Fact Check

Did a 'Declassified' Picture Show an Alien UFO Crash?

A picture appeared to show military and government officials closing in on a crashed UFO that looked like a flying saucer alien spacecraft.

Published Jan. 30, 2021

 (Snopes.com)
Image Via Snopes.com
Claim:
The government declassified a picture that showed military and government personnel surrounding a flyer saucer.

The scene appeared to be dramatic. A picture showed a crashed UFO, perhaps an alien spacecraft, surrounded by military and government officials. The craft resembled the shape of a flying saucer. It appeared in an online advertisement:

40 wild photos that the government has declassified ufo alien aliens flying saucer crash

The ad read: "[Gallery] 40+ Wild Photos That the Government Has Declassified." Readers who clicked the ad were led to a slideshow article on the Daily Forest website. The story lasted 80 pages.

The picture from the ad did not show up in the lengthy article. It was nothing more than a still frame from 2016's "The X-Files: The Event Series." A video from 20th Century Studios documented the creation of the alien UFO crash:

The headline on Daily Forest read: "Check Out These Fascinating Government Classified Photos." However, the article appeared to contain nothing but interesting photographs. None of them appeared to have been classified or declassified in the past.

For example, one of the pictures showed NASA astronauts practicing a water landing. Its caption read: "In June 1966, the Apollo 1 crew practices water egress procedures with a full-scale boilerplate model of the spacecraft":

40 wild photos that the government has declassified ufo alien aliens flying saucer crash
Photo via NASA

The list also featured a publicly available picture from 2015. It depicted a radio telescope under construction in China:

40 wild photos that the government has declassified ufo alien aliens flying saucer crash
Photo by Visual China Group via Getty Images

A third example from the lengthy article was a photograph of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain. It showed the moment he was captured during the Vietnam War on Oct. 26, 1967. At the time, he was known as Lt. Cmdr. John McCain III:

Senator John McCain is pulled out of a Hanoi lake by North Vietnamese Army soldiers and civilians on October 26, 1967.(Photo By Getty Images)

The picture had not been classified. In fact, the Los Angeles Times printed the photograph just two days after he was captured.

In sum, the ad that claimed to lead to "40+ Wild Photos That the Government Has Declassified" was nothing more than clickbait. The story lasted 80 pages and the photographs hadn't been classified or declassified. Further, the article didn't explain the alien UFO crash picture that readers clicked in the first place.

Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads.

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.

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