The ill-fated journey of the ‘Titan’ submersible vessel, which went missing during a tourist expedition to the ‘Titanic’, has created headlines worldwide. And as hope for finding the missing vessel diminished with every passing day, the US Coast Guards finally declared that the submersible had imploded, killing all five people on board.
Social media was abuzz with posts with mixed reactions related to the tragedy. Also, many were curious to find our latest proceedings. Against this backdrop, we noticed a photo collection going viral in many parts of the world, claiming to be debris of the ‘Titan’ submersible.
Factcrescendo Team found this photo collection comprised of old and AI-generated images. Let’s look at the claim in detail.
Social Media Posts
A viral Tweet, alongside several photos, claimed that robots had discovered new debris near the ‘Titanic’ and that experts claimed these images depicted the debris of the Titan submersible.
Tweet | Archived
Multiple Facebook posts also went viral with similar sets of images.
Facebook | Archived
But do these images really belong to the ‘Titan’? Let’s find out.
Fact Check
First, we checked the US Coast Guard’s official social media accounts/websites to determine whether they posted these photos. However, we could not find any such content.
Hence did a Google reverse image search on the viral photos.
We found that some such photos were taken in 2004 and are available in Alamy stock photos.
The first image shows the shoes of one of the possible victims of the Titanic disaster.
Alamy| Archived
Another photo, again taken back in 2004, shows the remains of a coat and boots in the mud on the seabed near the Titanic’s stern.
Alamy
However, Reverse Image Search for other images did not yield any favourable results, and most indicated that the photos were recently uploaded to social media.
Therefore, we searched for international media reports regarding the debris of the ‘Titan’ yet could not find any credible news organisations publishing the purported images or any other photos/videos of the debris from the ‘Titan’.
The ‘Independent’ reported that a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) had found debris fields on the North Atlantic Ocean sea floor around 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic on Thursday morning.
Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said the debris, which includes the nose cone, front-end bell of the pressure hull, and the other end of the pressure hull & the aft end bell, is “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel”.
“This is an incredibly complex operating environment on the sea floor over two miles beneath the surface,” says Rear Admiral John Mauger, yet “we continue to map out the debris field and will do the best we can to fully map out what’s down there.”
The full article can be read here.
To get further information regarding the viral image, we emailed the US coast guard department, and they confirmed that “the Unified Command has not released any photos or videos of the debris. Unless released from our official Press Releases or our social media, these photos are unconfirmed.”
Hence this response confirms that the other set of viral images was also not genuine and unrelated to the current ‘Titan’ vessel.
Then, we subjected the three remaining images to AI image identification tools, and all these images indicated that high possibility of being created by AI, as seen below with high AI scores.
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Conclusion
Our investigation found that the collection of viral photos claiming to be debris of the ‘Titan’ submersible vessel was false.
US Coast Guards Department confirmed that even though debris from the ‘Titan vessel has been identified, they have not released any such images/videos to the media yet.
A couple of viral images were taken back in 2004 and are linked to the ‘Titanic’ tragedy over a century ago. The other three images are likely created using AI.
Source: srilanka.factcrescendo.com
