People across the U.S. are reporting a mysterious fog with a “chemical odor” that they believe is making them sick within minutes of exposure.
Reports of the “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 coughing, 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 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.”
A TikTok user who goes by “Rusky” said he is also experiencing symptoms: “Sore throat, coughing, tired, lethargic – I’m still recovering from it all.”
He stated 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 but a coincidence of natural weather conditions and the viruses that are especially common at this time of year.
“Sore throat, coughing, tired, lethargic – still recovering from it all,” 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 absolute painful disaster for two weeks now.
“We’ve had fog in Florida, which is definitely not normal,” she said.
Reports claim that the mist is unusual not only because of its smell, but also because it looks like ‘white particles’ swirling in the air.
The idea about the particles has led some Americans to check their air filters, which a North Dakota resident recently did and made a shocking discovery.
He claimed that the air filter had recently been replaced before the investigation.
“Super dirty, so fast,” he said in a video describing the filter. He showed it next to a brand new filter to demonstrate how much residue had built up.
“Beware of the fog,” the text of the video reads.
David Bamber, from St. Petersburg, Florida, shared a TikTok video of himself as he walked through the dense fog and explained that normal fog usually clears later in the day, but the recent fog 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.’
Another TikTok user from North Dakota posted a video showing his home’s air filter, which he said was recently replaced, filled with residue
Holly Meyer Lucas from Florida posted a TikTok describing how she has been sick and experiencing “sore” eyes since the fog appeared in her state
Although the appearance of the “white particles” of fog may seem unusual, fog is a visible aerosol composed of small water droplets or ice crystals floating in the air at 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, 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.
“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 trap the odor-causing molecules, allowing them to linger longer and remain concentrated.
Additionally, persistent foggy weather is not unusual for this time of year.
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.
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
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.
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.
But the reports have sparked a wave of conspiracy theories currently flooding social media.
The fear first started in the last week of the year and exploded on social media on December 29, when reports of the fog skyrocketed.
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
Many of these reports speculate that the fog could 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 U.S. 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 people have described, fog can absorb and trap polluted air near the Earth’s surface, making their scents more powerful
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
The purpose of this experiment, conducted in 1950, was to find out how vulnerable major American cities like San Francisco would be to a biowarfare attack by terrorists.
Although the Navy thought spraying bacteria was completely harmless to humans, officials quickly realized that wasn’t the case when 11 Bay Area residents rushed to the hospital with serious urinary tract infections.
One affected person recovering from prostate surgery died.
Others have suggested that the fog could be linked to the unexplained drones that have plagued the Northeast in recent months.
‘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.