New conspiracy theory? Mysterious fog cloud is said to make people ill

USA - What's going on? A mysterious cloud of fog has affected large parts of the USA. Residents are reporting a "chemical" smell and "flu-like" symptoms after coming into contact with the cloud. Meanwhile, relevant social media profiles never tire of conjuring up a "Fogvid-24" conspiracy.

Ever since the mysterious fog was first spotted at the end of December, the reports have been piling up.

Across the US, people are reaching out to the public via social media, reports Daily Mail. Many who have come into contact with the cloud tell of an acrid chemical smell. Some of those affected are complaining of sudden onset of symptoms: Coughing, sore throat, stuffy nose, eye irritation, lethargy, loss of appetite and intestinal problems.

One Florida resident told the newspaper how she had been standing in the fog at a petrol station for just ten minutes. Suddenly she felt unwell. "I kept sneezing and my eyes were very swollen," the woman described. "I got really warm, felt like I had a fever and had stomach cramps." The symptoms are said to have subsided after three hours.

David Bember from Florida also got caught in the fog. "The scariest thing is the taste and the smell," the 42-year-old father tells TikTok. "It smells like someone has set off fireworks. The air smells poisonous," he notes.

Meanwhile, images are being circulated online that suggest the fog is made up of "white particles".Concerned TikTokers believe they know that it is a "visible" aerosol . Only if you shine a flashlight on it do they become visible, according to the relevant TikTok accounts.

After the reports of the mysterious fog cloud became known, numerous conspiracy theories circulated online.

Relevant social media profiles call the phenomenon - in reference to Covid-19 - "Fogvid-24" and believe that it is not a fog at all, but a new type of bioweapon from the US government that was released by drones and is now to be tested on the population. Others also believe that the cloud could have an extraterrestrial origin.

Meanwhile, there are scientific explanations for the mysterious fog, reports Daily Mail. Studies have shown that fog can cause breathing problems such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, congestion and wheezing, especially in asthmatics, the paper writes. The increased moisture content in the fog is to blame.

The chemical odor, on the other hand, can be explained by pollutants in the air that were already present when the fog formed and were bound by it. The phenomenon of "white particles", which are only visible with a flashlight, has also been known for some time. Since fog consists of numerous water droplets, light is reflected back to the eye from each individual water droplet when illuminated directly.

The mysterious fog is therefore not so mysterious. It is a normal weather event.