Social media users shared a video of several military planes flying overhead claiming to arrive in Washington DC as part of preparations for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on January 20, 2021. This claim is untrue: the same video has been circulating since at least April 2020 appeared on social media.
The reports (here, here) show a video of several helicopters, followed by other larger military planes flying overhead with captions, including ‘Washington, DC 50 minutes ago. “Prepare for Inauguration” Blackhawks, Ospreys, Scouts Helos. …. Do not think so … ”(posted January 15) and“ Someone just picked it up from Washington. Is this what you mention preparing for the Inauguration Day? ”(Posted January 16).
Central Washington was surrounded by 25,000 National Guard troops ahead of President Joe Biden’s election on January 20 (here is a ghost town with soldiers idUSKBN29O186).
However, the video shared on social media appeared online before January 15 and January 16, when social media users claimed it was taking place. The same video was uploaded to TikTok on January 7, 2021 by user @ jaymb1719 (vm.tiktok.com/ZMJT4HhD6/). On April 27, 2020, the same user posted a similar video, showing the same scene as the video shared on social media, only with one of the cars now in the middle of the road and fewer planes flying (vm.tiktok .com / ZMJT4SkuP /).
The trees are full of leaves in the video, while Reuters photos show that leaves mostly fell off the trees in Washington in January 2021 (here, here, here, here).
It is possible that the video was filmed in Denmark: the April 2020 video has the hashtag #tiktok_denmark, and the brand of the Danish company, Godik, can be seen on a generator in one of the videos that is seen very briefly as the camera angle changes (here, here), and on the trailers marked with a picture of a bed and multiple letters ‘z’ (vm.tiktok.com/ZMJT4HhD6/) similar to Godik’s caravans visible here. The website of Godik, which among other things provides rental equipment for events and festivals, says that it provides ‘nationwide’, which means that the event was probably in Denmark. Godik did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.
The low quality of the footage meant that Reuters could not distinguish the country by the number plates of the car and coach visible in this video here.
TikTok user @ Jaymb1719 did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
VERDICT
Untrue. The video was posted online before January 15, 2021.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.