You've seen the clips. They’ve been circulating since the early days of YouTube—grainy, neon-colored footage of someone standing in a grocery aisle or a living room, followed by a sudden, dark puff of "smoke" blooming from their backside. It's hilarious. It's visceral. It also happens to be a total lie. Honestly, the internet has spent over a decade gaslighting us about how fart on thermal imaging camera technology actually works, and the reality is both more boring and way more scientifically interesting than a fake viral prank.
Thermal cameras are incredible tools. We use them to find electrical shorts in walls, track heat loss in drafty houses, and even assist firefighters in seeing through thick smoke. But can they catch you in a moment of flatulence? The short answer is no, not usually. If you’re looking for a definitive answer, you have to understand the physics of gas, the limits of Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) sensors, and why those viral videos are almost certainly the work of digital effects artists rather than high-end optics.
Physics doesn't care about your sense of humor.
The Viral Hoax vs. FLIR Reality
Back in 2016, a video surfaced claiming to show a "fart" caught on a thermal camera at an airport. It looked like a plume of black smoke. People lost it. But here’s the thing: air, and the gases that make up human flatulence, are mostly transparent to the infrared spectrum used by standard thermal cameras. Most thermal imagers, like those made by FLIR or Seek Thermal, operate in the 8 to 14-micrometer range.
Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Hydrogen? They don't show up.
Methane and Carbon Dioxide do have infrared absorption bands, but at the concentrations found in a typical human "release," they aren't thick enough or opaque enough to register as a distinct cloud against the background. To see a gas on a thermal camera, you usually need a very specific, very expensive type of specialized sensor called an Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) camera. These are the fridge-sized units that oil and gas companies use to find methane leaks. They cost $50,000 or more. Your $400 smartphone attachment or even a $5,000 professional building inspection camera isn't going to cut it.
If you see a video where the gas cloud looks like a thick, billowing plume of ink, it’s fake. Digital "smoke" overlays are easy to add in post-production. Real gas leaks—when caught on the right gear—look more like a shimmering distortion or a translucent shadow, not a cartoon cloud.
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Why Temperature Differences Matter
Thermal cameras don't see color. They see heat radiation. This is a crucial distinction. When we talk about a fart on thermal imaging camera displays, we are looking at a "delta T"—a difference in temperature.
Body temperature is roughly 98.6°F. The air coming out of you is, predictably, about the same temperature. If you are standing in a room that is also 98 degrees, the gas would be completely invisible because there is no thermal contrast. In a colder room, say 68 degrees, there is a theoretical chance of seeing a signature, but there’s a catch.
Gas dissipates. Fast.
The moment that air hits the atmosphere, it expands and cools. It loses its thermal density almost instantly. Furthermore, clothing acts as a massive filter. Unless you are performing this experiment in the nude—which, let's be real, is a different kind of video—the fabric of your jeans or leggings will trap the heat and disperse the gas so widely that the camera won't pick up a concentrated "cloud." Instead, you might see the fabric of the pants get slightly warmer for a split second. That’s the real science.
The Science of Optical Gas Imaging (OGI)
So, could you ever see it? Well, yes, if you have the right equipment and a very specific setup.
Scientists and industrial inspectors use "cooled" thermal cameras. These devices have an internal cryocooler that drops the sensor temperature to staggering lows, allowing them to be sensitive to incredibly minute differences in IR radiation. These cameras are often filtered to specific wavelengths where methane (a component of some flatulence) absorbs infrared light.
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When methane absorbs that light, it blocks the radiation from reaching the sensor from the background. This creates a "shadow" that looks like smoke.
What’s actually in the gas?
- Nitrogen: 59% (Invisible to IR)
- Hydrogen: 21% (Invisible to IR)
- Carbon Dioxide: 9% (Visible only to specialized sensors)
- Methane: 7% (Visible only to OGI cameras)
- Oxygen: 4% (Invisible to IR)
Basically, about 90% of what you're "releasing" is invisible to almost every thermal camera on the planet. The remaining 10% requires laboratory-grade equipment to visualize. This is why the "airport thermal fart" video was debunked by experts almost immediately after it went viral. The physics just don't add up.
Thermal Myths and Modern Tech
I’ve spent a lot of time around thermography gear. I've used it to track down overheating breakers and find where squirrels were nesting in an attic. One thing you learn quickly is that thermal cameras are easily fooled. They can’t see through glass. They see your reflection in a window instead of what’s behind it. They can’t see through water. And they certainly struggle to see thin, rapidly moving gases.
There is a phenomenon called "thermal blooming." If you were to, say, spray a can of compressed air upside down, you’d see a massive cold spot. That’s because the liquid propellant is extremely cold and has high density. Human biology doesn't produce anything with that kind of thermal density.
People often ask if the "fart" would show up as a heat streak on the skin. If you were stripped down in a cold room and used a high-sensitivity camera (with a thermal sensitivity of <50mK), you might—and I mean might—see a brief flash of warmth on the skin's surface before it fades. But a cloud in the air? Not without a Hollywood budget or a NASA lab.
What You Can Actually See
If you want to play with thermal tech, there are plenty of real things that look like magic. You can see the heat footprint left on a carpet after someone walks across it. You can see the "ghost" of where a warm laptop was sitting on a table five minutes after it was moved. You can even see the veins in your own arms because of the warm blood pumping through them.
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But the fart on thermal imaging camera dream is mostly a myth built on the back of Adobe After Effects.
Interestingly, there is one way to "see" it without a $50,000 camera: Schlieren photography. This isn't thermal imaging; it's a technique that visualizes fluid flow by capturing changes in air density. It uses mirrors and a specific light source to show how air bends light. In a Schlieren setup, you can absolutely see the plumes of air coming off a person—including flatulence. But that’s a visual representation of density, not heat.
Practical Realities for Tech Enthusiasts
If you’re thinking about buying a thermal camera to be the life of the party, temper your expectations. These devices are life-saving tools and fascinating toys, but they aren't magic "fart detectors."
When you’re shopping for a camera, you'll see a spec called "NETD" (Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference). The lower this number, the more sensitive the camera is. A professional camera might have an NETD of <30mK (0.03°C). A cheap phone dongle might be closer to 100mK. Even at 30mK, the gas itself is too thin to be captured.
Why do we want to believe it?
It's the "Invisibility Cloak" effect. We love the idea that technology can reveal our hidden shames or secret biological functions. It’s the same reason people believe thermal cameras can see through clothes (they can’t—they just see the heat of your body warming the fabric).
Actionable Takeaways for the Curious
If you want to experiment with thermal imaging or understand the limitations of the tech, keep these points in mind:
- Don't trust viral "thermal" videos: If the gas looks like thick smoke, it's a digital effect. Real thermal footage of gases is much more subtle and requires specialized "Gas Find" filters.
- Focus on "Thermal Mass": Thermal cameras see objects that hold heat. Gas has very little mass and loses heat to the surrounding air almost instantly.
- Check the wavelength: Standard thermal cameras (LWIR) are designed to see solids and liquids. If you want to see gas, you need an MWIR (Mid-Wave Infrared) camera, which is a totally different (and much more expensive) beast.
- Try Schlieren if you’re serious: If you actually want to visualize the movement of air from the human body for a science project or curiosity, look into Schlieren imaging kits. It’s the only way to see the "invisible" flows of air without faking it.
The world of thermography is brilliant, but it's grounded in cold, hard physics. While the internet might keep churning out fake clips of neon-green puffs, you now know the truth. Thermal cameras see the world in a way we can't, but they still can't catch a ghost—or a fart—in the wind.