Iran inanities
During the Israeli raids on Iran, Tehran claimed that somehow Iran brought down an Israeli Air Force F-35, shown above.
Well, it sorta looks like an F-35, doesn’t it?
‘Course, you have to remember that this is Iran, the same country that claimed a poorly photoshopped pic of an F-105 ’60s fighter was somehow their mysterious new gen-5 invincible fighter. Let’s just say their credibility is, well, suspect. So let’s see what Snopes has to say (yeah, they are leftists, but this is a different kind of opinion.)
First of all, take a look at the SIZE of that thing. A genuine F35 is only 51 feet long. I’d give some of those skinny Iranians 18″ at the shoulders, so about 30 people end to end should be the length of the plane. In that pic? 30 people might get you half way.
Look at the intakes in the real photo – about 4-5 people wide. Again, the Iranian photo? That barely gets you from the edge of the intake to the centerline.
Furthermore, the logo on the right wing on the “fallen” F-35 jet is wrong. Per Getty Images photographs of Israeli F-35 jets, the actual logo is the Star of David, surrounded by a white circle, not the thick border given to the Star of David in the X posts. The photograph below shows an Israeli F-35 flying during an air show in Tel Aviv in April 2023:
And there is another facet…
We have also reported on inauthentic footage claiming to show Iran shooting down Israeli fighter jets. We learned the footage circulated online weeks before Israel launched attacks on Iran on June 13, 2025. Snopes
Think I’ve got to agree with Snopes this time – the Iranians are, just possibly, being a tad less than fully truthful about this one.
Another player in the same game – China has been making some clandestine cargo flights to Iran.
A day after Israel attacked Iran on Friday, a cargo plane took off from China. The next day, a second plane departed from a coastal city. Then on Monday, yet another departed, this time from Shanghai – three flights in three days.
Data showed that on each flight, the plane flew westward along northern China, crossing into Kazakhstan, then south into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – and then falling off the radar as it neared Iran.
To add to the mystery, flight plans indicated a final destination of Luxembourg, but the aircraft appeared to have never flown near European skies.
Yeah, I’m gonna flag that as “suspicious.”
China and Iran are strategic partners, aligned primarily in their opposition to the US-led world order, and in favour of a new “multi-polar” phase in global diplomacy.
Iran, too, is one of China’s key energy suppliers, sending as many as two million barrels of oil a day – so it’s no surprise that Beijing might be looking for ways to support and stabilise the Islamic Republic. The Telegraph
The aircraft are identified as cargo 747s, usable to haul all kinds of military goodies. As I recall a cargo ’47 will hold about 10 x 40′ containers’ worth of stuff, or some fairly heavy equipment (read: military). Not the kind of stuff we want suddenly showing up in Iran – especially if we start sticking our noses in their. China would LOVE to have us expending military supplies well away from their Pacific AO, wouldn’t they?
China will be wanting to grab all the info they can on the F-35 in combat. This is a chance for them to tune their radars and IR sensors for the F-35’s characteristics.
An F35 is 53′ long. Using the humans in that AI image as scale that plane is closer to 160′ -180′ or about the size of a 767, so nope. Also that marking is a terrible AI approximation.
China has been helping Iran get their oil production back to the pre -revolution levels. All the exports have been going straight to China, about 2 million barrels a day.They still aren’t there yet but they have seen a steady climb in production in the last few years. China of course has been feeding them nuclear research, weapon components and all kinds of forbidden items.
I am suspecting a model airplane and some photo shopping.
And the photoshopper was sniffing the glue.
Fake but accurate?
Nah, it’s not even accurate. There is no debris field, no impact or skid marks, no damage you would expect from a crash.
It was an entirely peaceful crash though.
No fuel fire because it’s one of the new electric models.
Can’t be lithium batteries because they would have cooked off on hitting the ground. Maybe Duracell batteries. I don’t think that the batteries were Energizer’s because I didn’t see a rabbit on the ground with drum sticks.
Apparently the photo was taken after they stripped off the solar panels.
I was up in the air about the pic untill I read your comment 5JC,, so now it’s clear and down to earth.
Well grounded…
It looks like a diorama built by a teenager.
If you blow up the center section, you will see buildings in the lower left corner of the image that are much too small for the scales of both the people and the giant aircraft image.
Yeah, no. If Iran had shot an F35 that genuine footage woulda been all over the news feeds by now…along with the pilot.
Two countries working together whose stated purpose is either/or world domination or the destruction of America. What could go wrong?
Gonna be hard to reverse 30+ years of farming out all of all manufacturing to Chynna but it needs to be done.
Not all manufacturing. The planes the Chinese used to smuggle things into Iran were 747 freightliners..
I mean, if we’re going to get serious just detonate the oil fields…
Sometimes instead of restraint, blunt force trauma is required in order for the message to be fully received and understood.
We could have used some tiny crew chiefs to get in the tight spots of the aircraft during pre/post flight inspections.
Iran’s version of Baghdad Bob firing weapons into the water?
Isn’t that really big for an F-35 or are all Iranians the size of Barbie and Ken?
I’m no intel weenie but them shadows don’t look right.
And an object that lost all forward motion (no dirt mounding) and fell at free fall would probably have a little more structural damage than that.
At least Gulliver’s Lilliputians have been located so we’ve that going for us?
Is that a fluorescent tube reflecting off the plastic canopy piece? Couldn’t bother using diffusers over the office lights? Lol.
IMO what the Iranians are doing right now is akin to a cockroach giving the middle finger just before someone’s shoe squashes it!
Enough said.