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The claim: possibly produced snow will not melt
Is there something wrong with the snow? A Facebook claim raises the question of whether a snow-like substance does not appear to melt when exposed to heat.
The message on February 17 is a report from three TikTok videos: “Do you need to explain …” by user doubleday24, “Did anyone still play with the government produce snow?” by user erickzilli and a recent video by user reginaldsutton8 claiming that snow from the storm that wreaked havoc in february will not melt.
The caption asks what is “wrong with the snow? !!!! ??”
USA TODAY released the poster for comment.
Each video presents a different scenario with a similar theme: the “snow” refuses to turn to water.
In ‘Need some explaining …’, a two-screen video may appear on two screens: one wearing a pink shirt, the other wearing a baseball cap with a grunting bulldog spot on the front – and smearing a snowball with ‘ an ordinary cigarette lighter.
“I’ll show everyone now how I know we’re in a simulator,” said the hooded bearer.
While the person is snowing in pink from the ground, compacting it into a ball and holding a flame against it, the hood bearer copies the actions in real time with narration.
“You’re going to try to melt the snow. Try to melt it, it’s not going to melt,” says the hooded bearer as it looks like the snowball is turning black under the heat. “It’s just crazy.”
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Snow collected by user reginaldsutton8 remains frozen despite attempts to melt it in a microwave or on a stovetop.
“So, it’s snowing in Texas. Man, I do not know what’s going on, but I put snow in some bowls, put it in the microwave and it almost blew up the microwave,” the user claims. “It sparkled like it had metal in it. I found it on the stove; it did not melt. I put it in the oven, and even though it was hard, like a rock.”
The strange event was enough for reginaldsutton8 to suspect government interference.
“Someone tell me what’s going on. Is this the government doing something crazy? Please tell me,” he says.
USA TODAY has released reginaldsutton8 for comment.
The last video, “Did anyone who has ever played with the government produce snow?” shows someone in an unknown place picking up a handful of snow.
“So, I went outside and looked at the snow and … it didn’t really look like it was snowing,” says a narrator, bringing the snow closer to the camera for inspection. “It looked like something was made in a lab.”
USA TODAY could not locate the original posters of the other videos for comment.
According to experts, it is doubtful that the videos are irrefutable evidence of simulated snowfall. One even illustrates a general scientific phenomenon.
Sublimation
Video evidence of a mysterious snowy substance that does not melt under flames has been circulating on the internet for years. The claims date back to at least 2014, when conditions in Atlanta after a blizzard were compared to scenes from a ‘zombie apocalypse’, according to Atlanta magazine.
Slate magazine also addressed the conspiracy theories in a 2014 article. Phil Plait, author of Slate’s Bad Astronomy blog, recorded a replica of the snowball experiment and posted it on Bad YouTube’s YouTube page. Sure enough, the snow didn’t melt right away.
“To sum up, two things happen: one is that the snow that melts, the remaining snow absorbs the water. Therefore, it does not seem to drip; the snowball becomes a slushball,” Plait wrote.
According to Mike Stone, a meteorologist for WTVR News in Richmond, Virginia, the process is called ‘sublimation’. When heavy snowfall fell in the capital city of Virginia in 2014, the station did its own test and posted it on YouTube.
“When you heat something like that, it goes from a solid to a gas. It’s called sublimation,” Stone told then-colleague Alix Bryan when her snowball could not melt. “It’s actually disappearing by going into vapor.”
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Dr. Tandy Grubbs, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Stetson University, told USA TODAY that the snowball would have melted given time.
“First, I would note that the protester did not hold the lighter under the snowball long enough to melt enough of the snow to potentially see water formation (and drip),” he wrote in an email.
Grubbs also explained why the snowball turned black where the flame touched it.
“The formation of black on the snow when the lighter is kept under it is due to the incomplete combustion and the formation of soot when the lighter fuel burns,” he wrote. ‘Soot will usually not be visible when a lighter burns outdoors, but in this case the snowball acts as a filter, which catches and accumulates the black soot particles, which appear very visible on the white snow after a few seconds . exposure.”
Sublimation demos are some of the outrageous allegations about synthetic snow that have been posted on the internet in recent years. Some blame blaming ‘chemtrails’ flown by planes for the snow that Atlanta closed seven years ago, while others pointed to nanobots, according to a Yahoo! News article. The latter does not yet exist, according to a press release from GlobeNewswire on December 30 on a major report on nanobotics.
“Even if the government does such a devilish plan (they are not), and it could cover up and keep people quiet (it is not necessary, because it does happen), it just will not work. The most inefficient and ineffective way to dose the population with anything, “said Scott Sutherland of Yahoo! News wrote.
Our rating: false
We rate this claim FALSE, based on our research. A claim that contains TikTok videos suggesting that snow that will not melt is based on unproven and previously debunked conspiracy theories. A snowball will melt under a flame and change from solid to gas as a result of a process called sublimation. According to experts, other claims linking snowfall to chemtrails or nanobot technology are unfounded.
Our sources for fact-finding
- USA TODAY 18 February: ” Just a real mess’: 100M from the south to the east coast in the direction of a new winter storm; 2.1M power outages in 8 states “
- Atlanta Magazine, January 31, 2014: “Snow and walkers: A tale of two Atlanta apocalypses”
- Slate, February 3, 2014: “Atlanta Storm Was a Government Conspiracy? Snow!”
- GlobeNewswire, December 30, 2020: “Nanorobotics: Technologies and Global Markets”
- Yahoo! News, February 5, 2014: “Chemtrails? Nanobots? Please. What fell in Atlanta was real snow that actually melted”
- The Bad Astronomer YouTube, February 3, 2014: “Snow that does not melt! Is it a government conspiracy ?! (Hint: no.)”
- WTVR CBS 6 YouTube, January 30, 2014: “‘Fake snow’ explains: it’s called sublimation”
- February 19 Conversation with dr. Tandy Grubbs
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