Fact check: White mass falling to the ground is not a natural cloud

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A video allegedly showing a cloud sinking from the sky in Indonesia is doing the rounds on social media. In the video, we can see a few men wearing identical uniforms run towards a white object that falls to the ground from the sky. We fact-check this claim through this article.

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An archived version of this post can be found here. 

Claim: 

Video of a cloud sinking/ falling from the sky in Indonesia.

Fact: 

The white substance seen in the video is not an actual cloud falling from the sky. The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Director confirmed that it is most likely a condensation of water vapour or gas created due to human activity and not a natural cloud. Hence, the claim made in the post is 

False

. 



To check the veracity of the viral claim, we searched the internet using relevant keywords to see if the media had reported this incident. This search led us to a news report published by The Times of India about this incident.

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According to this report, this incident did indeed happen in an industrial area in Indonesia. It also mentioned that the local authorities have concluded that the foam-like substance seen in the video “was most likely created due to the condensation of pollutants in the surrounding industrial and mining areas.”


To learn more about this incident, we ran a keyword search on the internet in Indonesian, which led us to multiple local news reports (here, here, and here) on this incident. 

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As per these reports, this incident happened in the Morong Raya area in the Kalimantan province of Indonesia, and the video went viral on social media. CNN Indonesia and VOI reported that the white mass seen falling from the sky was not a cloud. 

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This was confirmed by the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) of Indonesia. Per the reports, the Director of BMKG said that the white mass seen in the video is not a natural cloud but a condensation of water vapour or gas due to human activity that occurs in the mining area.' 

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“Andri explained that the clouds cannot fall to the surface as dense clumps because the particles are very light and scattered with low density. This is because clouds are a collection of very small and light water droplets or ice crystals, so they continue to float in the atmosphere with the help of air currents.” VOI reported. He further said that cloud particles generally evaporate before reaching the ground.


According to National Geographic, clouds are a visual accumulation of water droplets in the Earth's atmosphere, and they are found at heights of 2000-12000 meters above the Earth's surface. You can find more information about clouds here, here, and here. 

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To sum up, a video of a white mass occurring due to condensation of water vapour or gas is falsely shared as visuals of a cloud falling from the sky.


(This story was originally published by Factly, and republished by News Agency as part of the Shakti Collective)
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News Agency staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)