The president of Gabon gave his annual New Year’s address looking lifeless, immobile and sounding unusual, leaving his political opponents claiming that the video was a deepfake.

In fact, the video was authentic, but the President’s strange appearance could be accounted for by the fact that he had recently suffered a stroke. His facial expressions seemed unnatural, his eyes looked wide and out of sync with movements of his jaw and he mumbled through parts of his speech.

A week later, there was an attempted coup by members of the military, who claimed that the video was a deepfake and that the President was dead. They seized the state broadcaster and deployed through the capital, only to be put down in a matter of hours by loyal units of the military.