Photos Purport To Show Damage To U.S. Aircraft Carrier After Houthi Missile Strike

For more than a week, photos have circulated on social media that purport to show the United States Navy’s nuclear-powered Nimitz-class supercarrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in port for repairs to damage taken in the Red Sea after being struck by missiles fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen. At least one video also alleged to show the carrier on fire after taking a direct hit.

According to the U.S. Navy, the carrier is fine. Though she indeed remains deployed in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from drones and missiles launched by the Iran-backed group that controls large swaths of Yemen, there have been no confirmed reports that the vessel has received any damage.

However, it was on Thursday that the latest video making the claims was posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

It followed another post from user @iAmTheWarax that alleged the carrier was forced to return to Crete for repairs.

“CONFIRMED: uss eisenhower (pictured docked for repairs in souda bay) hit and severely damaged by multiple houthi ballistic missiles. judging by extensive tent city developing on the flight deck, we assess it is unlikely eisenhower will return to service in the foreseeable future.”

@DrMansourMansou also shared a 30-second-long video clip earlier this week, in which smoke can be seen rising over the flight deck after a missile or drone struck the vessel.

All of these posts—and others—have been debunked.

The most recent footage was confirmed to have been taken more than a year ago while USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was docked at Pier 12 at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia in April 2023, while the image claimed that CVN-69 was in Crete wasn’t even a U.S. Navy vessel. Rather, it was actually the Russian Navy flagship Admiral Kuznetsov, which has been undergoing a refit at the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk since 2018.

The video of the carrier on fire is believed to have been taken from a video game. Users on social media have noted that the shape of the island on the flight deck is different from the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class carrier.

Disinformation Campaign

The posts on social media have picked up steam since Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree repeated the claim that the rebel group had successfully targeted USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and other warships in her carrier strike group last weekend. While it is easy for these images to be quickly debunked and dismissed in the United States, it is possible in parts of the world that it could be taken as fact.

Though some of it may also be laughable, it is part of a carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign.

“Misinformation and disinformation are certainly not new, but social media platforms have exacerbated this existing problem,” warned Dr. Julianna Kirschner, lecturer in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.

“These platforms have no delay time, and content can be written and/or uploaded quickly,” explained Kirschner. “This virtual landscape makes it possible for people to say the USS Eisenhower sunk despite the reality. Attempts at humor are often the source of these claims, but sarcasm and tone are often lost on these platforms. When taken at face value, other users might think they are encountering new facts when that is far from the truth.”

Easier Than Ever To Fake Misleading Content

The great danger is that it is easier than ever to manipulate videos and photos, and in a short time, it could be quite difficult to know fact from fiction.

“Photo-switching scams—per the Houthi attack claims—are fairly easy to disprove. The greater issues and dangers will come with subtler deep fake videos,” suggested technology industry analyst Charles King of Pund-IT. “For example, a video that slightly alters a political leader’s speech to make him or her seem older, unsure, or even decrepit. If such videos were released shortly before an election, before they could be effectively debunked, they could substantially impact voter preferences.”

Disinformation relies on the primacy effect or first impressions, making it harder to debunk, even if it seems impossible.

“It is common for users to see images and videos that ‘prove’ these falsehoods, and they believe them,” said Kirschner. “However, when presented with contrary and truthful information later, the same group of people might double down. On a psychological level, they don’t want to admit they were duped or perhaps don’t realize they have been duped. So, they continue to advance their first impression as fact despite contradicting evidence. This is especially the case when the misinformation and disinformation support the users’ preexisting ideology, as in the case of Yemen and Iran.”

Another unprecedented aspect of social media influence in spreading this sort of misinformation is the potential audience size.

“Anyone can post nonsense at any time. However, whether their content reaches any significant audience size is debatable,” Kirschner continued. “Yet, the potential is always still there, so users and owners of bots alike circulate fallacious social media content with the hope that they will reach a detectable audience. If posts like these are accessed in Yemen and Iran, or anywhere else for that matter, we should all be concerned. If the primacy effect is any indication, it will be hard to deprogram the damage these posts create.”