Hackers took control momentarily Friday Twitter accounts of several US media, sending false tweets by which Pope Francis would have announced the start of the third world war or fighting between US and China.

On behalf of the news agency United Press International (UPI) reported that the Pope had announced that “World War III has begun,” while that of the New York Post said that including the aircraft carrier USS George Washington had been targeted by Chinese missiles.

A Pentagon official said that the one on hostilities with China was “wrong.”

The tweets have since been deleted.

The newspaper, owned by News Corp. Rupert Murdoch, said afterwards: “Our Twitter account was briefly hacked and we are investigating.”

Other false tweets were referred to the call of the president of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen an emergency meeting to set negative interest rates. Another tweet added that the head of Bank of America launched an appeal for calm, assuring that such action by the Fed would have no impact on savings accounts.

The Twitter accounts of several media were hacked in the last two years, including those of Agence France-Presse and the BBC.

On behalf of Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, was also hijacked this week with no classified document is published.