Iran Keeps Claiming It Hit the Lincoln — CENTCOM Keeps Saying Liar: The Full Story of the Carrier That Won't Sink

Iran has now claimed to have struck the USS Abraham Lincoln twice in five days. The US military has denied both claims with equal force. And the only carrier-class vessel confirmed destroyed in Operation Epic Fury belongs to Iran. This is the story of the most persistent piece of disinformation in the most information-saturated conflict in modern history — and why it keeps working even when it keeps being proven false. Claim One: March 1 — Four Ballistic Missiles On March 1, 2026 — Day 2 of Operation Epic Fury — Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that its forces had struck the USS Abraham Lincoln with four ballistic missiles in the Persian Gulf. The claim was amplified immediately by Iranian state media and spread across social media alongside fabricated video footage purporting to show the carrier ablaze. US Central Command responded the same day with one of its bluntest public statements of the entire conflict: "Iran's IRGC claims to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles. LIE. The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn't even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM's relentless campaign." Fact-checkers at PolitiFact and Lead Stories confirmed the viral footage was fake — the primary video had first appeared on June 23, 2025, during a different conflict, and appears to have been generated using the Arma 3 military simulation game. The vessel depicted had design details inconsistent with the real USS Abraham Lincoln. No crew members aboard the carrier or its escort destroyers — USS Spruance and USS Pinckney — reported any strike, explosion, or damage. Claim Two: March 5 — Drone Strike, Carrier "Forced to Relocate" On March 5, the IRGC Navy issued a second statement claiming its forces had struck the USS Abraham Lincoln with drones as the carrier operated approximately 340 kilometres from Iran's maritime borders in the Gulf of Oman. The statement claimed the carrier was "hit by drones" and subsequently "forced to quickly relocate to a distance of about one thousand kilometres from Iranian territory." CENTCOM did not issue a separate denial for this specific claim — having already addressed the broader pattern of Iranian disinformation with a pointed follow-up post: "The Iranian regime's false messaging machine continues to falsely claim that it has sunk a US aircraft carrier. The only carrier that has been hit is the Shahid Bagheri — an Iranian drone carrier. US forces struck the ship within hours of launching Operation Epic Fury." The USS Abraham Lincoln has been continuously launching combat aircraft throughout the conflict. US Navy imagery and CENTCOM operational updates confirm the carrier remains fully mission-capable — continuing strike operations against Iranian targets as part of Operation Epic Fury. No independent source, no witness account, and no satellite imagery has corroborated either Iranian claim. The Real Carrier Story: Iran's Shahid Bagheri Is Gone While Iran has been claiming to have destroyed America's carrier, the United States has actually destroyed Iran's. The Shahid Bagheri — Iran's first domestically built drone carrier, commissioned just over a year ago and described by Iranian military chief General Mohammad Bagheri as "a mobile base that can operate self-sufficiently throughout the world's waters" — was struck and destroyed by US forces in the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury. The vessel was hit while berthed at Bandar Abbas. Satellite imagery confirmed fires, sinking, and destruction at the port. President Trump later confirmed that approximately 10 to 11 Iranian ships had been "knocked out" — with the Shahid Bagheri described as the highest-profile naval target of the opening wave. The ship that Iran built to project maritime power across the world's oceans lasted less than 24 hours into the conflict. Why the Disinformation Keeps Working CENTCOM has denied the Abraham Lincoln claims definitively and repeatedly. PolitiFact has rated the viral footage "Pants on Fire." Lead Stories has debunked the videos comprehensively. And yet the claims keep spreading — generating tens of millions of views across X, Telegram, TikTok and Facebook every time the IRGC issues a new statement. The reason is structural, not accidental. In the information environment of a live conflict, the claim and the denial do not reach the same audiences at the same speed. The dramatic claim — carrier on fire, American military humiliated — travels faster, further, and to more receptive audiences than the measured CENTCOM rebuttal. By the time the fact-check lands, the emotional impact of the claim has already done its work. For Iran's domestic audience — watching their country absorb devastating strikes while state media reports heroic retaliation — the Abraham Lincoln claims serve a critical narrative function. For Iran's regional allies and proxies, they signal that America is not invulnerable. For global audiences sympathetic to Iran's position, they create doubt. The claims don't need to be true to be strategically effective. They need to be believable enough, for long enough, to shape perception. The Lincoln was not hit on March 1. It was not hit on March 5. It is still launching aircraft. And Iran's only carrier-class vessel is at the bottom of Bandar Abbas harbour. 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