Those “Rigged” Blue Fireworks After the World Cup? The Smoke Was White
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17.6M+
Views on X
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331K+
Likes
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<24 HRS
To debunk
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Fooled Index
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MANIPULATED — The video that claimed FIFA rigged the World Cup final by matching the fireworks to Argentina’s flag.
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Someone posted a shaky video to X on July 20, 2026, under the account @_Zaraquin. The video showed fireworks glowing blue over MetLife Stadium after the World Cup final, and the caption asked why the fireworks matched Argentina’s flag colors if the game wasn’t rigged in their favor.
The post pulled in 17.6 million views and 331,000 likes within a day, and people spread it as proof that FIFA had planned to hand the trophy to Argentina before Spain won 1-0 in extra time. Community notes were added on X telling people the smoke was not the color it looked like in the clip, but the video kept spreading anyway.
Fact-checkers at Lead Stories found a second recording of the same fireworks show, broadcast live on Germany’s MagentaTV. They matched the same jumbotron image, the same traffic outside the stadium, and the same zig-zag smoke trail crossing the Spanish flag on the field, and in that version, the fireworks are white, the tournament’s real color all along.
The viral video was not made by AI, but it wasn’t honest either. Someone pointed a phone at a TV screen playing the game, caught a “Fox+” logo and the word “vivo” in the corner, and changed the color of the smoke from white to blue before posting it as proof of a fix.
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A second camera caught the same moment. Germany’s MagentaTV broadcast the identical fireworks live, matched frame for frame by the same traffic and the same jumbotron image, and its smoke is white.
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The clip was filmed off someone else’s screen. The corner of the video shows a “Fox+” logo and the word “vivo,” signs that someone recorded a TV broadcast instead of using the original footage.
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The colors belonged to the tournament, not a team. FIFA picked light blue and white as its official 2026 World Cup colors months before the final, and stadiums use them no matter who wins.
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Other viewers said the smoke looked white live. People who watched the fireworks in person or on unaltered broadcasts told the poster the color in the video didn’t match what they saw.
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🚨 Real Footage, Recolored
The fireworks really did go off, but the smoke was white, not blue. Someone recorded a broadcast of the real event and changed the color before posting it as proof of a rigged game.
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Elliot Page Never Landed That Men’s Health Cover
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A photo showing actor Elliot Page on the August 2026 cover of Men’s Health started on a Facebook page called Hollywood Tea Room on July 16, 2026, a page that describes itself as satire and gossip. Someone cropped out the watermark that marked it as a joke, and it spread on X from there, picking up thousands of likes. Men’s Health told Lead Stories directly that it never published the cover, and the real August issue features singer Lenny Kravitz instead. Page came out as transgender in 2020, and the fake cover leaned on that story without any of it being true.
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Trump Never Posted About a “Giant Faucet” Aimed at Canada
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A fake image made to look like a Trump Truth Social post spread on Facebook starting July 19, 2026, claiming he would turn a “giant faucet” in California toward Canada to put out wildfires burning there. The post played off a real comment Trump made a day earlier about holding Canada responsible for smoke drifting into the U.S. A search of Trump’s live Truth Social account and its full archive turned up no matching post, and the fake image is missing the small paid-account badge that appears next to his name on real posts.
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YOUR REALITY DETECTOR TOOLKIT |
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Today’s Skill: Trust the Second Recording
Big moments get filmed by more than one camera, and the copies should all match.
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Look for another version of the same clip.
Viewers watching Germany’s MagentaTV saw the same fireworks in white, at the same second, from a different angle. If one video shows something dramatic and every other version of the same moment looks normal, believe the majority.
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Check if the source page admits it’s a joke.
The fake Elliot Page cover came from a page that calls itself satire right in its own description. Look at who posted something before you believe what it shows.
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Search the account itself, not just the screenshot.
Trump’s Truth Social account keeps every post he’s ever made, and “giant faucet” turned up nothing. If a claim is real, the original source usually still has it.
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