As the U.S. has continued to rotate carriers to the region to counter the Houthi rebels’ attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, they have not only continued to launch missile and drone strikes on U.S. warships but have repeatedly alleged to have been successful, while the United States Navy has not reported any damage to its warships and launched a social media campaign to counter the allegations, according to an article published by Forbes magazine.
The Tehran-backed rebels, and their supporters have in recent weeks attempted to offer more compelling evidence that the U.S. vessels had taken damage during the attacks. One photo shared on X appeared to show a U.S. super carrier burning in the Red Sea, while other images that were shared on multiple apps highlighted the aftermath of a major fire on a flattop's flight deck. Neither was AI-generated, however, and one was even real.
However, there is a bit more to both stories. The image of a U.S. Navy super carrier on fire was first shared by Shadowed News, an account on X that has been active since August 2023 and has more than 106,000 followers. It claims to be run by a pro-humanitarian activist, covering geopolitics and current issues. It offered the caption, "Yemeni Houthis Targeted American USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in Red Sea."
However, as with past claims, it was quickly dismissed after the image was noted to be from a Hollywood movie from more than 20 years ago.
If this sounds familiar, that is because it does seem similar to the plot from episode 19 of the 23rd season animated series The Simpsons, "A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again," which sees the Simpson family on a cruise vacation. After son Bart realizes that his dream vacation will soon come to an end, he tricks the crew and passengers into believing the world is coming to an end and that the ship needs to stay at sea. The 10-year-old prankster pulled off his sinister plot by displaying a scene from a fictional film The Pandora Strain on the ship's large video screen.
Whether those behind the post about USS Harry S. Truman being on fire ever saw the episode is certainly unknown, yet, respondents to the original post were still quick to identify that the image of the burning carrier came from the 2002 film The Sum of All Fears, based on the novel of the same name by the late Tom Clancy.
During production of the movie, the Nimitz-class USS John C. Stennis (CVN-75) was filmed at sea, which the U.S. Navy allowed, provided a key script change was made.
According to a report from The New York Times in 2018, the original screenplay for the film had called for the carrier to be blown up by one or two cruise missiles, but Pentagon officials said it was "unrealistic" and didn't want the impression that such a warship would be so vulnerable. Instead, the scene was changed to show a massive fire that impacted the vessel's flight operations. Miniatures and visual effects were employed to create the carrier on fire.
Moreover, CVN-75 hasn't even been one of the U.S. Navy's carriers deployed to the Middle East as it is currently undergoing its mid-life refueling and complex overhaul, also known as the RCOH maintenance availability, at HII's Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
Another image that circulated in recent weeks on social media claimed to have shown damage on the USS Harry S. Truman following a Houthi missile strike. That particular image first made the rounds on a TikTok video published on March 21. It has since been shared on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, Agence France-Presse reported.
Unlike the image of the burning carrier, this photo does show a real U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, but as AFP also explained, it is entirely unrelated to the ongoing conflict.
The warship seen in the photo is actually the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), which suffered a major fire and a series of explosions in January 1969 after a Zuni rocket detonated under the plane’s wing. That blaze killed 28 sailors, while 314 others were injured. Fifteen fighters were destroyed, and the cost of repairs exceeded $126 million. Though CVN-65 was repaired and returned to service, the world's first nuclear-powered super carrier was decommissioned in 2017 and is now in the process of being dismantled.
That photo wouldn't be that hard to find, as it had been previously posted by the U.S. Naval Institute on X last year to mark the 55th anniversary of the tragic incident, while it had also been previously published on the YouTube Channel for the U.S. Navy in 2014.