Video doesn’t show mosquitoes released from helicopter in Massachusetts amid virus scare

Nearly a dozen Massachusetts counties are on alert for cases of eastern equine encephalitis, a rare but often deadly virus transmitted by mosquitoes.

An Aug. 25 Instagram post tied the virus’s outbreak to a video it claimed showed a helicopter dropping mosquitoes from the sky.

"Odd as towns in #Massachusetts prepare to lockdown for the next few months because of deadly #Mosquitoes ??? Then there is this clip of a helicopter there dropping millions of them," the post’s caption said.

The Instagram post is the same as one we found on TikTok with the same video and caption. It was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Eastern equine encephalitis kills about 30% of infected humans and leaves others with neurological problems, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health on Aug. 16 announced the first human case of eastern equine encephalitis this year, an infected man in his 80s in Worcester County. Massachusetts first identified the virus in the state in 1938 and there have been 115 cases since then, the department said. Outbreaks typically occur in the state every 10 to 20 years. The most recent outbreak, in 2019 and 2020, had 17 cases and seven deaths, the department said.

The department said 10 communities are at critical or high risk for the virus and began a mosquito-spraying program. There are no "lockdowns" as the Instagram post claims, but some communities have issued voluntary evening curfews or closed public parks after sunset, angering some parents because these measures would hamper some school fall sports and activities.

In the video, the helicopter circled over an unknown location with a black substance trailing from it. Sticker text on the video said, "Helicopter dropping mosquitoes."

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Using a reverse-image search, we found numerous social media posts sharing the same video as far back as August 2023, including several that said mosquitoes were being dropped from a helicopter in Florida.

We also found a Sept. 8, 2023, fact-check from The Associated Press, that traced the video’s origin to an Aug. 27, 2023, TikTok post that shows it was shot in Miami. That video does not mention mosquitoes. The AP could not confirm the substance coming from the helicopter, but several experts told them it appeared to be blue smoke, possibly from a gender reveal party.

A TikTok video from 2023 shows the same helicopter video seen in the Instagram post.

Social media users who shared the video in 2023 tied it to a genetically modified mosquito program from Oxitec. That company has released mosquitoes in Florida to reduce the pest’s population there, but they aren’t released from the sky.

There are some mosquito programs that release the pests from helicopters. The Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project in Hawaii releases Wolbachia infected mosquitoes in elevated forest areas to reduce the overall mosquito population and save birds at risk of extinction, NPR reported in June. Wolbachia are naturally occurring bacteria that many mosquitoes already have, but when mosquitoes with two different strains mate, their eggs won’t hatch, the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency said.

But there are no mosquito release programs in Massachusetts, Department of Public Health spokesperson Ann Scales said.

"Massachusetts is not involved in any of the Oxitec work, and we are not aware of any projects where mosquitoes are released," she said.

An Instagram post claimed millions of mosquitoes released from a helicopter could be tied to an outbreak of eastern equine encephalitis, a deadly mosquito-borne virus.

The video shared in the post is from Miami in 2023, according to an Associated Press fact-check. There are no Massachusetts programs that involve releasing mosquitoes, a state Department of Public Health spokesperson said. The claim is False.