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2024 Solar Eclipse / Eclipse Conspiracy Theories image. Source / X, @ElectionLegal

2024 Solar Eclipse / Eclipse Conspiracy Theories

Updated Apr 09, 2024 at 11:44AM EDT by Zach.

Added Apr 02, 2024 at 02:25PM EDT by Aidan Walker.

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Overview

The 2024 Solar Eclipse refers to a total eclipse of the sun occurring in the afternoon of April 8th, 2024, over the central United States and parts of Mexico. In the path of totality, skywatchers in a narrow band that reaches across several states, including Ohio, will be able to see the sun entirely covered. In the lead-up to the eclipse, online commentators and conspiracy theorists offered viral takes and made memes about what the eclipse might mean on both practical and mystical levels. Numerous memes and reactions to the eclipse on the day of the event circulated online, such as Donald Trump Staring at the Eclipse, as well as posts following the event, like My Eyes and other memes.

Background

Solar eclipses are rare astronomical occurrences in which the moon's orbit comes directly between the Earth and the Sun, casting the moon's shadow over the Earth's face during the daytime.[1] The 2017 Solar Eclipse generated a variety of memes.

As anticipation built for the 2024 solar eclipse event in April, NASA and other organizations produced maps (like the one seen below) showing the "path of totality," the narrow band of the Earth's surface where the total eclipse would be visible.[2]


10% eclipse THROUGH THE EYES OF NASA 15% Seattle Aberdee acoma Wenatchee BRITISH COLUMBIA WASHINGTON ALBERTA SASKATCHEWAN CANADA MANITOBA 70% 2024 Maximum Partial Obscuration (%) Richland Kennewick Portland Corvat La Grande OREGON Coos Bay Roseburg Crescent City Eureka Ontario Caldwel IDAHO Twin FallBurkey Winnemucca हूँ Pacific Ocean Yuba City Santa Flosa Carson City Sacramento San Francisco o Stockton San Mate Santa Cruz Oakland San Jose Monterey Salinas Fresno CALIFORNIA Paso Robles Tulare San Luis Obiso Santa Maria Bakersfield 35% 75% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% The 2024 Total San Diego City Centr Solar Eclipse through the eyes of NASA Lunar topography data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's SELENE lunar orbiter were used to precisely calculate the location of the Moon's shadow for the 2024 total solar eclipse. The planetary positions are from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Development Ephemeris 421. Earth imagery from NASA's Blue Marble: Next Generation series were used to create the terrain and Earth at night imagery from NASA's Black Marble were used under the eclipse path. 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Monday, April 8, 2024 .................. Credit: Michala Garrison and the Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS), in collaboration with the NASA Heliophysics Activation Team (NASA HEAT), part of NASA's Science Activation portfolio Eclipse calculations by Ernie Wright, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 0 mi 0km 65% 70% SONORA BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR Las Vegas Bouber Grand Canyon Farmington Lancaster Bestow Barbara Los Angeles. Victorvil Buthead City Kingman Needles Flagstaff Long Beach San Bernardino Riverside Palm Springs Lake Havasu City ARIZONA Oceanside Phoenix Mesa Gila Bend Casa Grande Conser BAJA CALIFORNIA Tucson Alamogord Las Cruces Carlsbad El-Paso Douglas NEVADA Neph Price U N E D Kamel UTAH Denver Aurora Grand Junction Moabi COLORADO Goodland Colorado Springs Monticello Mobridge Aberdeen Wam Gillette Lead SOUTH DAKOTA Thermopol Rapid Cry Piene Brookings Мосты Riverton WYOMING Sioux Falls Douglas Login Ogden Green Biver Raivins Chadron Allance Scotsbluf Sidney Norfolk Sioux City WISCONSIN St. Cloud C Minneapolis-St. Paul Mankat Spencer PLakeville Farbout Rocheon Abert Lea Eau Claire Tomah Green Bay Appleton Oshkosh Fond du La Crosse West Bend Milwaukee Madison Wate Janesville Racine Mason City FL Dodge Dubuque Rockford Cedar Rapid Aurora Iowa City NEBRASKA Grand Island Omaha Council Blus ST A IOWA Ames Traverse City Cadila MICHIGAN Sagnaway Cay Fin Portion Muskegon Grand Rapids Lansing Detroit Greek An Swak bentono Arbor/ Chicago Dverdock Island Kankakee, INDIANA Havre Glasgow Great Falls MONTANA Wilson Moot Devils Lake Grand Fork Glendiv Dickinson Bismarck s City Hardin NORTH DAKOTA Bemid Lake Superior c--- MINNESOTA amestown Moorhead superior Warwood Brainerd fron Mounta Rhinelande Pestanaba Petoskey ONTARIO NASA 4:35 PM ADT QUEBEC Lake Huron 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Rochest 3:20 3:25 EDT 3:30 EDT MAINE Jar Harbor NOVA SCOTIA N.H. VT Concord Mancheste cachentaMA NEW Abany YORK Boston Petsfield Worceste 90% 85% 80% EDT R.I. Lama Garden City Dodge City Manhattan St. Joseph Kansas City Sara Topekand KANSAS Emporia Springfield Cincinnati 3:05 Charlen Trinidad Hutchinson Wichita Jefferson City MISSOURI 2:05 EDT Hunting CDT Any Frankfort Louisville Lexington White Sulphur Quymon Springfield Ponca Cin Albuquerque Santa Fe Vegas Tucuma Dalhart Woodward Enid Bartlesvil Dumas Satwater Tulsa Amarillo OKLAHOMA Muskogee NEW MEXICO Hereford Oklahoma City Fort Smith Clovis Childre McAlester Memphis Ardmore Roswell Hobbs MEXICO Fort Stockton Alpine Lubbock TEXAS Big Spring Abilene Ft. Worthington Pecos de Midland Van Hor San Angelo 1:50 CDT Pine B Wichita Fann Gadsden Sherman Denton 1:45 Dallas CDT MISSISSIPPI ARKANSAS Greene Tuscaloosa El Dorado Shreveport Meridian CHIHUAHUA COAHUILA SINALOA DURANGO 95% 12:20 PM CST 12:30 CST CDT Beeville vaca 12:25 CST Ace Corpus Christi NUEVO LEON Fatumias Edinburg 1:35 Austin CDT San Marcos San Antoniotels Do 1:30 1:40 Nacogdoches CDT Ki Temple yan Huntsville Beaumont Alexandra LOUISIANA Baton Roug ALABAMA Laurel Natchez Hattiesburg Galesburg Latayokomo Bloomington Urban 3:10 EDT 3:15 EDT ILLINOIS Indianapolis OHIO Williamsport PENNSYLVANIA New York Beaver Falls Homburg Philadelphia toona okeancast N.J. Pittsburgh Boistown w Columbus Parkersbu WEST Owen KENTUCKY Hagerstown MD Baltimore Washington D.C. Fredericksburg, VIRGINIA Hamisonburg Charleston Charlottesv Beckley Lynchburg Winston-Salon Richmond Petersburg Hampton VIRGINIA Non Virginia Beach Danville Greensboro Durham Rocky Moun Raleigh Okpe Knoxville Hickory, N. CAROLINA 2:00 CDT Bowling Green Poplar B Johnson Cay Nashville 1:55 CDT TENNESSEE Murfreesboro Asheville Jackson Chattano G Barlett Anderson Florence Columbia Sumter Myrtle Beach Charlotte ayettevide sonville Lumberton Birmingham Marieta Athens S. CAROLINA Atlanta GEORGIA la Grange Macon Aubum Columbus Montgomery Aken Orangeburg fort Atlantic Ocean 2024 Path of Totality April 8, 2024 Along a path about 115 miles wide, the Moon will completely block the Sun in the sky. Totality lasts up to about 4 minutes and 28 seconds depending on the viewer's location within this path. Outside of this path, viewers within the 48 contiguous U.S. states and many other areas will see a partial solar eclipse (in the shaded areas below). 홍 70% 65% 60% 55% 50% 2024 Maximum Partial Obscuration (%) Douglas 40% Waycross Houston Pasadena Texas City Galveston New New Orleans Tallahassee Pancha City Apalachicola Gulf of Mexico Jacksonville Lake City St. Augustine FLORIDA Gainesville Palm Coast Loob Qaytona Beach Leesburg use Orlando Spring Hvordana Melbourne Winter Haven Vero Beach St. Petersburg Tampa Sarasota Port Cape Conty onen Naples Fort Pierce West Palm Coral Springs Fort Lauderdale Miami Miami Beach Coral Gables 30% 25% 75% 55% 50% 40 20%

Online Reactions

Leading up to the solar eclipse in April 2024, numerous discussions, memes and conspiracy theories about the event spread online as social media users reacted to the news.

NASA Apep Serpent God Conspiracy Theory

On March 25th, 2024, NASA announced that it would fire three rockets while the eclipse was in the sky "to study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet."[3] The acronym for this program, APEP (Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path) is spelled the same as Apep, the ancient Egyptian spirit of darkness and chaos. Apep is a snake god and arch-nemesis of Ra, the sun god and creator god. In art, Apep is frequently depicted as a very long snake fighting Ra, who is represented either as a cat or in a boat.[4]

On April 2nd, 2024, X / Twitter user Peter Sweden (@PeterSweden7) posted about the "Apep" name, earning over 3,200 likes 1,000 reposts in an hour.[15] Similar posts were also made to TikTok and elsewhere on X around the same timeframe.


PeterSweden @PeterSweden7 CAN'T MAKE THIS UP Subscribe NASA will be shooting three rockets at the upcoming solar eclipse on 8th April. The rockets are called "apep" which is the name of an ancient Egyptian spirit of evil serpent deity. Meanwhile CERN will be trying to make dark matter. WHAT ARE THEY DOING? • 10:07 AM Apr 2, 2024 · 336.6K Views 374 1K 3.3K ☐ 459 <]

Biblical Rapture "Nineveh" Conspiracy Theory

Some commentators speculated that the coming April 8th eclipse indicated the beginning of the end times according to Christian theology. Much of this analysis centered around the names of cities in the paths of either the 2024 or 2017 eclipses, as well as towns situated in the area of overlap between the paths.

For example, on March 11th, 2024, TikToker @bignik (seen below, left) posted a video to TikTok that earned over 10 million views in three weeks and over 926,000 likes describing how the eclipse played into end-times Biblical prophecies.[5] TikToker @savageworship posted a similar video (seen below, right) that same day about the Biblical prophecies using what appeared to be AI-generated images, earning over 159,000 likes and 4.2 million views in three weeks.[7]

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7345157419804200234
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7345819214000721194

The textual argument rests on a reading of the Jonah and the whale story in the Bible. In that story, Jonah is sent to make a city called Nineveh "repent." Believers in this conspiracy theory claimed that the solar eclipse would pass through seven or eight cities in the United States called Nineveh, but a Snopes fact check found there were only two Ninevehs in the path of totality.[6]

CERN Conspiracy Theory

The CERN Hadron Collider planned an experiment on April 8th, 2024, meaning the particle accelerator may be running during the moment of the solar eclipse.[11] Online, many conspiracy theories, including a notable one in the summer of 2022, have circulated about the collider, speculating that experiments conducted there could open portals to alternate universes or alternate planes of reality.

On March 28th, 2024, X user @BGatesIsAPsycho posted purported "evidence" of this theory, receiving 6,000 likes and 2,800 reposts over the course of five days (seen below).[12]


Concerned Citizen @BGatesIsaPyscho CERN NASA & Solar Eclipse Subscribe Anyone find it strange that CERN are firing up their Hadron Collider on the same day as the Solar Eclipse on April 8th The Hadron Collider is the worlds largest & most powerful particle accelerator, used to try & discover the universal' God Particle' Oh yeh & NASA are firing 3 Rockets at the Eclipse named Project 'Serpent Deity' to "investigate how the drop in Sunlight & Temperature affects Earth upper atmosphere” Will probably amount to nothing but as always let's let the comments section do their thing...... Slowly at CERN in Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator is coming out of it regular hibernation again. Progress can be followed live on a CERN web page. Late last week, for the first time since the annual winter shutdown, a first beam of protons briefly went around the accelerator's 27-kilometer circle at full 6.8 TeV energy. The first collisions of proton beams are expected on April 8, when all tests and fine-tuning of the machine are over. Then the large CERN experiments involving colliding protons can resume their OVATION SCIENCE Why NASA Will Fire Three Rockets At The Solar Eclipse Jamie Carter Senior Contributor I'm the world's only solar eclipse journalist Mar 26, 2024, 01:00pm ED Apicture taken on January 04, 2011 in Lon NASA has announced it will fire three

Many online shared their enthusiasm for the eclipse, excited to see the rare astronomical event. Others criticized and mocked conspiracy theorists. A March 30th post on X by @BGatesIsAPsycho (the same account committed to posting about CERN and the eclipse) that pointed to various historical events which occurred along the path of the eclipse earned over 9,400 likes and 3,400 reposts in three days, including the repost (shown below, top) from @nikicaga, which received over 30,000 likes on April 2nd.[8] A Community Note attached to the post called the conspiracy theory false (seen below, bottom).


Nikolaj @nikicaga Mar 31 • Probably not good that 10% of people are just insane with permanently broken conspiracy brains O Concerned Citizen @BGatesIsaPyscho⚫ Mar 30 This is the apparent path of the Solar Eclipse on April 8th. That's a hell of lot of coincidences right there. Eagle Pass JFK Jonesboro School Shooting Whitewater Rose Law Firm Bill Clinton birthplace Assasination Waco Massacre Uvalde School Shooting Paduah School Kent State Massacre Shooting Mike Pence East Palistine Train Derailment Finger Lakes Buffalo Mass Shooting - birthplace

Readers added context There is no conspiracy. If you took a cross section of any area of the US you could, as the OP has done, label countless incidents and events. theguardian.com/science/blog/2... Do you find this helpful? Rate it


Solar Eclipse Memes and Jokes

There were also many discussions of the eclipse on Reddit, with users inquiring about how to see it and posting their reactions.[9] One Redditor posted a meme (seen below) referring to Donald Trump Staring At The Eclipse, a well-known meme from the 2017 eclipse. The post received over 1,900 likes on /r/pics in one day on April 1st, 2024.[10]


NEVER SURRENDER Confums to and meets the Transmission ements of 50 12312-2:2015. Filters for Direct Observation of the Sun

Memes referencing the solar eclipse event also appeared on subreddits such as /r/polandball,[13] with Redditor AaronC14 posting a meme on March 30th that received over 4,400 upvotes and 70 comments in three days (seen below, left). On March 20th, Redditor beefstewforyou posted another example to /r/simpsonsshitposting[14] that received over 370 upvotes and 20 comments in two weeks (seen below, right).


F------ dope the eclipse is passing over both of us. I know, I'm pumped! I heard it's life-changing to witness! ) Oh! Shut the f--- up! Shut the f--- up! It's starting! So...was it life changing? Yeah I'm f------ blind. I have just the thing. Thanks. I got you. el TORONTO MAY I SEE THE ECLIPSE? 6 89 NO. 400 Vaughano Brampton 404 407 40 Whitby Oshawa Markham Toronto Guelph 401 Kitchener 403 401 24 Tillsonburg Simcoe Port Rowan Conneaut shtabula Lon Mississauga Hamilton St. Catharineso Niagara Falls Erie Edinboro Cobourg Brighton Medina Niagara-on-the-Lake Brockport Rochester о Fair 490 Batavia 90 390 C Buffalo 20 Dunkirk North East Chautauqua 86 90 219 Geneseo Ellicottville 62 Salamanca Jamestown Wellsville Olean Bradford Warren Coudersport Hornell

Post-Eclipse Memes and Reactions

As the solar eclipse swept over North America on April 8th, 2024, numerous viewers of the eclipse posted memes about it online. Many memes centered on eye protection during the eclipse, with some like X / Twitter user @TheWapplehouse (seen below) posting sardonically about "woke glasses" used to protect the eyes. The @Wapplehouse post received over 10,000 likes in a day.[16]


SAY NO TO CELESTRON CE CELESTRON WOKE GLASSES

On X, users such as @ElectionLegal joked on April 8th about not finding the eclipse stimulating enough, earning over 34,000 likes in three hours (seen below, top).[17] That same day, X user @uncledoomer compared the eclipse viewing photos of President Joe Biden in 2024 to former President Donald Trump's famous viewing of the eclipse without protective glasses in 2017, earning 7,800 likes in two hours.[18]


doomer @uncledoomer ⚫ 2h sun shame vs sun pride 6 36 432 7.4K ılıl 206K Σ ←

Pericles 'Perry' Abbasi @Election Legal • 2h boring ahh eclipse O 6 36 1.8K 32K ılıı 701K


On Reddit, several posters made memes commemorating the eclipse and touching on some of the same themes, particularly the consequences of looking at it without eye protection. For example, on April 8th on the /r/prequelmemes sub, Redditor /u/Aeris16 posted the NPC Wojak Crowd meme (seen below), receiving over 420 upvotes in six hours.[19]


Do not look up at the solar eclipse Snopes MSNBC CAN VICE VISION THE HINGTON BS. IL. abc NEWS BET Sun OCBS ור. NBC Me POLITICO G ורט

2017 Solar Eclipse

The 2017 Solar Eclipse was a total solar eclipse visible in a narrow band within the United States stretching from Oregon to South Carolina on August 21st, 2017.

Search Interest

External References

[1] Weather.gov – Solar and Lunar Eclipses#

[2] NASA – Where and When Eclipse 2024

[3] NASA – APEP

[4] Ancient Egypt Online – Apep

[5] TikTok – @bignik

[6] Snopes – Fact Check 2024 Solar Eclipse

[7] TikTok – @savageworship

[8] X – @nikicaga

[9] Reddit – /r/OutOfTheLoop

[10] Reddit – /r/pics

[11] CERN – Accelerator Report

[12] X – @BGatesIsaPyscho

[13] Reddit – r/polandball

[14] Reddit – r/simpsonsshitposting

[15] X – PeterSweden7

[16] X – @TheWapplehouse

[17] X – @ElectionLegal

[18] X – @uncledoomer

[19] Reddit – /r/PrequelMemes

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