FAKE NEWS: Saharan dust is an artificial poisonous powder

FAKE NEWS: Saharan dust is an artificial poisonous powder
© EPA-EFE/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU   |   Saharan dust covers the Acropolis hill and the sky of Athens, Greece, 23 April 2024.

The clouds of Saharan dust that reached Romania these days are a synthetic product designed to poison the population, a well-known conspiracy website writes.

How does dust travel halfway across the world?

NEWS: Romanians on Facebook have taken a closer look at “Saharan Dust” and started to ask legitimate questions. Perhaps the most important is why the authorities do not issue any statement about what this dust contains, 12 hours after these dust particles settled over the southeast of Romania.

“Where are public health 'experts'? Have they too joined Arafat and Iohannis on their tour of South Korea? Or did they all of a sudden die after taking the 'safe and effective' [vaccine e.n.]?", one user comments sarcastically. “What if, God forbid!, we see a wave of asymptomatic Covid patients, coming from the laboratories in the Sahara, “without color or smell”, like the “radon invisible gas” that just hit the market? Valeriu Gheorghiță himself must then jump out of the jacuzzi, all the way from Bulgaria, and roll up his sleeves to get back to work, treating patients on the conveyor”, someone else write. “How does ‘Saharan dust’ travel, only at night, over 2,500 km, over the Mediterranean Sea, where the air is very humid only for fine particles to reach Romania, ‘skipping certain countries and the Balkan Mountains in Bulgaria which, in some places, reach as high as 3,000 m? Has anyone seen a video of ‘Saharan dust’ getting blown by the wind and carried away? And all this time the sand on the beaches of Mamaia doesn’t even reach Năvodari! Just think about it, it won’t hurt!”, Mihai Petre writes. “Health experts keep silent about which part of SiO2 (sand) is ferromagnetic. But by the time they find a magic formula to easily feed the gullible masses, I think we’ll have enough time to discover the cloud-seeding patents with nanometric metal oxides ourselves”, Ali Baha warns, also providing footage from the UK, accompanied by the comment: “Take out your magnets to play. Ask questions!” "It spices up our crops, to ensure 'healthy' eating!”, Ramona Val writes. "Right now, about half the country is covered by ‘Saharan dust’. It is a good time to find out what it actually is and what it contains. In my city, there is no laboratory willing to test it, for a fee. "If the authorities said this is Saharan dust, then it must be”. Do you have any idea how it could be done?" Olimpia asks. The dust you see on cars will also reach your lungs”, another user writes. “Cars aside, but who knows what can happen to our crops...”, Eduard Dumitrache writes, also posting a series of photos of cars from Bucharest District.

NARRATIVES: 1. Saharan dust is an artificial poisonous powder synthesized to make the population ill and trigger the introduction of the medical dictatorship. 2. The poison is airborne, spreading to targets in specific geographic areas.

BACKGROUND: Specialists estimate that, every year, the Sahara desert releases between 60 and 200 million tons of mineral dust. Desert winds lift sand and dust into the air, sometimes carrying it into the upper atmosphere. When the winds are particularly strong, the dust clouds of the Sahara can even travel thousands of kilometers. In recent years, cases when air masses have brought Saharan reddish dust to Europe have multiplied. In general, during the cold season, these North-African "transports" were less frequent, but the 2023-2024 cold season was unusual in many ways. Thus, the drought in the Mediterranean and in the Maghreb area, as well as disruptions in the circulation of air masses seem to have contributed to an increasingly intense presence of Saharan sand in Europe. Most of the times, a cyclone from North Africa stirs Saharan dust particles and transports them to the Balkan peninsula. Data published by Copernicus, the European Union's Earth Observation program, shows that this phenomenon is normal, although the intensity and frequency with which it manifests itself have increased in recent years. Particularly in the last two months, on several occasions, dust clouds of Saharan origin have swept Europe, settling on cars and making the sky reddish and the air suffocating. Wednesday, April 24, saw the most intense such episode in Romania this year, an opportunity for conspiracy propaganda to reiterate narratives claiming that the great health reset is in full swing, and occult forces continue their plan to poison the population, to eliminate the bulk of the population and to suppress the individual rights and freedoms of anyone left alive. In addition, several media channels promoted the idea that last week's clouds of Saharan dust only targeted Romania and Greece, without affecting countries in between, such as North Macedonia, Bulgaria or Turkey.

PURPOSE: To validate self-promoted conspiracy theories, endorse anti-Western rhetoric and stir and amplify social unrest.

The “transport” of Saharan dust to Europe, a millennia-old phenomenon

WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Studies conducted by geologists have revealed that Saharan dust particles are very common in the Alps, in Italy, Austria and Switzerland, and Saharan dust deposits have existed for thousands of years, according to PhD Adrian Constantin, the recipient of the Wittgenstein Prize for his research in the field of mathematical modeling of the movement of waves and air currents. Furthermore, the Romanian researcher states that the reddish sand is particularly rich in iron, which is very good for the so-called “seagrass”, which has recently been discovered to be highly beneficial in producing large quantities of oxygen. This explains why the dust deposited on cars has magnetic properties, which are completely natural and originate in the features of the North-African landscape. Sahara dust is rich in iron oxides (mainly magnetite and hematite), accounting for up to 6-7% of its volume. Magnetite is the most magnetic natural mineral. Hematite too has magnetic properties, although not as strong as magnetite. Also, iron hydroxide is naturally found in the Saharan sand, in various degrees, with absolutely no connection to human activity. Beyond all that, Saharan dust may indeed contain other chemicals, harmful to the human body, such as lead, phosphorus, mercury or arsenic, but this is not caused by any deliberate action, but by the fact that, in each area they cross during transport, the winds pick up chemicals released by waste abandoned by the population or by the chemical compounds of the weapons used in the frequent armed clashes in the region of North Africa, one of the most polluted in the world. At the same time, air currents can also carry pathogens of an organic nature with potentially harmful health effects, although this too is a completely natural process.

In most cases, however, Saharan dust does not affect people directly, because the “transport” occurs several kilometers above ground level and most of it does not reach the ground. Usually, in such cases, the sky turns reddish-brown-orange, and the air quality can partially degrade for a short time, due to particles that “escape” from the cloud. The narrative about the specific targeting of Saharan dust clouds, which affect only certain regions, is hilarious and absurd at the same time. Saharan dust usually spreads in three directions: the Western, trans-Atlantic trajectory which reaches the Gulf of Guinea from Africa, the Caribbean, the southern United States of America and even South America; the northern trajectory, towards the Mediterranean and southern Europe, but which can extend to Scandinavia; and the Eastern trajectory, towards the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, but when combined with Asian winds, can reach as far as Japan. Ground deposits of Saharan dust occur, however, only when the presence of the dust cloud over a region coincides with rainfall. For dust to reach the ground from the troposphere, it must be “assisted by a means of transport”, namely rain. As raindrops fall, they collect dust particles, then, once they reach ground surfaces, they evaporate and leave behind a layer of dust. This explains why, the most recent event of this kind was reported mainly in Greece and Romania. Even so, due to rainfall in these areas, Saharan dust deposits on cars were also reported, however, in Bulgaria, in the Odesa region of southern Ukraine, and in the Serbian Banat. While conspiracy theorists say it should be the primary target of the global cabal, Russia paradoxically very rarely reports this type of phenomenon. Last week, however, local media reported deposits of reddish dust on cars in Crimea, a sign that territorial expansion through military aggression also comes with certain disadvantages. However, Yevgeny Tiskovet, the most famous Russian meteorologist right now, who in March called for a nuclear attack on NATO because “the weather is ideal”, said Saharan dust poses a “negligible threat” to human health.

GRAIN OF TRUTH DE ADEVĂR: Saharan dust is hazardous to human health, due to toxic chemicals in its composition, affecting not just people with respiratory infections, but also healthy people.

  • Publication / Media:
    ACTIVENEWS.RO
  • Date of publication:
    24/04/2024
  • Target audience:
    Conspiracists, sovereigntists, nationalists, anti-European and anti-Western audiences
  • Amplification:
    ZIAR.COM, STIRILEZILEI.NET, SOCIAL MEDIA
  • Key narrative:
    Saharan dust is a product of the global cabal that seeks to eliminate certain categories of population
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