What is a Faraday bag? October 4th EBS Marburg virus conspiracy claim erupts online
Conspiracy theories are spreading rapidly online as the October 4 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) alert comes closer. The agency is conducting a national test at 2.20 pm ET on Wednesday, October 4, to ensure that the Emergency Alert System and the Wireless Emergency Alerts are working properly. As news of the tests continued to make headlines, netizens became skeptical.
Baseless claims of FEMA putting citizens at risk have spread like wildfire across social media platforms. Several conspiracy theorists claim that the test will trigger the Marburg virus disease, E. coli, and Brewer’s Yeast disease among Americans.
An X (formerly Twitter) user @ChudsofTikTok garnered immense traction after posting a video where a netizen claimed the Marburg virus would spread rapidly through the October 4 alarm. In the video, an unidentified man, said to be Attorney Todd Candela, can be seen saying the following in an interview:
“We know that Marburg is not particularly contagious, but it has extraordinarily high rate of fatality and we know the mechanism by which this will be released… on the inside of these shots that people already received, inside the lipid nanoparticles, the hydrogel, there exists pathogens inside of the particles that have not yet opened.
“Those pathogens are chimeric. They include E Coli., Marburg, Ebola Staphylococcus and Brewer’s Yeast among others,” Attorney Todd Candela said.
The man also added that the Marburg disease will be triggered by the 5G towers, which will broadcast an 18 gigahertz signal for one minute, three different times.
Netizens claim that Faraday bags will ensure safety on October 4
The Marburg virus disease is a rare hemorrhagic fever that can spread through direct contact. The outbreak leads to symptoms like severe headaches, high fever, muscle aches, diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, nausea, and bleeding.
According to several netizens, one can use a Faraday Bag to avoid contracting the virus and potentially being tracked by federal agencies.
According to How To Geek, a Faraday Bag is used to prevent wireless signals from leaving or reaching your digital devices. These device cages can be used by surrounding an object with the provided metal mesh.
Some netizens also claimed that the device cage would be helpful to avoid the supposed zombie apocalypse, which will begin on October 4. Theories about the same began when NBC News reported Ben Collins jokingly commented- “can’t wait for my smart fridge to zombify me tomorrow.”
He said so after suggesting that the October 4 test would turn people into zombies by using 5G.
Asserting the same, X user Gina Shirah said on September 30:
“Turn off your cell phones on October 4th. The EBS is going to ‘test’ the system using 5G. This will activate the Marburg virus in people who have been vaccinated and sadly turn them into zombies.”
For those unversed, EBS stands for the Emergency Broadcasting System, which no longer exists. This has been replaced by the Emergency Alert System.
As conspiracy theories related to the zombies and Marburg disease spread rapidly online, neither FEMA nor any other federal agency announced that the national test will result in the same.
No links between a zombie apocalypse and the disease were made available online, either. The theories seem to be a meager possibility discussed among netizens ahead of the test.
This is also not the first time FEMA has conducted the test. As per HITC, it has taken place twice already. It was also carried out in the UK in the past, and there were no reports of it going wrong.
