor, located along the Ottawa River northwest of Ottawa.

“It was a very exciting time for me when the Chalk River plant melted down,” he continued in the same interview. “I was one of the few people in the world who had clearance to go into a nuclear power plant,” he said. “There were 23 of us and I was in charge. I took my crew up there on the train.”