No, Those Aren’t Photos of Trump Meeting Nordic Aliens

The first X post of the main image, by @JonStewartIL (“Uncle Jon”), 12 June 2026 at 06:20 ET. It is still live, with more than 47,000 likes on 4 Nov 2026. Snopes counted more than 15 million views. THE IMAGE IS AI-GENERATED. Embedded as evidence, not rehosted.

A smartphone display (photographed 2017). Generic social-media image, not the AI images. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What happened

On Friday 12 June 2026, an image began circulating that appeared to show President Donald Trump standing beside two very tall, pale figures with white hair, in red jackets with gold trim. Within hours it was on X, Facebook and elsewhere, often with captions linking it to the government’s UFO-file releases. Snopes quotes one Facebook user’s caption: “Donald Trump caught negotiating with the details concerning releasing the UFO files with the Nordic Aliens.”

The timing helped. Earlier that day, the Department of War had published the third batch of files on its war.gov/UFO portal. EarthSky reported: “The Pentagon released the 3rd installment of the so-called UAP files on June 12, 2026”. The batch had 72 files, including six videos and 53 documents. Anyone searching “UFO files” that weekend found real documents and fake photos side by side.

On 18 June, Snopes published its fact check. Its verdict was that the images “were fake, created using generative artificial intelligence software”.

Timeline

• 8 May 2026: The Department of War launches war.gov/UFO with the first batch of declassified UAP files (NPR, Department of War release).
• 22 May 2026: Second batch released (EarthSky).
• 12 June 2026, about 05:50 ET (approx.): The main image appears on Reddit’s r/SipsTea from an account that has since been suspended. Snopes puts it “approximately 30 minutes before” the first X post; our time is derived from that.
• 12 June 2026, 06:20 ET: @JonStewartIL posts the image on X with the caption “Posted than immediately removed.” The time comes from the post’s ID.
• 12 June 2026: The Pentagon’s third UFO-files batch (72 files) goes live on war.gov/UFO.
• 12 June 2026, 11:26 to 18:53 ET: More X accounts share or discuss the image. Snopes links posts by @ImBreckWorsham, @AdamParkhomenko and @genxdegenerate.
• 14 June 2026, 18:18 ET: A post by @GodRulesIRL, also linked by Snopes, pushes the “Norwegian royal guards” counter-theory.
• 18 June 2026, 00:00 ET: Snopes publishes “Fake images of Trump with ‘Nordic aliens’ make the rounds online” by Taija PerryCook.
• 18 June 2026, 10:31 ET: Redacted Weekly publishes the first version of this post.

What believers claim

There are two competing stories. The first is that the image is a leaked, quickly deleted photo of Trump meeting “Nordic” extraterrestrials, tied to the UFO-file releases. The X caption, “Posted than immediately removed”, made it look suppressed. Snopes reports that the poster told it the caption “referred to the Reddit post”, not to any government source.

The second is a “debunk” that is also false. It says the figures are Norwegian royal guards photographed at the White House in 2018. Some sharers also said AI-detection tools had cleared the image.

What the research found

1. It started as a meme post, not a leak. Snopes traced the image to r/SipsTea, “a space for entertainment and memes related to current events”. It was posted by an account Reddit has since suspended, and a moderator removed it. Snopes says it saw the post before it was removed. The first X poster told Snopes he “pulled the image from a Reddit post that was later removed”.