People in Florida Say Dense, Mysterious Fog With Chemical Smell Is Making Them Sick

Down in Florida, residents have been haunted by a strange specter: a lingering and super-dense fog that allegedly smells like chemicals and is making people sick.

As USA Today reports, folks in large swaths of the Sunshine State are starting to freak out after encountering the mysterious fog repeatedly over the past few months. In response, many are turning to conspiracy theories to explain the strange happenings surrounding them.

Nicknamed "Fogvid-24," the strange phenomenon is, according to the National Weather Service, likely sea fog that has rolled inland due to weather conditions in the balmy Southern state. But that hasn't stopped folks online from engaging in more sinister speculation about its origins.

Geoengineering, an umbrella term for experimental attempts to cool the planet — which is a real thing, though controversial and so far limited to small-scale tests — seems to be the biggest suspect for the conspiratorially-minded.

"Geo-engineered weather modification nano-particle toxic fog here in Florida," a user on X-formerly-Twitter wrote in January. "You can only see it with a flashlight."

According to Megan Tollefsen, the Coastal Hazards Program Leader at the National Weather Service office in Central Florida, the particles visible are the same sort of tiny water droplets that make up any kind of fog.

"If you shine, you know, any kind of light in the fog, what you're actually seeing are the very, very small water droplets," she told USA Today. "So that is likely what people are seeing."

The water droplet reflections don't, however, explain the strange metallic smell — or, in some cases, taste — that people have reported coming from the fog.

In a viral TikTok video posted last month, a South Florida man filmed himself walking around in the "crazy fog" that, according to him, smelled and tasted like fireworks.

"The taste of the air, the only word I can think of is toxic," he said. "It’s super weird and it’s kind of worrying me a little bit... It smells like chemicals going down my throat when I breathe."

As of now, it's unclear how many people have actually experienced the chemical-smelling fog because, as viral claims often go, much of the "evidence" people are posting on social media is unverified hearsay.

More on weather conspiracy theories: Congresswoman Who Believed in "Jewish Space Lasers" Complains That Government Can’t Just Use Weather Control to Shut Down LA Fires