A widely shared social media post said: “So what kind of Badges are these Responders wearing in Fairford as they apprehended the 5 Terrorist Suspects who have now been released on Bail?

“This whole thing stinks & the establishment of determined to bury it as soon as possible.”

The post attached an image made up of two photos. One photo shows people in uniform and two men sitting on the ground. The other is cropped to focus on a badge on one of the uniforms.

The image shows signs it was generated or manipulated with AI – likely used to enhance a much lower-quality image shared by various media sites of five men being arrested near RAF Fairford.

OpenAI – the developer of ChatGPT – has a verification tool for images and audio. It said the image was generated or manipulated using its AI tools, adding it found an OpenAI watermark.

OpenAI says that detecting a watermark “indicates that the content likely originated from OpenAI tools”. It adds “detected signals are reliable, and false positives are rare”.

Media coverage of the arrests made near RAF Fairford on September 27 included a similar image. According to one report, the image was taken by a local resident.

This low-quality image has blurred faces and is a wider shot than the one shared on social media. It shows five people sitting on the ground, with no shirts on. Facing them, a person in uniform is kneeling and another is standing. A person in uniform is also standing behind.

The image bears a strong resemblance to the one shared on social media. Both show people in similar positions and a light – which looks like it is from a torch – shining from behind at the people sitting on the ground.

The image containing an OpenAI watermark seems to be much higher resolution and a face is unblurred.

The head of one person in uniform appears to be looking down in the image shared on social media, whereas the image shared by news sites appears to show a side profile. The patch on the same person’s uniform sleeve is a completely different colour from that which is in the photo news sites published.