In May 2026, online users alleged (archived) an image authentically showed an eagle attacking a man dressed in a furry costume for defiling a veterans memorial, D.C.
(For readers unfamiliar with the term, Merriam-Webster defines a furry as "a person who identifies with and enjoys sometimes dressing as anthropomorphic animals or creatures especially as a member of a fandom devoted to the practice.")
The image shows an eagle flying while attacking a man dressed as a furry in a multicolored costume who is starting to fall. American flags, flowers and notes adorning the ground below the memorial, which resembles the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. A red circle in the bottom right corner of the image shows an alleged police body camera screenshot of authorities later arresting the man.
In short, the image was fake. If the scene had truly occurred and cameras had captured the moment on video, journalists with reputable news media outlets would have widely reported the story. None did.
The inauthentic picture originated in a May 5 post (archived) on the StoryTime (@AJAnimalking) Facebook page. The page features hundreds of stories featuring artificial intelligence-generated images and videos, for example a pig jumping from a truck to a car and a tornado sending a goat through a window.
(StoryTime (@AJAnimalking) accessed via Facebook)
Snopes could not reach out to the content creators for comment because the page did not feature a "Message" button for Messenger or any other contact details.
Researching the fake image
On May 11, a Snopes reader emailed a screenshot of a brief YouTube video (archived) from May 7 displaying the fake image of the attack and asked whether it was real. The video's title read, "Eagle Stops Man Defiling Veteran Memorial."
The video's caption read:
In Washington, a man in a furry costume was caught on security camera kicking a veteran memorial and tearing as roses families had left behind. Before he could do more damage, an eagle dropped from the sky and slammed into his back, pinning him against the wall as he screamed for help. Police arrived to find scattered flowers, a spray can, and drugs in his pocket. He's now facing up to five years.
A reverse image search for the video's image led to the StoryTime Facebook page's original post (archived) telling the story as follows:
Man tried defiling a veteran memorial, then an eagle dropped out of the sky before police even got there.
In Washington, a man dressed in a furry costume was caught on security camera kicking at a veteran memorial and messing with the roses families had left for their loved ones.
But before he could do more damage, an eagle suddenly swooped down and slammed into his back, knocking him into the wall as he started screaming for help.
Police arrived after hearing reports of an eagle attack, but when they saw the scattered flowers, the spray can in his pocket, and the damage around the memorial, the situation quickly turned into an arrest.
He was detained, and after officers reportedly found drugs on him as well, the charges started adding up fast. Between the memorial damage, the spray can, and the possession charge, he was now facing up to five years in prison.
Other users shared the image and story on Facebook (archived) and X (archived).
Signs of AI
In order to learn more about the StoryTime Facebook page's content creation process, we initiated several scans with Google Gemini's SynthID Detector, a tool that scans images and videos for an invisible watermark that appears only with content generated with Google's AI platforms.
A SynthID scan of the eagle-attacks-furry image confirmed it was not created with Google's AI tools. It's unclear which AI platform generated the clip.
Visible signs of AI and general fakery included illegible letters on the left-most memorial wall sections, as well as that the main image and circle image featured different pants patterns and item placements (e.g., flowers and cards).
For further reading, we previously reported about how furries got swept up in a years-long hoax falsely alleging schools installed litter boxes to accommodate students who identified as cats.