Theory of Unknown Origin: The fog

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

The unseasonable weather, preponderance of misinformation and popularity of social media have recently coalesced to produce a dense fog of conspiracy theories — about fog. People have taken to social media to hypothesize about the allegedly sinister origins of fog banks that have blanketed the U.S. on and off throughout the winter months, with most coming to the conclusion that government agencies or extraterrestrials are to blame.

Though the theories are outlandish and unsubstantiated, they draw from a longer history based on pseudoscience with a sprinkling of fact.

What is fog?

Fog is a thick, low-hanging cloud made of tiny water droplets or ice crystals formed when the “temperature and dew point of the air approach the same value,” according to the National Weather Service. This occurs when the air cools or when the humidity increases.

An 1831 color lithograph depicting cholera as a robed, skeletal creature emanating a deadly black cloud. Artwork by Robert Seymour

There are six types of fog — advection, radiation/ground, upslope/Cheyenne, steam/Arctic Sea smoke, frontal and ice — meaning it exists in a wide-range of terrains and climates and can be predicted somewhat reliably. The National Weather Service issued fog warnings to most areas where people reported seeing and smelling the “mystery fog.”

Unknown technology

Online conspiracy theorists have proposed several ideas for the possible origins of “the fog” — none of which acknowledged climate change and the unseasonable warmth that has left many areas, Bonner County among them, bereft of snow.

Some have claimed that the fog is actually millions of “smart dust” particles, which are theoretical microelectromechanical systems dreamed up by science fiction writers as early as the ’60s. Researchers began looking into the idea in earnest in the early ’90s, but the technology needed to disperse clouds of minuscule machines does not yet exist.

In the 2022 article “Wind dispersal of battery-free wireless devices,” authored by University of Washington researchers and published in Nature, scientists created functional, millimeter-sized sensors capable of traveling on light breezes. By comparison, actual dust ranges in size from 0.0005 to 0.1 millimeters, meaning it would be impossible to unwittingly inhale clouds of the comparatively chunky “smart dust” prototype.

A related theory maintains that the fog is full of extraterrestrial or otherwise nefarious material — either microscopic machines or simple “fibers” — that cause a scientifically unsubstantiated illness known as “Morgellons.” Those self-diagnosed with Morgellons believe that sores on their bodies excrete mysterious fibers, possibly left behind by bugs under their skin.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a six-year investigation into potential causes of Morgellons and determined that patients were actually suffering from a form of delusional parasitosis, whereby a person believes that they’re infected with parasites. The patients likely had pre-existing skin conditions or bug bites that were exacerbated by compulsive scratching. According to its report, the CDC found no evidence of parasites or mycobacteria and discovered that the majority of the “fibers” found in the wounds were cotton, likely from the patients’ clothing.

Modern miasma

The most popular conspiracy theory hypothesizes that the U.S. government is manufacturing the fog using chemicals or biological agents to make people sick. Promoters of this theory claim the fog has an odd chemical smell and causes irritation to the eyes, nose and throat — which can be true without the need for a government conspiracy.

When the water in the air merges to become fog, rain or mist, it also traps particles, which can range from mushroom spores to airborne pollutants. Whether pollen or car emissions, the particles trapped in fog can affect sensitive groups, causing the above symptoms and smells.

Humanity has a deep-seated fear of bad odors going back more than 2,000 years to the Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C.E. Hippocrates — often called the “father of medicine” — is the first known proponent of what would become known as “miasma theory,” which argued that foul-smelling air spreads disease. The theory remained popular until the late 1800s, when germ theory took over; but, until that point, it was widely believed that smelling things like waste or rotting flesh brought on diseases like cholera or typhus.

Nineteenth-century doctors even claimed that smelling food made people obese, according to the article “Death and Miasma in Victorian London,” published by the British Medical Journal.

Typhus, malaria and bubonic plague were most commonly attributed to miasma, all of which are primarily spread through insect bites. The fear of miasma eventually led to the famous 17th-century “plague doctor” masks, which had long beaks stuffed with aromatics to ward off the sinister smells.

There was some level of correlation between smell and sickness, given that they were both spread by poor hygiene and sanitation, and so attempts to avoid miasma by cleaning up cities worked to a certain extent — just not in the way everyone thought.

The historical theory of miasma lacks the modern conspiratorial spin, which is loosely based on experience. Though there’s no evidence that the government is responsible for the current fog, the Department of Defense has experimented on U.S. cities to test their susceptibility to biological warfare.

In 1950, a U.S. minesweeper ship spent six days releasing the bacteria Serratia marcescens two miles off the coast of California before tracking its spread throughout San Francisco as part of “Operation Sea Spray.” According to Smithsonian Magazine, officials chose that bacteria because it was easy to test for and believed to be harmless to humans.

The operation inadvertently led to the first recorded outbreak of Serratia marcescens, which caused 11 confirmed urinary tract infections and possibly one surgical complication, resulting in death.

The U.S. military performed similar tests across the country until 1969, when then-President Richard Nixon ended germ warfare research. It took another seven years for news of Operation Sea Spray to reach the public.

If it’s any consolation, of the many, many known instances of unethical human experimentation in the U.S., the government has never been so conspicuous as to drench half the country in fog.