After the U.S. removed Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro from power on Jan. 3, 2026, a rumor began to spread that as part of the operation to capture him, the U.S. military deployed a "devastating" sonic weapon to neutralize Venezuelan forces.
The claim appeared on Facebook, where a Jan. 10 post with an image that had been generated with artificial intelligence said a witness account relayed a "wall of sound" had made the capture of Maduro possible:
(Facebook page End Time Headlines)
The post echoed a video shared on Facebook and a New York Post article published the same day.
According to the Post, a right-leaning tabloid, a powerful "mystery weapon" had Venezuelan troops on their knees and bleeding through their noses. The article cited "a witness account posted Saturday on X by the White House press secretary," Karoline Leavitt. Hours before, Leavitt had shared an X post, adding "Stop what you are doing and read this…" (archived):
The original post (archived) purported to be the interview of a "Venezuelan security guard loyal." X user Mike Netter, the social media influencer who made the post, did not say who the guard was or where he'd obtained this account. Snopes contacted Netter to ask about his sources, and we will update this report should he respond.
We also reached out to the White House to ask for confirmation U.S. forces had used such a weapon. The Department of Defense declined to comment.
In addition, we approached several sonic warfare experts, asking if such a weapon existed, and if so, whether it could cause vomiting, nose bleeds and other symptoms listed in the supposed witness account. We await a response.
Given the lack of reliable source for this claim, we could not rate it.
What we know
The purported interview Netter posted on X seemed to take some details from a viral Spanish-language audio message that had been circulating on WhatsApp, the Meta-owned texting platform.
The viral audio message was not an interview. It sounded different depending on the channel on which it appeared, but it followed the same script. It appeared on Spanish-language channels, accounts and pages on YouTube, Threads and Facebook. One post on Facebook attributed it to the leader of a "colectivo" (collective).
Colectivos in Venezuela are paramilitary groups loyal to the "Bolivarian" government, as former far-left Presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro described their leadership (the term is a reference to Simón Bolívar, who fought Spanish crown to win the independence for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela in the early 19th century).
"They were only 20," the voice on the audio said, referring to U.S. troops. The voice described a weapon that shot more than 300 bullets per minute. It also mentioned another weapon that emitted "a whistle that sounded in all of Caracas" and made his nose bleed and other people's noses and ears bleed, immobilizing him and others. He said he believed the weapon was known as the "expansive sonic wave."
"It was very horrible," the voice on the audio said.
None of the channels or accounts that shared the audio included a reliable source, either.
Various searches for "expansive sonic wave" in both Spanish and English returned no credible explanation for what the voice in the audio described.
Some people on the posts that shared the audio said the voice on the audio was lying about the U.S. military's technical capabilities and weaponry to hide the fact that Venezuelan forces were underprepared.
For further reading, Snopes has covered several rumors that followed the U.S. capture of Maduro, including a claim that Barron Trump, son of President Donald Trump, had made $400,000 betting on Maduro's removal.