Facts Matter: No, Hurricane Ian was not created by the government

Residents of Florida are cleaning up from Hurricane Ian, which left more than 100 people dead. Right after the devastation, some social media users shared a conspiracy theory that the weather was manufactured by the government, according to PolitiFact.

One Twitter user claimed it was "all just a set up," in which the government tricked people into moving to Florida during the pandemic before sending in the storm. "The 'storm of the century' as it is being called is unfortunately another one of many examples of how the government engineers weather to completely destroy places and as always they will use predictive programming to show you they're going to do it in advance," the Sept. 29 tweet read.

A Facebook user wrote, "They created that hurricane that hit Florida!!"

Hurricane Ian was real. Hurricanes form in the open air above warm ocean water. As the humid air rises, it rotates and the water is released. When the storm is over water, it continues to grow.

Hurricane Ian was classified as a Category 4 storm when it made landfall on Florida's coast on Sept. 28. It is the 15th Category 4 or 5 hurricane recorded in Florida, according to NBC News.

Biden didn't say vaccines protect from hurricanes

As Hurricane Ian was barreling toward Florida with winds reaching up to 150 mph, social media users were sharing a video of President Joe Biden encouraging people to get the COVID-19 vaccination.

"If you're in a state where hurricanes often strike, like Florida or the Gulf Coast or into Texas, a vital part of preparing for hurricane season is to get vaccinated now," Biden said in the clip.

But that message was taken out of context and mistakenly applied to Hurricane Ian, The Associated Press reported.

"Protect yourself from incoming hurricanes by getting vaccinated ... right now!" read one tweet, which included the video, and was posted the day before Hurricane Ian hit Florida.

Biden's comments are actually from August 2021. The president was speaking before a White House briefing and his comments were outlining how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting hurricane preparedness. He was not saying vaccinations would protect against hurricanes.

"If you wind up having to evacuate, if you wind up having to stay in a shelter, you don't want to add COVID-19 to the list of dangers that you're going to be confronting," Biden said. "We can't prevent hurricanes making landfall, but we can prevent people from getting seriously sick and dying from COVID-19."

Putin, Kim meeting was before invasion

On the day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions - a move denounced by Ukraine and the United Nations - a social media post showed a video of Putin meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"In an unprecedented visit ... North Korean president arrives in Moscow to coincide with upcoming speech by Russian president today," read a Sept. 30 tweet. The message also was shared on Facebook.

The video is real, but it didn't happen this year, according to Reuters. The clip actually shows a meeting between Putin and Kim in April 2019 in Vladivostok, Russia. In the 45-second video, the two leaders are shown walking together while greeting officials in a receiving line.

Video of predictions from 2020, not 1956

A video circulating online appears to be very old and appears to predict the COVID-19 pandemic.

The black-and-white clip includes archival footage, and text on the video reads, "This video was made in 1956. Cronavirus (sic) info in video must watch."

A Twitter user sharing the video wrote, "This is a video from 1956. They predicted everything we are going through right now. It even knew the exact year it would happen ... 2020. It's like they planned it. (wink wink)."

A narrator on the video predicts rampant obesity and political corruption becoming commonplace.

The voice-over then seems to predict the pandemic.

"Perhaps, worst of all will be the emergence of a deadly and potentially devastating disease," the narrator says. "Experts predict that by the year 2020, a new virus will rise spreading from somewhere in Asia to the rest of the world."

But the video isn't old, according to The Associated Press. It was created as satire in 2020 by a user named Max Patrick Schlienger. "The piece was intended to make satirical commentary on the anti-science, misinformation-favoring perspectives that were already starting to be spread at the time," Schlienger told the AP.

• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.