As wildfires ravaged central Chile, a number of posts have been circulating online claiming that buildings or objects painted blue are immune to the fires. Why? Well, these accounts claim the fires were actually set by powerful lasers that don’t work on anything colored blue. These claims are baseless.
If you only have a minute…
- A series of wildfires have been devastating the region of Valparaiso, Chile throughout February 2024. A number of posts have been circulating online claiming that buildings and objects painted blue have miraculously resisted the flames. Some of these posts claim that Chileans are starting to paint their homes and roofs blue to protect them.
- These claims are based on a well-worn conspiracy theory that wildfires are actually caused by “directed energy weapons”, essentially focused energy or lasers that cause damage. According to these conspiracy theories, the lasers leave blue objects intact.
- However, these images don’t prove anything. While they do show several blue structures intact, there are also buildings of other colours that are intact, too. The video showing a man painting his roof blue shows someone who already believes the theory.
- A number of experts have said that both a heat wave and drought played a role in the spate of wildfires in Chile. However, investigations into potential arson are also underway.
The fact check, in detail
A number of social media accounts have been tracking any time that the colour blue appears in footage and photos of the devastation caused by wildfires in Valparaiso, Chile. Why? These people believe that the wildfires, which have resulted in mass damages and the deaths of at least 130 people, spared objects painted this colour. Why again? Because they believe that these fires were set by targeted lasers called directed energy weapons, which apparently don’t work on anything coloured blue.
An English-speaking TikTok user made this claim in a video published on February 9. Pointing out a small blue home in the midst of charred ruins, he says: “The house was barely touched. Everything around it: demolished, burned to ashes.”
“But somehow it managed to stand still”, he continues, before showing a video where you see a laser burning different fabric but sparing one coloured blue.
This user has actually picked up footage from a Spanish-language TikTok account, published two days earlier. The footage was geolocated in Vina del Mar, an area that was indeed affected by the fires.
“Is the blue house theory true?” this user asks.
This theory is mentioned in other posts, as well – like this video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by another English-speaking account. It shows another building, also painted blue, that was spared by the flames, in the midst of other charred structures. The caption reads “Chile. Blue colour again. #DEW #DirectEnergyWeapon.”
The acronym “DEW” appears in a French tweet that copies a tweet in English that has garnered more than 11 million views. Both tweets include a video of a man painting his home bright blue.
“People in Chile are now reportedly painting their houses & roofs in particular the colour blue in order to protect themselves from DEWs,” the post in French says. The sentence in the English-language post is the same, except for its reference to DEWs.
The French tweet also includes the video showing a laser burning through several fabrics – except the one in blue.
There has long been a conspiracy theory that governments or other influential bodies are responsible for starting wildfires using these “directed energy weapons”.
These weapons are real – they use highly focused energy including lasers, microwaves, particle beams and sound beams to damage their target or destroy electronic systems. But there is no proof that directed energy weapons were ever used against civilian populations or to ignite wildfires.
‘These aren’t anomalies, it just depends how the fire progresses’
While the theory put forward by these posts seems unfounded, then what could be the reason that these blue buildings and objects have mysteriously been spared by fire? Adherents of this conspiracy theory refer to these objects as “blue anomalies”.
Éric Brocardi, the spokesperson for the National Federation of Firefighters in France, there is nothing surprising about these images.
“These aren’t anomalies, it just depends how the fire progresses,” he said after studying the images.
“The main explanations are the way the fire has spread and the direction that the wind is blowing, which can end up sheltering certain objects. In the French region of Gironde, for example, there was a fire around Arcachon Bay in July 2022. We had what is called a crown fire: in certain places, the crowns of the trees burned, but not the branches below.”
Firefighters believe that the presence of violent winds during the fires contributed to their spread.
Paul Sirvatka is a professor of meteorology at the College of Dupage, an American institute of higher education. He also says there is nothing unusual about this type of phenomena.
“Because of the mechanisms of propagation, primarily embers and wind, the patterns formed by fire as it spreads can be intricate and complex,” he said. “We call this a mosaic pattern.”
In the images shared by accounts focused on the preservation of blue objects, we can quickly see that objects of different colours have also been spared. For example, the vegetation near the blue structures is also intact, which makes it seem more likely that the entire zone escaped the flames – perhaps because of the intervention of the fire department.
Video shared by someone who has already fallen for this theory
How about the video where you can see a man painting his roof blue? Does it show locals suddenly painting their roofs blue in order to escape the ravages of the fire, as some of these accounts have claimed?
In reality, that’s not really what the video shows. The video was first posted on February 9 by the TikTok account @eduarjoselugo. The man who posted this footage remains vague about why he is repainting his roof in the post itself.
“Here, we are painting the roof of my house blue, blue like the sky… […] Bad things don’t touch things that are blue, because blue is connected to God,” he says.
However, by looking at other posts on the same account, we quickly realise that this man believes the conspiracy theory that directed energy weapons are behind the fires in Chile.
In another video, he shares an audio excerpt that links the preservation of blue-coloured objects during the fires to the “first phase of project Blue Beam”. Apparently, this led to “worrying rumours about alleged laser attacks”.
Project Blue Beam is another conspiracy theory about governments using lasers and holograms. We’ve written about this theory before in a previous article (in French).
This video doesn’t actually prove that many Chileans believe that directed energy weapons are responsible for the fires and are trying to save their homes by painting them blue. In actuality, this video shows one man who already believes the theory.
One thing to note: there is a link between belief in the use of directed energy weapons and climate change denial.
Conspiracy theories that have blamed directed energy weapons for various disasters are not new. Many believe they began in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.
These theories have popped up again recently each time there is a particularly destructive forest fire. Various accounts started spreading these rumours during fires that swept Canada in June 2023 or the terrible fires in Hawaii in August of the same year.
Read moreWatch out for these images fuelling a conspiracy theory about the Hawaii wildfires
In these two cases, believers in the theory about directed energy weapons used this to deny any link between the fires and climate breakdown, even though this link is well-established by the scientific community.
In the case of the fires in Chile, believers in the directed energy weapons theory also deny the role of climate breakdown. In response to a video showing devastation in Chile that highlights the importance of fighting against climate breakdown, a believer drew a link with the Hawaii fires and said that “DEWs” were responsible for both.
“And once again, the globalist monsters behind the deliberate and entirely man-made attack on humanity and planet, claim ‘climate change,’” this user wrote.
However, there is evidence for the role of climate change in these fires. Scientists have indicated that a serious heatwave in Chile, a long drought and the El Nino phenomenon all played a role. There are, however, investigations underway to determine if some fires were set with criminal intent – there are apparently some indications that flammable products were used in certain locations.