As Texas and the Caribbean recover from Hurricane Beryl, conspiracy theorists on TikTok say flooding from the Category 5 storm was actually caused by the movements of an ancient mythological sea serpent called a Leviathan. 

Rapidly intensifying from a tropical depression on June 28 to a Category 5 hurricane by July 2, Beryl was the earliest recorded Category 5 storm in Atlantic history. A recent analysis found that the hurricane was “fueled by exceptionally warm ocean temperatures,” which are directly attributable to climate change.

Between April and July, Media Matters identified several TikTok videos that accrued millions of views suggesting that the movements of a giant sea monster were responsible for the destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl, earthquakes, and atmospheric disturbances. Other videos claimed that these events were signs of a Leviathan that would ultimately bring the apocalypse. Right-wing Christian media figures and conspiracy theorists have similarly attributed past natural disasters to cosmic or religious events that are beyond human control to discredit or dismiss how human-caused climate change is fueling extreme weather events. 

• The idea of a large primordial sea creature that represents chaos stretches back to pre-biblical Mesopotamian mythology. Interpretations of what the beast may look like vary, but the Old Testament describes it as a “curving serpent” that can only be slain by God, who would do so only at the end of time. The New Testament likens the creature to the devil and describes a seven-headed monster that has been interpreted as the Leviathan as well. [Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 7/16/24; Google Books, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12, 10/10/06]
   
• In one TikTok video with over 2.3 million views, a creator said that he believed “the dragon has been awakened” based on Hurricane Beryl and attributed earthquakes in Venezuela to a Leviathan. The video featured a Fox News clip in which an anchor and weather correspondent seemingly compared Hurricane Beryl to a dragon. The creator also referred to an earlier, seemingly deleted video captioned “there is no hurricane in the caribbean sea. Levi is woke and and moving and a tsunami will soon flood these islands,” and another video in which he claimed, “There is a second Leviathan moving its head … where they’re having earthquakes around the mouth area.” The account has posted at least 15 videos about the Leviathan since late June, several of which also suggest a giant sea serpent is behind recent earthquakes. [TikTok, 7/7/24, 6/28/24, 6/30/24]
   
• The viral Fox News clip, which was featured in Leviathan videos with over 2.5 million combined views from at least three different TikTok accounts, appears to have been misleadingly edited to suggest that Hurricane Beryl was caused by a “dragon.” The videos showed the clip of Fox weather correspondent Robert Ray amid the devastation Beryl left in Jamaica, saying, “The dragon has been released,” and anchor Neil Cavuto replying that there are “more dragons to come.” (In the full clip, Ray says, “The dragon that is hurricane season 2024 has been unleashed.”) One of the TikTok videos then asked, “Could this anomaly have been something more — the start of Hurricane Beryl? Could they be dropping hints?” along with an image of an inflatable dragon wrapped around the Empire State Building that HBO used to promote the show House of the Dragon. The video also points out that “coincidentally, it is the year of the dragon,” referring to the Chinese zodiac. [TikTok, 7/5/24, 7/6/24, 7/7/24; Newsweek, 6/17/24; Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 7/3/24]
   
• A video with 367,700 views claimed that the Leviathan took the form of clouds shaped like a dragon during Hurricane Beryl. “The people who have eyes can clearly see that this is a dragon,” the video creator said, referring to images of clouds, cyclones, and the aurora borealis. “Remember we told you that the Leviathan and Beryl give you the same numbers in the same ciphers in gematria. There are no coincidences, guys.” Finally, he claimed that “spiritual beings” are “cleaning this planet of the spiritual wickedness that we cannot see.” [TikTok, 7/4/24]

• Media Matters identified at least 14 TikTok videos that were posted between April and June with 9.2 million views that claimed a Leviathan was visible on Google Earth. Many videos claim that the shape created by an island system and an undersea trench in the Scotia Sea is actually the outline of a giant sea serpent’s head. [Geological Society of America, Geology Journal, 4/1/14]
   
• A viral April TikTok video with millions of views said “on Google Earth, you can find him 100%” and speculated that a viral modeling error that created an unusual “blob” on a popular meteorological app was also connected to the Leviathan. The video features images of the Scotia Sea, which the creator claims include the “head of the serpent.” It also focuses on a large wave anomaly that was captured by the meteorological app Ventusky, claiming that it showed the Leviathan “breathing” and “maybe that’s what’s causing the waves.” There have been a number of other conspiracy theories about the anomaly, which Ventusky later said was caused by a model error that has been resolved, telling Newsweek that these videos were “manipulative.” [TikTok, 4/30/24, 4/13/24; Newsweek, 5/13/24]
   
• Another video with 253,000 views claimed that “Leviathan is on the move,” showing screenshots of the Scotia Sea on Google Earth. A caption accompanying the video warned: “LEVIATHAN HAS MOVED... IS HE BREAKING OUT OF THE ICE?” [TikTok, 6/24/24]
   
• Conspiracy theorists also created misleading videos of The Joe Rogan Experience to make it look like the host believes the serpent is real, and even apparently used AI to imitate his voice. One October 2023 TikTok video, titled “Joe Rogan leviathan footage,” misleadingly edited a clip from the show to add fake footage of a large sea monster to make it look like Rogan is commenting on the size of the serpent. (In reality, he was talking about footage of a giant squid that was captured by a camera off of an oil rig.) Another TikTok video appears to use the same AI voice claiming that “Leviathan is actually real.” (The account says that it uses the AI Rogan voice in its bio but not in the video description or anywhere in the video.) A YouTube video titled “Nasa knows where leviathan is” and using seemingly AI-generated images and audio of Rogan’s voice was also published in March; AI deepfakes of Rogan have previously gone viral on both YouTube and TikTok, though some have been removed for violating community guidelines. [TikTok, 10/29/23, 12/28/23, accessed 7/18/24; YouTube, 12/19/19, 3/21/24; The Verge, 5/3/23; Mashable, 2/15/23]
   
• What people are seeing on Google Earth are actually geological formations caused by two tectonic plates that make up the Scotia Sea — not a biblical sea monster. The unique shape on Google Earth can be explained by science: The Scotia Sea, which is located in the northern region of the Antarctic Ocean and south of the Atlantic, is made up of two small tectonic plates, and their movements over millions of years have caused the ridges visible on the map. Scientists have discovered that both plates are moving, though only by a few millimeters per year. The dots that some TikTokers claim are “nostrils” or other features of the serpent are actually a chain of uninhabited volcanic islands called the South Sandwich Islands. [Springer Link, Bulletin of Volcanology, 12/11/20; Oxford Academic, Geophysical Journal International, 12/1/03; Discover, 11/30/23]

• A TikTok creator with over 2 million subscribers claimed in June that “the Leviathan over the last month or so is coming to the surface, as it will in the end of days for its final fight.” She also said in the video that “the ocean [is] getting regressively hot” because “the Leviathan is loose.” [TikTok, 6/19/24]
   
• In a video with 2.8 million views, Christian hip hop artist Nikhil Keswani (who goes by “BigNik”) used AI-generated storytelling to accompany his claims about “this gigantic sea creature that the Bible warned us about.” Keswani used seemingly AI-generated videos of large sea serpents to describe the Leviathan, and added other AI imagery throughout the video. He also cited imagery of the Scotia Sea to argue that “this gigantic sea creature that the Bible warned us about was just spotted on Google Earth,” adding, “The Bible spoke about these events long ago and this is God’s final warning before immense judgment is poured out on the entire world.” [TikTok, 6/28/24]
   
• Claims that natural disasters allegedly signal the “End Times” are often amplified by right-wing Christian influencers and conspiracy theorists to reject climate science. Media Matters has previously reported how right-wing Christian media figures and TikTok influencers dismiss the reality of climate change by instead citing biblical prophecy, the End Times, or “demonic attack” to explain extreme weather events. Prominent right-wing and Christian media figures have also downplayed climate links to extreme weather events by arguing God controls the weather, while some have cited their faith as a reason to reject taking action on climate change. [Media Matters, 12/11/23]
   
• Climate misinformation about the End Times encourages inaction. In 2023, for example, Joe Rogan’s podcast fueled conspiracy theories that falsely attributed climate change impacts to cyclical changes in Earth’s magnetic field. These narratives shift blame away from our reliance on fossil fuels onto processes completely beyond our understanding — if climate change is caused by forces we can’t control, as the logic goes, then taking action to curb greenhouse gas emissions is pointless. [Media Matters, 5/24/23]