I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not 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.

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

But the claim is baseless.

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.

To be fair, if there’s one thing you’d think we could do in 2022, it’s opening up (well, even more so), a portal to Hell,  but it is Europe, after all. If the Biden administration were in charge, it wouldn’t be a question of if they could do it — it would be a question of what’s the deepest circle they would reach?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): In the Biden era, Hell is probably more worried about a portal from Earth.