Fact Check: Is UFO Photo Over Mexican Town Authentic?

Photos of an alleged UFO—an unidentified flying object—sparked headlines on Tuesday after they were picked up by a Mexican news outlet, with some claiming the object had extraterrestrial origins.

However, multiple people came forward to claim credit for the images—one of whom openly admits they are fake—raising doubts about its authenticity.

With “great reveal” narratives permeating online ufologist communities amid recent disclosures from the U.S. military and the Pentagon, the photo has fueled excitement, controversy and skepticism among UFO enthusiasts.

The Claim

On September 2, Mexican news outlet RadioDual Televisión posted a video to its YouTube channel in which a resident of the Mexican city of Valle Hermoso claims he photographed a UFO.

The man, named as Juan Manuel Sánchez, said he had initially intended to take photos of some storm clouds when he suddenly saw an object floating in the air, according to the video’s description, translated from Spanish.

In the clip, Sánchez points to an area of sky above a blue house across the road, where he claims to have seen the object in the photograph on August 17. Explaining why he did not get a video, Sánchez said he did not switch his camera from image to video mode in time before the object moved away.

The story was subsequently picked up by news outlets in other countries, including The Sun and News.com.au.

However, Sánchez’ claim was disputed on Monday this week when a member of the Midjourney AI group on Facebook said that they created the photo using artificial intelligence software.

Midjourney AI says it is an independent research lab focused on artificial intelligence. By deploying the Midjourney Bot, which can be accessed on the group’s official Discord server, users can create AI-generated art via a text prompt.

The Facebook user, whose display name is ‘Poncho,’ said they generated the UFO image and posted it to another Facebook group where it then took off. In the comment section of their post, they added that the Facebook group they posted the image to was “a very active ‘UFO sighting’ group in Mexico,” but provided no other context.

“Once again one of my mischievous random posts on Facebook groups went out of control (not even my original post, someone from another group grabbed the photo and posted it somewhere else, then it became viral), and now it’s on The Sun,” Poncho wrote. “People need to hire me to create fake news.”

Poncho also took a screenshot of what appeared to be a post in the Midjourney AI Discord chat, showing the UFO image along with the text prompt “highly defined UFO flying over poor Mexican town house.”

The Facts

Firstly, the definition of a UFO is simply an object in the sky that has not been identified. A UFO is not necessarily extraterrestrial. The purpose of this fact check is to assess the authenticity of the original image, not if the object is a UFO or of extraterrestrial origin.

Most of the claims around this story are hard to verify independently without access to the metadata of the original images.

Poncho did not provide a link to the original post they said they made in the Mexican ‘UFO sighting’ Facebook group, and Newsweek was unable to locate their alleged post in the Midjourney AI Discord group.

Another issue is that the house in the UFO image is real—it can be seen in the Mexican news video on YouTube—meaning that at least part of the image is not AI-generated. Addressing this in the comment section of his post, Poncho said “that’s because it [the AI] took a Google Street View image.”

Newsweek has contacted Midjourney AI for confirmation of this claim, but has not heard back by the time of publishing.

Furthermore, the fact that the person working across the road from that same building that the AI generator selected, then came across the hoax image and decided to claim it as their own, seems highly coincidental at least, and potentially suspicious.

Finally, in an August 23 video UFO YouTuber ledrack analyzed the photos and proposed that the object in question bears a strong similarity to a type of toy magnet which, if thrown in the air, might replicate the appearance of the ‘UFO’ in question.

Newsweek has contacted both the Facebook user and Sánchez for comment.

The Ruling

Unverified.

At this stage, it is not possible to independently corroborate either the claim of the supposed author of the UFO photo or of the AI artist alleged to be behind the image in question.

However, due to the multiple claims to ownership, one potentially true admission of a hoax, several potential hoax explanations on YouTube, and the generally dubious nature of many UFO images, the Mexico ‘UFO’ image should be treated with extreme skepticism.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK