Mysterious fog that ‘smells like chemicals’ is making Americans sick

A heavy fog that ‘smells like chemicals’ has cloaked parts of the US, and people believe it’s making them sick.

‘It smells like after you set off a bunch of fireworks’, David Bamber said in a TikTok video of himself walking through thick fog in St Petersburg, Florida.

‘The taste of the air, the only word I can think of is toxic. It’s super weird and it’s kind of worrying me a little bit.

‘I’m 41, I’ve been through fog and this is something different… It smells like chemicals going down my throat when I breathe.’

Others, like TikTok user ‘Rusky’ reported developing a sore throat, cough, tiredness and lethargy, which he says were a direct result of the fog.

Another Florida resident told the Daily Mail she fell ill after a 10-minute gas station stop. She said: ‘Within about and hour, I kept sneezing over and over for about three hours, and my eyes were really puffy.

‘I got very warm and I felt like I had a fever, and my stomach was cramping.’ 

Fog is just a cloud – a mass of mini water droplets – that’s formed close to the ground (Picture: @blackswanroses / X)

When you shine a light on fog, you can see these mini water droplets (Picture: spfphotographyfl / TikTok)

Fellow Floridian Holly Meyer Lucas said on TikTok: ‘I’ve been sick and my eyes have been an absolute painful disaster for like two weeks now.

‘We’ve had the fog in Florida, which is absolutely not normal.’

So what could this ‘sickness-fog’ be? Well, it might just be fog, coupled with the viruses doing the rounds this winter.

The tiny water droplets fog is made from trap absorb pollutants and smells already in the air. The moisture then enhances that smell.

If there is already smoke or, as Mr Bamber suggested, the stench of sewage in the air, it’s going to smell even more potent in the fog.

Professor Rudolf Husar, an atmospheric scientist at Washington University atmospheric scientist, explained this in an article for NASA Earth Observatory.

He wrote: ‘When fog forms, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and other polluting gases are taken up or ‘scavenged’ by fog water droplets.

‘What’s more, smells become more potent in humid air because the water droplets trap the odor-causing molecules and allow them to linger for longer and remain concentrated.’

Some people blamed the fog for making their air filters dirty (Picture: TikTok)

These water droplets would explain why the fog looks almost grainy when shining light directly on it, and why some people say it’s made them sick.

Moisture in the air can irritate the respiratory system by introducing water to the lungs, triggering symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, congestion and wheezing. It’s particularly bad for people with asthma.

This is one of the reasons the dehumidifier market had a value of around $1billion in North America last year, roughly a third of the global market, according to Grand View Research.

But that hasn’t stopped people from speculating that there is a more sinister or secretive answer behind the fog.

Since it appeared at the end of December, some have claimed it may be a chemical weapon deployed by terrorists, or a government-run experiment.

It’s been compared to Operation Sea Spray, a US Navy biological warfare experiment in 1950.

This involved spraying bacteria into the air two miles off San Francisco to test how vulnerable major cities were to biowarfare attacks.

It hospitalised 11 people with severe urinary tract infections. One of them died.

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