Open source intelligence analysts quickly punctured these claims. The visuals of the explosions were traced to the one that took place in Tianjin in 2015. Flight tracking websites, one of which was briefly taken in by a fake graphic, showed that all was normal in the skies above China. The video of the troop movement was found to be unrelated.
Open source intelligence analysts found that a number of accounts with very low followers and none connected to authentic media handles and some strangely from Africa, acted as major spreaders of the rumours. Given the tensions with China, several right wing Twitter handles from India too retweeted many of the coup claims. In the end, it was much ado about nothing.