The Turkish naval threat to Spain was real, not invented.

Evidence

There is perhaps a tendency for those liberal historians who have little sympathy with Philip II to deride both these potential threats as almost imaginary, but as Ottoman policy with regard to the West becomes better known, it becomes increasingly clear that Philip could scarcely ignore what was indeed going on. The Turkish threat was far from being an empty bogey thought up to justify action against the repression of the Moriscos. It was real. The two sides were becoming more and more polarized. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1065

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: how later historians dismiss contemporaneous security threats as pretexts, and what evidence would count for or against such dismissals.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1065