AI-generated video falsely shown as SpaceX rocket’s Moon impact

“An deserted Area X Falcon 9 Rocket higher stage from January 2025 lunar mission crashed into the Moons close to aspect close to the Einstein crater right this moment 5 August, 2026 at precisely 8.44 am WAT touring at roughly at 5400 miles per hour (8700 km /h). The unintentional affect carried an power drive equal to a few tons of TNT (sic),” reads the caption of a video shared by an Instagram account primarily based in Nigeria.

Reposted greater than 200 occasions because it was revealed on August 5, 2026, the clip exhibits a zoomed-in view of what seems to be an object slamming into the floor of the Moon.

AFP Reality Verify had earlier debunked a unique video with comparable claims in English and French.

The Falcon 9 rocket, constructed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, launched in January 2025 with two lunar landers onboard. Whereas its booster returned to Earth, the higher stage stayed in house to push the landers onward (archived here). 

At a news conference on August 3, 2026, Julianna Scheiman, NASA’s director of Science and Dragon Applications at SpaceX, mentioned a mix of “photo voltaic exercise and gravity forces” pushed the remaining higher stage within the route of the Moon (archived here).

The European Southern Observatory announced on August 5 that “the discarded higher stage of a Falcon 9 rocket impacted on the Moon” (archived here).

The observatory’s Very Large Telescope “detected spectral strains” — what it known as “chemical fingerprints” — of “sodium and lithium gasoline within the affect plume lasting for 5-10 minutes” after the collision (archived here).

The next day, the Korean AeroSpace Administration launched satellite images captured by South Korea’s Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, also referred to as Danuri, exhibiting adjustments to the floor of the Moon following the affect from the SpaceX rocket part (archived here).

Nevertheless, the declare that the Instagram video exhibits the second of collision is fake.

AI-generated clip

Though scientists had predicted that the crash was inevitable, no satellites in space are recognized to have captured video photographs as claimed on social media (archived here).

Reverse image searches led to an identical clip revealed on January 28, 2026, by a Bangladesh-based Instagram account, the earliest model discovered by AFP Reality Verify. The put up has been reposted greater than 400 occasions.

“One thing seems to hit the Moon floor, captured throughout daytime statement. Such occasions are often attributable to small house rocks (meteoroids) impacting the Moon,” reads a part of the video’s caption.

The account, known as “sumon_sheak_”, recurrently posts astronomy content material to its greater than 32,000 followers. Many of the posts present comparable animated or AI content material of the Moon, often with cryptic captions about unusual objects in house.

A day later, an Indian-based Fb account known as “Nighttime.Adventures” revealed the same video with a near-identical caption.

The account’s bio features a disclaimer stating its content material is “impressed by actual occasions”.

AFP Reality Verify additionally discovered an Instagram account with the identical username linked to the Fb account, additionally managed from India. The web page carefully resembles the account “sumon_sheak_” and consists of comparable stylised movies of moonscapes and lunar collisions.

Scrolling by the account’s quite a few reels, AFP Reality Verify discovered a number of posts (here, here and here) with captions confirming the movies had been made utilizing Picsart, an modifying and inventive platform that makes use of AI models — together with Seedance Professional, developed by TikTok proprietor ByteDance — to create movies and images.

On its often requested questions web page, the Picsart website lists 9 AI instruments used for varied functions, together with lip syncing, audio sync and cinematic scene technology.

AI detector instruments returned inconclusive outcomes when the video was uploaded for evaluation. Nevertheless, a screenshot extracted from the clip and analysed by the InVID-WeVerify verification tool, a detection instrument co-founded by AFP, discovered sturdy proof of AI technology.

Though specialists mentioned the SpaceX rocket collision posed no hazard to Earth, researchers have warned that the rising density of house junk, like rocket our bodies, useless satellites and fragments from launches, might set off a cascade of collisions often called the “Kessler syndrome” (archived here and here).

AFP beforehand debunked claims associated to the Artemis II Moon mission.