Videos and images have been circulating rapidly online showing a strange and vivid phenomenon in the sky in China.
the claim
In recent days, several videos and images have circulated on Twitter and other social media sites showing what appears to be a deep red sky over the city of Zhoushan on China’s east coast.
a popular clip which has been shared by multiple people, but appears to have originated from the Chinese social media website Weibo showing a view of the sky from a residential street. As people stand and speak, the camera pans across the sky showing the blood-red color, which appears brighter towards the horizon.
On the afternoon of 5.7, in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, the sky was blood red. pic.twitter.com/DeIUvl7BTw
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other clips, which appear to show the same phenomenon, also show a deep blood-red sky with a bright source somewhere near the horizon. The individual clips have garnered tens of thousands of views.
Some attributed disturbing significance to the clips, including Twitter user Anonymous Operations, who wrote: “In the Chinese urban district of Zhoushan, it seems that the apocalypse has begun.”
They also fueled conspiracy theories, with other users pushing unproven narratives. clandestine government activities.
Getty/TPG
The facts
The reports and videos of the red sky appear to have been corroborated by the Chinese state media outlet The global times.
In a May 8 report, the global times reported that the red sky appeared over Zhoushan on Saturday, May 7, and became one of the top trending topics on Weibo, where the posts garnered more than 150 million views. In one of the video clips, a viewer said that he had “never seen anything like it.”
As for the cause, global times reported that meteorologists had spoken with local media to explain why the phenomenon could have occurred.
They said that since it was foggy, cloudy and drizzling at the time of the red sky, the color might have been caused by the reflection of light from fishing boats off the low clouds.
Saury fishing boats often use hundreds of red LED lights, which can create a stunning visual effect when they accumulate in large numbers in the same spot at night.
Staff from the Zhoushan Meteorological Bureau said that under certain conditions, aerosols in the atmosphere could “refract and scatter” lights from fishing boats, the global times aggregate.
news week could not independently confirm this conclusion.
Other reports of blood-red skies over China occurred centuries ago in the 1770s, with researchers suggesting that auroras triggered by a major solar storm might have been to blame, according to living science. Sometimes solar activity can cause auroras in places where they would not normally occur.
However, this time the global times reported that solar and geomagnetic activity was calm on Saturday, citing the space physics research team at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan.
Forest fires are another possible cause, with one of the most recent cases reported in February 2019 in Indonesia, where the smoky haze from the fire turned the sky red. Similar phenomena were seen during a series of wildfires in the western US in 2020, with witnesses describing apocalyptic scenes as the sky turned orange and red.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case here, with no reports of wildfires in the local media in recent days, and NASA global fire map showing that there were no significant hotspots in the Zhoushan area.
failure
Real.
The sky appeared to turn red over part of the city of Zhoushan in China recently, as confirmed by social media footage and images from various angles, as well as local media reports. While news week could not independently find a definitive explanation for the phenomenon, Chinese experts claim that it was caused by lights from saurian fishing boats refracting in the sky.
NEWSWEEK FACT CHECK
Reference-www.newsweek.com