In March 2026, a photo (archived) circulated online that claimed to authentically show an Iranian missile inscribed with the message "Vaccine for pedophiles - Made in Iran."
The image circulated as Iran targeted Israel and U.S. allies in the Middle East following strikes by the two countries that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It appeared to originate with an X account called @AryJeay. The account described itself as an Iranian "researcher & writer" and a "Hybrid Warfare pundit."
The user captioned the image, "Written on an Iranian missile: 'Vaccine for pedophiles - made in Iran' The missile was used against American military bases in the region."
The image also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Reddit (archived).
It appeared to show a red-capped missile inscribed with a message in English that read "Vaccine for pedophiles #made in Iran." According to Google Translate, the missile inscription also included text in Persian (or Farsi) and Arabic with similar messaging to the English text.
It was not possible at the time of this writing to determine whether the image was authentic, meaning that it showed a real inscription on a missile Iranian forces used against American military bases in the Middle East, as the apparent original poster claimed.
Snopes could not determine who took the photo or access an original version to verify whether it was authentic using metadata. Given the lack of verifiable information, we leave this image unrated.
We contacted the @AryJeay account and the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the image and await replies to our queries.
Parsing missile and inscription
It was unclear at the time of this writing what sort of missile the image showed. Reverse image searches showed the missile in the image had a similar appearance to the Etemad missile that Iranian state media reported the country unveiled in February 2025.
That missile reportedly had a reach of approximately 1,000 miles, which was enough to reach many other Gulf countries and Israel.
Tasnim News, a news agency in Iran associated with the regime's forces, reported on March 8, 2026 — around four days before the image of the inscribed missile began circulating — that Iran had used Etemad missiles in a wave of attacks.
The alleged inscription specifically named pedophiles. Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder where an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a child.
The image of the alleged Iranian missile circulated after the U.S. Department of Justice's release of millions files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced New York financier who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial after U.S. prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking minors.
Since the release of the files, allegations have swirled around whether celebrities and politicians — including U.S. President Donald Trump — who had associated with Epstein also participated in or benefited from his alleged trafficking and as such engaged in pedophilic behaviors. Inclusion in the files does not automatically confirm any wrongdoing, nor a diagnosis of pedophilia.
The release of the files had not resulted in large-scale criminal prosecutions at the time of this writing.
Snopes has reported extensively on both the Epstein files and the Iran war.