In early 2026, an image circulated online that supposedly showed a man named James Peterson after doctors lobotomized him for being gay.

The claim: An image authentically shows a real person named James Peterson, who doctors lobotomized in 1948 for being gay.

The claim spread on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Many fans ask whether Peterson’s story was real. Here’s how one popular Facebook post described Peterson’s life:

In 1948, James Peterson was lobotomized for being gay. His parents committed him after discovering his love for another man. The asylum labeled it “sexual perversion” and “treated” him with a transorbital lobotomy—ice picks hammered above his eye sockets into his frontal lobe. It took just 15 minutes, but it erased his vibrant, artistic spirit forever. The doctor assured his parents: “Your son’s perversion is corrected.”What returned was an empty shell—no desires, no passions, not even for life.

However, many of these posts of the image included a watermark in the bottom right corner indicating that someone created the picture using Grok, the generative artificial intelligence tool on X. As such, we have rated this image as fake.

Take a closer look at the James Peterson image revealed that it was generated using Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool. (Facebook user Yesterday’s Wisdom/Wikimedia Commons)

There’s no evidence that Peterson, specifically, ever existed. However, doctors did use lobotomies to “treat” homosexuality in the 20th century as a form of “conversion therapy,” a widely discredited practice that attempted to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity.

The earliest version of the image appeared to be posted on Dec. 27, 2025, by a Facebook account called Yesterday’s Wisdom, which frequently publishes fake historical images and videos generated by artificial intelligence. It was not possible to reach out to the account’s manager because the page listed no contact information.

Many of the posts circulating online claimed that Peterson’s supposed partner donated the photograph and medical documents to an LGBTQ+ archive, which makes it especially suspicious that no credible records of Peterson show up online.

A reverse image search for the picture of Peterson determined that the image did not appear to be inspired by or an enhanced version of any legitimate photo of a real person with lobotomy scars.

Posts claimed that Peterson underwent a “transorbital lobotomy.” However, real transorbital lobotomies did not involve creating incisions because cuts happened through the eye sockets. That means no visible scarring occurred — as shown in credible images of patients after transorbital lobotomies — unlike the circular scars in the image of Peterson.

A physician named Walter J. Freeman II developed the now-obsolete transorbital lobotomy in the mid-20th century to treat all kinds of mental illnesses — whether real or perceived. At the time, psychiatrists believed homosexuality was a mental disorder; the American Psychiatric Association stopped considering it as such in 1973.

One Smithsonian Channel documentary reported that roughly 40% of Freeman’s patients were gay men.

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In February 2026, a post to Facebook shared several images of an abandoned KFC restaurant designed in the shape and appearance of one of its signature chicken buckets. The images’ caption merely read, “An abandoned bucket-shaped fast food restaurant. Would you visit it?”

The claim: Images shared online in February 2026 authentically showed a bucket-shaped KFC restaurant in Dayton, Ohio, that was closed and abandoned years ago.

The same Facebook page also posted a video allegedly exploring the restaurant with clips shot from the same places the images were taken. According to the description of the video, the “abandoned bucket-shaped restaurant outside Dayton, Ohio, closed in 2021” and was “never cleaned out.”

Other Facebook pages and X accounts that shared the images also claimed the restaurant was in Dayton and closed in 2021.

In short, the images and video of the bucket KFC were generated with artificial intelligence tools and the story about the restaurant was fictional. Therefore, we have rated the claim as fake.

Google leaves invisible watermarks in images and videos generated with its AI tools. These watermarks can be detected by Google’s SynthID AI tool. When we checked one of the images in the post with the tool, the check found that “most or all of this image was edited or generated with Google AI.”

The original post’s edit history revealed the post once had a disclaimer about the images’ AI origins. They were posted on Feb. 13, 2026, with the description, “An abandoned bucket-shaped fast food restaurant hidden outside Dayton, Ohio. Closed in 2021 after financial collapse, the entire building was left untouched — from the dining area to the basement storage rooms. A forgotten piece of fast-food history frozen in time.”

Later that day the page edited the post to remove the em dash and add a disclaimer that said, “This is an AI-generated fictional abandoned location and a fictional story.” We archived this version of the post. The same disclaimer also appeared at the end of the video’s description. However, the page removed the detailed description and the AI disclaimer from the images in favor of the “would you visit it?” description about an hour later.

Apparently, the page, appeared to post mostly AI-generated content consisting of fictional abandoned places. Many of these images had the same AI disclaimers that were removed from the KFC bucket restaurant post, including those attached to a post depicting another abandoned KFC and to a video of a Kmart that the page similarly claimed was closed in 2021 for financial reasons and left untouched since.

The images of the bucket KFC themselves included several major clues confirming they were AI-generated. For example, two images included a poster to the left of the counter that was filled with gibberish, which has long been a common type of mistake made by AI when generating content.

In the image of the hidden storage basement, the lights were on, suggesting the building still had power even though the location was supposed to have been abandoned for five years. Many of the boxes in the image lacked dust or cobwebs even though cobwebs remained on the ceiling and the boxes had five years to build up dust.

Finally, the windows as they appeared from inside the restaurant didn’t match the size and shape of the same windows as seen from outside, though they should have been identical.

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In early February 2026, a vintage black-and-white image resurfaced online allegedly showing the Rothschild family, a European banking dynasty stretching back several centuries, standing in front of a house alongside a creature that looked like a demon.

The claim: A vintage black-and-white photo shared online for years shows members of the Rothschild family standing next to a demon.

For example, one X user who posted the picture wrote: “Wait, what? So this was actually a real Rothschild Family Photo. Wild.”

(X user @BGatesIsaPyscho)

Examples of the claim appeared on X and Facebook as early as 2024. One X user wanted to know if the picture had been manipulated, while others replied to the post asking whether the image was real.

However, details in the image revealed it was generated using artificial intelligence (AI) software. The facial features of the two children — such as the ears, eyes, noses and mouths — were visibly distorted, along with the collars of the two men. Such inconsistencies are a common feature of AI-generated images.

AI-detection sites Umm-Maybe AI and Hive Moderation both concluded the picture was highly likely to be AI-generated. (It should be noted that such tools are fallible and therefore are not sufficient, on their own, to determine the authenticity of a photo.)

Given the above, we rated this photo fake.

(Hugging Face / Umm-Maybe AI-image-detector)

(Hive Moderation AI-Generated Content Detection)

According to a reverse image search, a Tumblr account posted the earliest iteration of the picture in late May 2023, alongside other clearly AI-generated images. It was not possible to confirm whether the Tumblr account posted the original version of the photo.

Additionally, other social media users had previously used the same image to satirize numerous families and groups whom they jokingly claimed it depicted, such as the British royal family, the family of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg’s family.

The Rothschilds are best known as a European banking dynasty stretching back several centuries. They are frequently the target of misinformation and antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as linking the family to the Illuminati, the New World Order, and other shadowy groups that supposedly influence world governments. They have also been blamed for starting wars for personal gain, funding the Holocaust, and assassinating U.S. presidents.

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