This weekend Burning Man has turned into a mud-ridden chaotic wasteland with celebrity attendees hiking out and Ebola rumours swirling in the air.
Due to heavy rainfall, the festival grounds in Black Rock, Nevada turned into thick mud and organisers closed the road in and out of the town. They told the essentially trapped 70,000+ festival goers to conserve food and water. Police are also investigating one death.
More desperate attendees, such as Diplo and Chris Rock, walked a considerable distance to escape the festie. The DJ posted a video of him hitching a ride from a fan out of the desert after "walking 5 miles in the mud".
Footage emerging from the festival grounds shows that the mud is very thick and sticky. One viral TikTok shows a Jeep Wrangler submerged in it, its front two tyres completely underground.
Another festie-goer posted a video of the drenched grounds, sharing that the portaloos are full with sewage trucks unable to get to them, adding that the mud "adds ten lbs to your shoes".
Attendees are also wearing plastic bags around their feet to protect themselves from the mud.
On top of all this, the internet is running wild with rumours that the festival has been shut down due to an Ebola outbreak. There haven't been any confirmed reports of an outbreak, and according to Forbes, the rumours are false.
Twitter users began sharing a "tweeted and deleted" infographic by the CDC confirming the outbreak, but there is no evidence that the agency ever tweeted that. Rather, it's believed this is just another internet meme gone viral.
It's a rumour that has drawn the attention of the conspiracy crowd. Twitter user/podcast host @TrueAnon, who first drew my attention to the Ebola 'news' as they shared messages and stuff they supposedly heard on festival grounds, is tweeting that Joe Biden planned the Ebola outbreak.
One TikTok with 7,000+ likes shares the idea that this is a plan by the world's elites to get rid of all the spiritual people in the world, on their way to cut the human population in half by 2030.
These takes have no proof backing them up. To clarify, there is zero evidence that a single person at Burning Man has contracted Ebola.
Unrelated to all this (I hope) but worthy of note is the fact that the festival has a sex plane. It is exactly what it sounds like.
The big problem at the festival is the mud, however, the sun is expected to shine on the grounds tomorrow (NZT). We will keep you updated on any new developments.
