As part of the ongoing propaganda battle between the United States and Iran over a Jan. 6 incident in which two alleged Iranian speed boats approached some U.S. Navy ships in the Straits of Hormuz, the U.S. military held a press conference Jan. 13 in Bahrain. The commanders of the two U.S. ships involved in the incident, the U.S.S. Port Royal and U.S.S. Hopper, explained their versions of the incident.
Here’s video of that press conference:
And here’s the complete Defense Department’s video of the incident (all 45 minutes of it):
Meanwhile, on Sunday, a new theory emerged about the possible source of a radio transmission during the incident, in which a voice said, “I am coming to you, you will explode in a few minutes.” The transmission, according to Navy Times, could have come from a “locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the ‘Filipino Monkey.'”
The emergence of that theory, in a newspaper that serves the U.S. Navy community no less, is a propaganda boon for Iran (the country’s state-controlled media is crediting the theory).
For more on the “Filipino Monkey” theory, see this London Times report.