The Daily Populous Friday July 29th, 2022 morning edition
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Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a 'portal to hell'

Show Caption Hide Caption NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals myriad of galaxies NASA's $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was designed to perceive light from a large swath of the infrared light spectrum. Scott L. Hall and Damien Henderson, USA TODAY

The claim: Scientists at CERN are communicating with demonic entities and opening a portal to hell

In April, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, restarted their particle accelerator – the world's largest and most powerful accelerator – after a three-year hiatus.

The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, had undergone repairs and upgrades, and scientists plan to use it to crash protons together and learn more about the origins of the universe.

Nevertheless, social media users are suggesting that the machine has a different purpose. A Facebook post shared July 5 shows a TikTok video of a woman who claims that CERN scientists are using the machine to open a doorway for demons.

"If y’all don’t know about cern it’s a demonic/Evil machine that opens up portals to other dimensions/Hell/other spiritual worlds(not Heaven/or bosom of Abraham)and it brings in demons wicked spirits/High Evil Principalities," reads the caption of the post.

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Similar posts have amassed hundreds of interactions on Facebook and Twitter.

There is no evidence scientists at CERN are engaged in anything other than scientific-related activities. Physics experts told USA TODAY scientists use the Large Hadron Collider to collide particles at very high energies to study matter.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.

There is no truth to the claim that scientists at CERN are communicating with demonic entities and using the collider to open up a portal to hell, Dejan Stojkovic, a physics professor at the University of Buffalo, told USA TODAY in an email.

"To create a black hole or a wormhole, even microscopic ones, with our current technology, in the context of our standard theories of gravity, we need an accelerator as big as the whole universe," Stojkovic said. "So there is no chance whatsoever to create such a portal at the [Large Hadron Collider]."

The collider uses a strong magnetic field to accelerate charged particles, or protons, at very high energies in a circular tunnel, Stojkovic said. When two beams of these particles collide, detectors, which are located around the beams, record the outcome of these collisions.

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"Since these are previously unexplored energies in a controlled environment, we might expect production of some new elementary particles that we did not know if they existed," Stojkovic said. "However, these are microscopic particles, so there is no chance such a portal would open."

Joshua Ruderman, associate professor of physics at New York University, told USA TODAY in an email the collider is essentially "a particle creation machine and a particle discover machine."

For example, in 2012, the collider made headlines after discovering the Higgs boson particle, which was "a finding key to understanding the creation of the universe," according to the Washington Post.

Scientists relaunched the machine in April to study dark matter, which is "widely believed to make up a significant part of the universe," the Washington Post reported. It does not "absorb, reflect or emit light, making it extremely hard to spot," according to CERN. So far, scientists discovered three new subatomic particles, Reuters reported.

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that scientists at CERN are communicating with demonic entities and opening a portal to hell. There is no evidence scientists at CERN are engaged in anything other than scientific-related activities. The collider cannot open up portals to other dimensions. Experts said scientists use the machine to collide particles at very high energies to study matter.

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ohdearitsrichardiii on July 28th, 2022 at 16:27 UTC »

That sucks. Not even a small one? Boo, scientists! BOO!

rushmc1 on July 28th, 2022 at 14:58 UTC »

No, really?

a_bucket_full_of_goo on July 28th, 2022 at 14:40 UTC »

While never having considered this option, I'm suddenly getting suspicious