Old photos of the Union flag lowered to half-mast flooded social media on March 18, fuelling rumours about the health of Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales. While the two photos are real, they in fact show the UK flag lowered at the British Consulate General in Istanbul following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and at Westminster following the deadly London Bridge attack in 2017. Live footage streamed on social media on March 18 showed the Union flag flying at full mast at Buckingham Palace.
“Reports of Flags flying at half mast in Britain…” reads a post on social media platform X that shared one of the photos on March 18, 2024.
Another X post from the same day shows a night-time shot of the Union flag flying at half-mast.
“BREAKING: Reports that the Union flag is flying at half-mast at some Government Buildings across the United Kingdom tonight amid reports the BBC is on standby for an ‘imminent announcement’ from the Royal Family,” it says.
“Could this be related to Kate Middleton’s condition?” the caption continues, alluding to speculation around the princess’ whereabouts and health.
The photos surfaced around the world — including in the United States, Pakistan and Turkey — after Kate had not been seen at a public event since attending a Christmas Day church service, and underwent abdominal surgery in January.
She was at the centre of uproar after she admitted on March 11 to editing an official portrait of her and her three children that was released by Buckingham Palace on Mothering Sunday.
Instead of calming fears over her health, the edited picture sent the rumour mill into overdrive as media, including AFP, pulled the picture.
British media published new images of the princess a week after the furore, showing the smiling 42-year old walking alongside her husband Prince William at a farmer’s market in Windsor, west of the capital London.
According to the UK-based Flag Institute, flags can be flown at half-mast for several reasons, including the death of a member of the royal family. However, this only takes place after the death has been announced, the organisation added (archived link).
No such announcement had been issued by the royal family and there were no official reports about the Union flag lowered at Buckingham Palace, as of March 19.
AFP journalists in London said the Union flag was flying at full mast in Downing Street on March 18 and at the UK parliament on March 19.
Livestream footage posted by a tourist on March 18 here and here showed no changes to the Union flag atop of Buckingham Palace (archived links here and here).
Old photos
A reverse image search on Google found the photo in the first post was taken from a report by Reuters news agency from June 4, 2017 (archived link).
The photo, which is credited to Reuters’ Kevin Coombs, is captioned: “A union flag is flown at half mast in Westminster after an attack on London Bridge and Borough Market left 7 people dead and dozens injured in London, Britain, June 4, 2017.”
Below is a screenshot comparison between the falsely shared image (left) and Reuters’ photo from June 2017 (right):
AFP confirmed the photo shows the Revenue and Customs building in Westminster using Google Earth and Google Maps Street View (archived links here and here).
A reverse image search on Google found the second photo was taken from a report by Turkish news agency Anadolu published on September 9, 2022 (archived link).
The report says the British flag was lowered to half-mast over the British Consulate in Istanbul following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the falsely shared image (left) and Anadolu’s photo from September 2022 (right):
AFP confirmed the location of the photo using geotagged imagery and Google Street View (archived links here and here).
