A thick fog hangs over the US, with locals in multiple states reporting how a “burning, chemical-like odor” has blanketed their communities.
Concerned Americans have flooded social media with videos of what appear to be white particles raining down and swirling through the air.
Some witnesses also claim that the fog has also caused health symptoms similar to a respiratory disease.
A Florida resident told DailyMail.com that they stopped at a gas station for about ten minutes and started feeling sick.
“Within about an hour, I kept sneezing over and over again for about three hours, and my eyes were really swollen,” she said.
‘I felt very warm and felt like I had a fever, and my stomach was cramping.’
Parts of Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Florida and Minnesota were under fog warnings when the bizarre reports surfaced this week.
Similar experiences have also emerged in parts of Canada and Britain, causing widespread concern.
Conspiracy theories are swirling, with people suggesting the fog could be some sort of chemical weapon or linked to the drones that mysteriously ravaged the country in December.
David Bamber of St. Petersburg, Florida said the “weirdest part” is the taste and smell of the mist. It smells like the aftermath of the fireworks show and it tastes ‘poisonous’
Parts of Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Florida (pictured) and Minnesota were under fog warnings when the bizarre reports surfaced this week
‘There weren’t any drones spraying anything, were they? I think I remember a few videos of that somewhere… No idea of the validity of it,” an X user asked.
A Texas woman shared on X that her dog “acted strangely” when he went outside.
“(She) keeps smelling the air,” Sandra Jenkins Webb wrote, adding that she suffered from burning eyes, a mild cough, stomach ache and headache.
Another woman from Kansas said that over the course of a week, “massive amounts of chemtrails” flew over the area, followed by a dense fog.
And a California resident shared on X Monday: “Here in SoCal, unusual fog the last few days. Strange smells, but I’ve noticed the smell for months, it burns my nose. It seems like an all-out attack from the air in the last few days.”
David Bamber, from St. Petersburg, Florida, shared a TikTok video of himself as he walked through the dense fog.
He explained that the fog usually clears later in the day, but the current natural phenomenon lingers into all hours of the night.
“The weirdest thing is the taste and smell,” Bamber said. ‘It smells like you’ve set off fireworks and the taste of the air is poisonous. It’s super weird.’
However, the National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a dense fog advisory for several states, suggesting there could be a scientific explanation behind the bizarre reports.
Although the particles may seem unusual, fog is a visible aerosol composed of small water droplets or ice crystals floating in the air on or near the Earth’s surface.
By shining a light into the mist, these particles become visible.
As for the “chemical” smell people have described, the fog can absorb and trap polluted air near the Earth’s surface, acting as a carrier for car exhaust, industrial emissions and other airborne chemicals.
While fog typically looks like a smooth gray fog, shining a light directly through it causes the light to spread from each individual water droplet that makes up the fog
“When fog forms, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutant gases are absorbed or ‘swept away’ by fog water droplets,” explains Rudolf Husar, an atmospheric scientist at Washington University, in an article for NASA Earth Observatory.
Additionally, odors become stronger in humid air because the water droplets capture the odor-causing molecules, allowing them to linger longer and remain concentrated.
This is not unusual for this time of year.
Fog forms when temperatures cool to the dew point, or the temperature at which the air can become completely saturated with water.
Much of the fog currently hanging over the US is likely advection fog, which typically forms in winter when warm, moist air flows over colder land.
This is often seen in the southern or central US, where many affected states are located.
Some states, such as Minnesota, also experience radiation fog that occurs in air with a high dew point.
A Florida resident told DailyMail.com that they stopped at a gas station (pictured) for about 10 minutes and started feeling sick. Then she had a coughing fit and developed a fever
Although the particles in the fog may seem unusual, shining a light into the fog makes them visible. Pictured is the fog in Massachusetts
It occurs when the sky is clear, the temperature reaches the dew point, and the wind is low enough to cause minimal atmospheric mixing.
Although fog usually looks like a smooth gray mist, shining a light directly through it causes the light to spread from each individual water droplet that makes up the fog, reflecting that light back to your eyes.
This causes each droplet to appear as a tiny ‘particle’ within the light beam, as evidenced by many of the photos and videos recently shared online.
The “chemical” smell associated with this recent fog likely does not come from the fog itself, but rather from pollutants already present in the air when the fog formed.
The respiratory disease-like symptoms that people report can also be explained by natural fog.
As for the “chemical” smell people have described, fog can absorb and trap polluted air near the Earth’s surface, making their scents more powerful. Similar experiences have also emerged in parts of Canada and Britain (pictured), causing widespread concern
Multiple studies have shown that fog can cause breathing problems such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, congestion and wheezing. The photo shows a photo from a camera in Texas showing the particles in the fog
Multiple studies have shown that fog can cause breathing problems such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, congestion and wheezing, especially in people with asthma.
That’s because our lungs are designed to breathe oxygen, not water. When we breathe in the increased moisture content of the air, it can irritate the respiratory tract and cause uncomfortable symptoms.
Fog can be especially irritating if it is mixed with airborne pollutants, allergens, or other particles.
So this ‘mysterious’ fog is not that mysterious at all. People in the US are most likely experiencing a completely normal winter weather event, as there is no evidence to suggest otherwise at this time.