The European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, is often the target of conspiracy theories, especially regarding its research facility near Geneva that houses the Large Hadron Collider. Some social media users have posted a video showing performers dancing while wearing various costumes, including one wearing a goatlike headpiece, claiming it shows a link between CERN and Satanism. This is false. The footage is from a theatrical production staged on June 1, 2016 for the opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel through the Alps in Switzerland and is not connected to CERN.
formally known as Twitter, shows a 26-second-long video alongside claims that connect CERN to Satanism.
"CERN is where Science meets magic meets religion meets satanism," the post says. The video shows a group of people with little clothing on dancing and performing acrobatics before it cuts to a portion featuring a performer with a goat costume.
"You would think an 鈥楨lite鈥 owned state of the art science facility would worship statutes of atoms or dance around strands of DNA."
Versions of the claim can be found on and as well.
Rating: False
The video has no connection to , which is the acronym in the French language for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It conducts research into the "basic constituents of matter 鈥 fundamental particles" using scientific instruments such as the Large Hadron Collider, an underground particle accelerator that consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets.
CERN is located near Geneva on the French-Swiss border about 200 kilometres away from where the footage was actually taken in Pollegio, Switzerland, during the opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel on June 1, 2016.
The railway tunnel is the world鈥檚 longest at more than 57 kilometres, and its opening day saw speeches and performances staged at both the northern and southern ends of the tunnel. The video is from the southern end, and shows part of the performance created by German theatre director Volker Hesse featuring 600 dancers, acrobats and actors.
The watermark on the video shows it was edited from a longer video shared by the .
Photos and from the ceremony were published by many and media outlets. Most of these outlets show the same clips and images as the social media posts, and some called the performance "."
The media coverage of the ceremony was discussed on June 8, 2016, in an article on , a branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, which said "it鈥檚 not surprising that archaic traditions can appear exotic to outsiders." The article also debunked claims some of the performers represented Muslim whirling dervishes.
The article quoted the Swiss cabinet and said the artistic production had the concept of "Gotthard myths," and used "figures and legends exclusively from Alpine culture."
"The aforementioned figures are not dervishes but dancing haystacks.鈥
Sources
The claim can be found on X (, ), on Facebook (, ) and TikTok (, )
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SRF coverage of the opening ceremony can be found () and ()
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