One user on Reddit's r/conspiracy sparked an outlandish discussion after parroting nefarious and unfounded claims about Hurricane Helene's alleged origin and purpose.
Since the storm's landfall, which caused an estimated $59.6 billion in damages and killed over 230 people, similar allegations and assertions have spread like wildfire over the internet.
However, scientists have stated that such ideas have no reasonable foundation, with many conspiracy theorists blowing facts out of proportion, misconstruing evidence, and ignoring conflicting proof.
For example, the original poster wrote that the government could have used a weather modification technique called cloud seeding to "drastically shift course and increase intensity" of Hurricane Helene.
The suggested evidence cited in the Reddit post was a very real but very misunderstood government-backed experiment called Project Cirrus.
In 1947, a team of researchers dropped 180 pounds of dry ice from a plane in an attempt to modify a tropical cyclone, according to the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. They hoped the storm would weaken, per Earth Magazine.
Directly after the drop, the eastbound hurricane that was heading out to sea reversed its path and made landfall, causing local destruction.
What conspiracy theorists always bring up is how the program was subsequently blamed for the incident and shut down. However, they fail to mention that scientists from the study could not conclusively prove the seeding had any significant effect on the strength or direction of the hurricane.
Later investigations also showed the hurricane had already begun its westward turn — an identical path taken by previous hurricanes, as meteorologists pointed out, with no human intervention — before the dry ice was even released.
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Move somewhere else 🌎 Though cloud seeding is real, its effects are overblown and exaggerated, as Ph.D. student Roshan D'Arcy explained in a video for The Cool Down.
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"While it can increase rainfall by about 10% or more, it can't create water from nothing," D'Arcy said. "But hurricanes aren't just rain; they are produced by vast amounts of energy moving through the atmosphere. Cloud seeding has no impact on that."
In addition to the Reddit post author's implied theory about how Hurricane Helene was formed, they also offered an idea as to why.
"What do you think about the possibility of hurricane Helene being cloud seeded to clear way for lithium mining?" they asked users in the thread.
The claim is a popular explanation for the historic rainfall and flooding in North Carolina caused by the storm.
According to theorists, the hurricane cleared the path for an American mining company, which had been eyeing Gaston County, to swoop in and expand its operations.
However, savvy users and area locals have since pointed out holes in the theory, like the fact the hurricane didn't dramatically affect Gaston County in the first place.
While there are many theories surrounding Hurricane Helene, one thing is for certain: research indicates that the overheating planet is making things worse by impacting the intensity of hurricanes.
Hurricanes form over warm ocean water, using it much like an engine uses fuel; as long as they have access to warm water, they will continue to grow in strength. And as the planet warms, hurricanes like Helene have more "fuel" to supercharge into more deadly and destructive storms with stronger rains and worse flooding.
In an interview with The Cool Down, Climate Central chief meteorologist Bernadette Woods Placky explained that conditions in the Gulf of Mexico were to blame for Hurricane Helene's intensity.
"The very warm Gulf of Mexico water where Helene rapidly intensified was made 300-500 times more likely because of climate change," she said.
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