Is a video real that shows people grabbing floating iPhones from the sea after a missile attack sank a ship near the Strait of Hormuz? No, that’s not true: There is no evidence that the ships that were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz in mid-October 2026 were carrying iPhones. An online tool determined that the video was AI-generated.
The video appeared in a post (archived here) by the @yogeshsh2135 account on X on Oct. 17, 2026: It read (translated from Hindi):
A missile attack took place on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. The ship collided with a rock and sank. The ship was carrying iPhones, which floated to the shore.
Now people are having a field day. Whoever grabbed as many as they could, scooped them up and took them away.
This is what a screenshot from the video looked like on X at the time of writing:
Two ships were hit by projectiles in separate incidents near the Strait of Hormuz on Oct. 14, 2026. A container ship and a dry bulk carrier were hit, spilling debris into the water. News outlets including The Guardian (archived here) and Reuters (archived here) reported on the incidents, with video and images from the sinking ships showing the wreckage in the water. Neither outlet reported there were iPhones on either ship.
There are telltale signs of AI in the video: The iPhone boxes are bobbing in the water but do not appear wet. The water color is red, which does not match the water in videos published by news outlets. One man picks up two boxes, and in the next frame he is holding more boxes than he picked up.
This is a screenshot of a Reuters video showing the wreckage, as it appeared at the time of writing. The water is blue, not red:
This screenshot from the 0:04 mark in the video posted by the @yogeshsh2135 account on X shows a man picking up two boxes (red circle added by Lead Stories):
This screenshot from the 0:05 mark in the same video posted on X shows the man holding more than two boxes (red circle added by Lead Stories):
Online AI detection tool Hive Moderation found that the video is 100% likely to have been generated by AI:
Sightengine, another AI detection tool, determined the video had a 95% likelihood to be generated using AI.
