By Reuters Fact Check A video of the grounds of a private estate in flames during the Palisades wildfire in Los Angeles has been miscaptioned as showing the nearby Getty Villa in social media posts, some of which also baselessly link the art institution to child trafficking and satanism.

The largest of the major California wildfires, the Palisades Fire, which began on Jan. 7, has burned more than 23,700 acres and killed at least eight people as of Thursday, according to Cal Fire.

The video is showing the Villa de Leon, however, a private residence about 0.4 miles away from the Getty Villa that is “not associated with the Getty,” a Getty spokesperson said in an email. “At the Villa, while trees and vegetation have burned, Getty structures have been unaffected.”

Some posts conflating the Villa de Leon with the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades include a years-old conspiracy theory about a child trafficking operation in tunnels beneath the museum.

Posts online said, for example, “The Getty Villa, (Getty Museum) rumored to have tunnels underneath used for sex trafficking children and to be one of 34 satanic sites, now burns fiercely.”

A sign reading “The Getty Villa” visible in the video and a smaller one that reads, Getty Villa Entrance, are located at the entrance to Getty Villa Drive, a narrow road that wraps around the Villa de Leon property and leads toward the Getty Villa, visible on Google Maps.

The X account for the Getty has shared multiple updates about the Villa since the wildfire outbreak, noting that its buildings, art collections and staff are safe.

The organization also has a Getty Center in Brentwood about 10 miles away from the Villa. Both the Villa and the Center “remain safe from the Palisades Fire,” Katherine Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said in a statement on Jan. 14.

‘BASELESS’ CONSPIRACY

Some posts sharing the video of Villa Leon in flames include a resurfaced narrative about the existence of tunnels used for child trafficking beneath the Getty sites. Other posts include a Google Maps screenshot of the Getty Center’s proximity to the Playboy mansion, more than 4 miles away, suggesting it is part of the tunnel network.

“These claims are entirely false and malicious, and the LAPD has previously confirmed that they are baseless,” the Getty spokesperson told Reuters, adding that both Getty locations have offices, labs, storage and conference rooms “below the main plaza level.”

An LAPD spokesperson said in an email that the department did not have information regarding the narrative.

Addressing the child trafficking narrative in 2022, fact checkers at USA Today quoted LAPD spokesperson Warren Moore as saying the department has “no investigations into anything of the sort.”

VERDICT

Misleading. The video shows the grounds of the private Villa de Leon in flames during the Palisades fire in Los Angeles, not the Getty Villa, and police have said there have been no investigations related to old conspiracy theories about tunnels on the Getty property.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.