CLAIM: Electrically-charged stones have been discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While some minerals can serve as conduits for electricity, rocks can’t store electricity, experts told The Associated Press.
THE FACTS: Claims that electrically-charged stones were discovered in the central African nation have spread widely across social media platforms in recent days, including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. Some users likened the supposed discovery to “vibranium,” a fictional rare metal that can store and release energy in Marvel comics and films like “Black Panther”.
As proof, social media users shared a video showing several people inspecting a small, shiny rock. One of the individuals connects two ends of what appears to be a wire to the rock, which activates a light on the wire.
“Electrically charged stones discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” one Twitter user who shared the video wrote Saturday. The tweet was shared over 27,000 times.
But these claims are as fanciful as a superhero movie, experts say. Certain minerals can conduct electricity, but none can store electricity in a way that would power a light as the video shows.
“Minerals within those rocks, or if you have sufficient concentrations of them, can conduct electricity, but there’s no way they can really store it,” Simon Jowitt, an associate professor of economic geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It just passes through, going from...
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