Several posts about an Iranian passport found near the crash site began circulating on social media soon after a speeding vehicle crashed and went up in flames at the American side of the United States-Canada border in Niagara Falls, N.Y., on Nov. 22. The fatal crash at the Rainbow Bridge, which killed two people, was initially speculated to be an attempted terrorist attack, with some on social media claiming it was an attack by an Iranian national. This is false. Police have said the crash was not a terrorist event and there have been no reliable reports or evidence that passports were found at the scene.
Several users on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted claims saying an Iranian passport was found at the crash site.
"Breaking: 'An Iranian passport was found near the car that exploded in Niagara Falls. According to the Fox News, this is a terrorist attack,' " said an X user in a that has since been deleted.
The same phrase was copied, pasted and shared on various platforms along with a with the logo of the Russian news site Readovka. The video does not make any claims about the identities of the crash victims.
Rating: False
PEGIDA Canada, a of a far-right, anti-Islam, anti-immigration group based in Germany,also shared the video and the claim in a on X: "Rainbow bridge, on the Canadian side. as stated earlier, and Iranian passport was found near the vehicle according to Fox News (sic)."
PEGIDA Canada's post, which falsely implied the crash happened on the Canadian side of the border, was one of the first to appear online, at 2:24 p.m. ET on Nov. 22, about three hours after the crash.
In response to an inquiry from 香港六合彩挂牌资料 about the source of the claim, PEGIDA said on Nov. 27: "The link (to the source) is no longer available, thank you for the reminder, we will remove that post."
What really happened
U.S. Niagara Falls Police Department said that the vehicle crash at the Rainbow Bridge was not a terrorist event.
The police agency said the crash is being investigated by the Niagara Falls Police Department's crash management unit.
On Nov. 24, the police who died as 53-year-old Kurt P Villani and his wife, 53-year-old Monica Villani. Both were residents of Grand Island, N.Y.
circulating on social media show a white car speeding down a local road near the border checkpoint, hitting a median and flying into the air before crashing and burning. The time stamp on one of the videos shows 11:22 a.m. on Nov. 22.
香港六合彩挂牌资料 was unable to find any references to passports in Fox News's coverage of the crash on the day of the incident.
Fox News told 香港六合彩挂牌资料 in an email the information about the Iranian passport found near the Niagara Falls border crash site did not come from the news agency.
of the incident from Fox News did report the crash as an "attempted terrorist attack," according to unnamed sources.
The Niagara Falls Police Department in New York has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Where did the rumour start?
A simple Google search of the phrase: "Breaking: An Iranian passport was found near the car that exploded in Niagara Falls. According to the Fox News, this is a terrorist attack" shows results of many copied and pasted posts on X, TikTok and Facebook.
Most of the posts received little attention, but one posted on Telegram saw thousands of views.
at 2:18 p.m. ET, fromuser Amir Tsarfati and which included the video from Readovka, was the earliest mention of Iranian passports 香港六合彩挂牌资料 could find. It has since been deleted.
Tsarfati has a following of more than 471,000 on Telegram, and according to a cached version of the post it received more than 165,000 views.
Tsarfati, who describes himself as native Israeli and Christian, runs the website , which states its "mission is to provide reliable and accurate reporting on developments in Israel and the region."
Screenshots of Tsarfati's Telegram post were by .
Tsarfati issued a clarification on Nov. 28, at 3 p.m. ET, soon after 香港六合彩挂牌资料 asked about the deleted post in an email.
His said, "Clarification regarding the car explosion near the Niagara Falls. A generally trustworthy channel that I follow on telegram reported that an Iranian passport was found near the scene. Shortly after I quoted that source I found out that there is no confirmation to this news piece anywhere else thus I decided to delete it. I apologize if it wasn鈥檛 clear that deleting the post was because I can no longer stand behind it. So, to remove all doubts - to the best of my knowledge there is no information on an Iranian passport that was found there."
Tsarfati frequently posts news items on Telegram without linking to or naming sources.
Readovka, the Russian news site whose video accompanied many of the posts with the passport claim, also about the crash on Nov. 22, but its posts do not mention passports.
Iranian passport: meme
A few also shared a photo of an Iranian passport with American comedian Sam Hyde's photo.
"Breaking: Police have identified the driver of the Niagara Falls explosion from a passport found at the scene as 47 year old Iranian-Canadian youtuber by the name of Saman Heydari," a Facebook user on the day of the crash.
A reverse image search on the Iranian passport takes users to a blog, , which has two sample images of Iran visas.
Hyde's photo has been taken from his . The photo was originally posted on the social media platform on Aug. 19.
The comedian's photo and/or name have a history of being connected with breaking news on mass casualty events on social media.
He has been falsely identified as a shooter, including after a .
The phrase "Sam Hyde is the shooter" meme is a long-running joke, associated with misinformation, and when breaking news on mass casualties is unfolding.
Sources
The claim can be found on X, formerly Twitter, in this () and this .
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Screenshot of Tsarfati's Telegram post was shared on Facebook () and ()
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Images of a fake Iranian passport using comedian Sam Hyde's photo can be found on Facebook () and ()
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