People across the United States are reporting a mysterious fog with a “chemical odor” that they believe makes them sick within minutes of exposure.
Reports of natural fog began in late December in parts of Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Florida and Minnesota.
Locals have flooded social media with videos explaining their “symptoms” since the fog appeared in their area, including cough, sore throat, congestion, eye irritation, lethargy, loss of appetite and intestinal problems.
A Florida resident told DailyMail.com that she stopped at a gas station for about 10 minutes and started to feel sick.
“Within about an hour, I kept sneezing over and over for about three hours and my eyes were really swollen,” he said.
“I felt very hot and I felt like I had a fever and I had stomach cramps.”
One TikTok user, who goes by ‘Rusky’, said he has also been experiencing symptoms: ‘Sore throat, cough, tiredness, lethargy; I’m still recovering.’
He said in the video that all of his symptoms are a direct result of the fog.
But reports aside, experts have stated that there is no evidence to suggest that this “disease-causing” fog is anything other than a coincidence of a natural weather event and the viruses that are especially common this time of year.
“Sore throat, cough, tiredness, lethargy. Still recovering,” said one TikTok user from the Pacific Northwest.
Florida resident Holly Meyer Lucas also shared a video on TikTok: “I’ve been sick and my eyes have been an absolutely painful mess for like two weeks.
“We’ve had fog in Florida, which is not normal at all,” he said.
Reports have claimed that the fog is unusual not only because of its smell, but also because it appears as “white particles” swirling in the air.
The idea of particles has led some Americans to check their air filters, which a North Dakota resident recently did and made a shocking discovery.
He stated that the air filter was recently changed prior to the investigation.
“Super dirty, super fast,” he said in a video, describing the filter. He showed it next to a new filter to demonstrate how much debris had accumulated.
“Be careful with the fog,” says the text of the video.
David Bamber, of St. Petersburg, Florida, shared a TikTok video of himself walking through the dense fog, explaining That normal fog usually dissipates later in the day, but fresh fog persists late into the night.
“The strangest part is the taste and smell,” Bamber said. “It smells like after you’ve set off a bunch of fireworks and the taste of the air is toxic.” It’s super strange.’
Another TikTok user from North Dakota posted a video showing his home’s air filter, which he claimed to have recently changed, full of debris.
Holly Meyer Lucas of Florida posted a TikTok describing how she has been sick and suffering from “painful” eyes since the fog appeared in her state.
While the “white particle” appearance of fog may seem unusual, fog is a visible aerosol consisting of small water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth’s surface.
When you illuminate the fog, these particles become visible.
As for the “chemical” smell that people have described, smog can absorb and trap polluted air near the Earth’s surface, acting as a carrier for car exhaust, industrial emissions, and other airborne chemicals. the air.
“When fog forms, water droplets in the fog absorb or remove sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and other polluting gases,” explained Rudolf Husar, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, in an article for the Earth Observatory. from NASA.
What’s more, odors become more potent in humid air because water droplets trap the odor-causing molecules, allowing them to linger longer and remain concentrated.
Additionally, persistent fog is not unusual this time of year.
The “chemical” odor associated with this recent fog likely comes not from the fog itself, but from contaminants that were already present in the air when the fog formed.
The respiratory illness-like symptoms that people have been reporting can also be explained by natural fog.
A Florida resident told DailyMail.com that they stopped at a gas station (pictured) for about 10 minutes and started to feel sick. Then he had a cough and fever.
Conspiracy theories are running rampant, with people suggesting that the fog could be some type of chemical weapon or is related to the drones that mysteriously plagued the nation in December.
Multiple studies have shown that fog can cause respiratory problems such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, congestion, and wheezing, especially in people with asthma.
This is because our lungs are designed to inhale oxygen, not water. When we inhale the higher moisture content of the air, it can irritate the respiratory system and trigger uncomfortable symptoms.
Fog can be especially irritating when mixed with pollutants, allergens, or other airborne particles.
But the reports have sparked a wave of conspiracy theories that are currently sweeping social media.
The scare began during the last week of the year and exploded on social media on December 29, when posts related to the fog skyrocketed.
While fog generally looks like a thick gray fog, shining a direct light on it causes light to disperse from each individual water droplet that makes up the fog.
Many of these posts speculate that the fog may be a chemical or biological weapon involved in a terrorist plot, or even an experiment conducted by our own government.
People who subscribe to the latter theory have compared the fog to Operation Sea Spray, a secret US Navy biological warfare experiment that sprayed massive amounts of bacteria into the air two miles off the coast of San Francisco. , California.
As for the “chemical” smell that people have been describing, fog can absorb and trap polluted air near the Earth’s surface, making its odors more potent.
Multiple studies have shown that fog can cause respiratory problems such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, congestion, and wheezing. Pictured is a still image from a camera in Texas, showing particles in the fog.
The purpose of this experiment, conducted in 1950, was to learn how vulnerable large American cities like San Francisco would be to a biological warfare attack by terrorists.
Although the Navy thought they were spraying bacteria that were completely harmless to humans, officials quickly realized that was not the case when 11 Bay Area residents rushed to the hospital with serious urinary tract infections.
An affected person who was recovering from prostate surgery died.
Others have suggested that the fog could be related to the unexplained drones that have plagued the northeast in recent months.
‘Well, weren’t there drones spraying something? I think I remember some videos of that somewhere… I have no idea of the validity though,” one X user asked.