In October 2025, users shared a video (archived) that appeared to show thousands of bald eagles landing on gravestones in a veterans cemetery widely across Facebook. The video prompted a Snopes reader to email us to ask whether it actually happened.
The video's caption indicated the cemetery was in Branson, Missouri:
Thousands of bald eagles gathered at a Missouri veterans cemetery in Branson today. People were left speechless as the eagles perched on nearby trees, and many eagles landed on veterans gravestones. Some called it a sign from above.#Branson #Veterans #Patriotism #Eagles #TableRockLake #Missouri #FaithInAmerica #HonorOurHeroes #OnlyInBranson #AmericanPride
Some people who viewed the video seemed to interpret it as footage of a real-life event. However, the video was in fact AI-generated and posted by a satirical Facebook page.
The video about the eagles at the cemetery was posted by Branson Area Breaking News — a Facebook page that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. Its about section states:
We are a world renowned satirical news organization & have received many awards for our breaking news stories! ***All content on our page is original***
The Branson area does have multiple memorials and sites dedicated to veterans. However, none of those sites are cemeteries matching the appearance of the one in the video. Google Street View shows the town's Veterans Memorial Garden, Veterans Memorial Museum and Missouri Vietnam Veterans Memorial all lack rows of gravestones like those seen in the video with the eagles.
The video itself was likely generated with artificial intelligence. The most obvious evidence of this can be seen in the way one of the eagles visible in the foreground during the first several seconds of the video bends unnaturally while perched behind the gravestone instead of on top of it.
Snopes ran the video through Hive, a tool that detects the likelihood a piece of media is AI-generated. Although these tools aren't perfect, Hive gave the video a 100% likelihood it was AI-generated.
Branson Area Breaking News has actually posted similar AI-generated content of bald eagles gathering en masse before. Snopes fact-checked one of its posts of eagles blocking traffic earlier in October 2025, as well as several of its posts about various other subjects.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.