Viral images are AI, not wreckage of submersible bound for Titanic | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·4 min read
2

The claim: Images show OceanGate submersible wreckage

A June 22 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) features four images of what appears to be underwater debris.

"Here are images of the Debris found of the Titanic Submarine," reads the post's caption. It also includes hashtags such as "#OceanGate" and "#submarinemissing."

The post garnered more than 400 shares in a week. Similar versions of the claim have been shared on Twitter.

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Our rating: False

The images don't show the OceanGate Titan submersible. Three of the images were created by a digital artist, and one was captured at the Titanic shipwreck in 2004.

Images don't show submersible wreckage

Five people aboard a Titan submersible died in June when the vehicle imploded on its way to the Titanic shipwreck site. Some of the debris from the submersible has since been recovered and brought to the surface.

The images featured in the Facebook post don't show the submersible wreckage, however.

A spokesperson for the Coast Guard told USA TODAY on June 28 that no pictures of the submersible wreckage have been released as of that point.

The only pictures of the debris that have been published were taken after parts of the submersible were brought to the surface in Newfoundland, Canada, and they don't resemble the pictures featured in the Facebook post.

The images in the post also aren't consistent with an implosion, which would have instantly crushed the vessel and been the equivalent of the capsule "suddenly vanishing," according to NBC News.

The first three pictures of what appears to be a rusty, overgrown vessel were originally shared on Twitter on June 22 by an account called, "Prince of Deepfakes (Parody)."

The account, which regularly shares digitally created images, such as one of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump pointing guns at each other, describes itself as a "Parody Guerrilla Satirist" in its bio. The bio also includes the link to a website called "Pan-Global Agency for Research, Technology and Innovation on Artificial Intelligence."

The user has cited the AI-generator tool Midjourney in several of their previous tweets.

Hive Moderation, an AI-detection tool, also says the images are 99.9% likely to be AI-generated.

Fact check: Viral audio of underwater banging unrelated to search for Titan submersible

The fourth image of several shoes sitting 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 the stock image website Alamy.

The photograph was published in numerous articles long before the OceanGate submersible went missing, 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 has also been debunked by Reuters and the Associated Press.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Viral images are AI, not photos of submersible wreckage | Fact check