Fact-Check: Recent News of US Navy Attacks in Red Sea misleadingly shared with old video
Megha Bajaj 
Recent News of US Navy Attacks in Red Sea misleadingly shared with old video
A video is going viral on social media platforms showing a small boat being fiercely shot by some machine guns. Users on social media are sharing this video with the recent news of the US Navy’s destruction of Iranian-backed Houthi boats in the Red Sea.
What do the users claim?
Posting this video on X(Twitter), a user named Hananya Naftali wrote: “US Navy DESTROYED Iranian-backed Houthi boats in the Red Sea. The Islamic Republic in Iran plays with fire and they will SINK”
The archive version can be seen here.
Other users also shared this video
Subsequently, the video was shared by several users on X(Twitter) with similar claims.
Fact-Check
To determine the reality of the video, the DFRAC team converted it into some keyframes and revere-searched it on Google. Meanwhile, we found this video on YouTube.
Video found on YouTube
We found a similar video on a YouTube channel named “Gung Hu Vids”. The description of the video reads: “Weapons qualifications aboard the USS America (LHA-6). The Mark 38, Mod 2 30mm machine gun hits remote-controlled small boat targets on February 2, 2017. The test is called combat systems ship qualifications trials (CSSQT)”.
The above viral video can be seen at 38 seconds on the video found on YouTube.
Moreover, the video was uploaded 6 years back.
Media reports from BBC and the New York Times
According to a media report by the Newspaper Website “The New York Times” ,a clash between Iranian-backed Houthi fighters who were attacking a commercial freighter and U.S. Navy helicopters responding to the ship’s distress call ended on Sunday morning with the killing of all the crew members on three Houthi boats, the Pentagon said, a sharp escalation of violence at a moment when the White House is considering direct strikes on Iran’s proxies in the Middle East.
Another media report by BBC also reported similar facts regarding the latest news.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the US destroyed Houthi boats in the Red Sea through Helicopters instead of machine Guns.
Conclusion
It is evident from DFRAC’s Fact-Check that the viral video shared with the recent news of the US Navy’s destruction of Houthis’ boat in the Red Sea is misleading since the video is from 2017, not the recent one.
Analysis: Misleading
Aayushi Rana 
Nisar Ahmed Siddiqui 