On March 17, 2026, better known by many as St. Patrick's Day, a rumor spread online that the city of San Francisco celebrates the holiday by dyeing human excrement on the city's streets and sidewalks green.
For example, one X post (archived) read, "San Francisco Celebrates St. Patrick's Day By Adding Green Dye To Sidewalk Poop."
Some users seemed to believe the claim and Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
In short, the rumor is fictional. It originated from The Babylon Bee, a website and network of social media pages that describes its content as satirical in nature.
Its X account describes the outlet as, "Fake news you can trust," while the website's about page states the following (archived):
The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
Despite the claim originating from a known satire source, we also checked multiple search engines including Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to search for evidence suggesting the rumor was true, just in case. If it were, local news media outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle would have likely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered that evidence. No such local reporting exists.
Snopes has previously debunked other claims originating from the satire site. For example, in January 2026, we alerted readers to a satirical Babylon Bee story about Minnesota residents protesting the killing of Renee Good by calling for increased pay.
Let us note here: Whether you agree with something being described as satire or parody is a matter of opinion. Snopes is in the business of facts. We label these rumors based on creators' description of them. Your call on whether you agree.