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Is the U.S. military spraying chemical agents at high altitudes?
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Contrail, or military chemtrail?
Three miles above the earth, an ordinary 747 streaks across a perfect blue sky. From any neighborhood park, softball field, or commuter parking lot, the jetliner is nothing more than a black speck—a soundless arrow passing overhead.
In the cockpit, it’s business as usual. Air traffic control radios in. Routine flight operations check. Then, a quick weather update revealing clear skies ahead. From Cleveland to Dallas, it’s smooth sailing for Flight 4753. No storms, no turbulence. Nothing.
The two pilots relax a little, but not entirely.
They know they have a mission.
Other than the two pilots and a couple of engineers, the aircraft is empty. The cabin isn’t filled with hundreds of passengers squirming in their seats. In fact, there are no seats at all. Bulky tanks crowd most of its interior. The cabin looks more like the boiler room of an elementary school—ungainly pipework curls outward from the tanks; it snakes everywhere at once before reaching the rear of the plane.
Flight 4753 doesn’t bear a number on its tailfin. In fact, there are no markings whatsoever. Even the flight number is known only to a few people.
The co-pilot adjusts his sunglasses, waiting for instructions. He knows it’s only a matter of time. Seconds later, the pilot checks his watch.
“Go ahead,” he nods.
The co-pilot reaches forward—trained, by reflex—and turns a knob, not unlike the knob to a backyard propane tank.
The pilot studies the altimeter. He nods approvingly.
It’s working.
Somewhere over Indiana, the 747 begins to trail two fat, circular clouds...
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Contrails, or condensation trails, are not uncommon sights in northwestern Ohio. In fact, they criss-cross the sky most everywhere in the world, most every hour of the day. (In fact, they’re so common that more than a few of my friends have mistaken them for natural cloud patterns.) As it stands, contrails are nothing more than water vapor left behind by jetliners. When hot exhaust cools, it also expands in the air, immediately creating cloud-like trails. The exhaust has literally condensed into ice crystals.
The lifespan of an average contrail lasts anywhere from a few hours to a few minutes.
There are some, however, who believe contrails aren’t nearly as innocent as they appear. In fact, to a growing number of conspiracy theorists, contrails represent something dark and sinister.
xxx
In 1996, the United States Air Force quietly released a paper titled “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather by 2025.” In the paper, the USAF clearly establishes several military goals for weather control and weather modification. Even the paper’s abstract echoes more than a few liberal doses of Michael Crichton:
A high-risk, high-reward endeavor, weather-modification offers a dilemma not unlike the splitting of the atom. While some segments of society will always be reluctant to examine controversial issues such as weather-modification, the tremendous military capabilities that could result from this field are ignored at our own peril. From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary.
The paper’s authors explore a wide range of weather-spurred acts against the enemy: “storm enhancement,” “precipitation denial,” and “cloud removal to deny concealment.” And while the paper sounds may sound like science fiction, much of it is rooted in very real applications of scientific innovation and military might. The Air Force even goes so far as to say: “In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications.”
Over a decade later, the paper continues to fuel a conspiracy that is as controversial as it is enduring. The USAF routinely fights accusations that it is “spraying the U.S. population with mysterious substances” from aircraft “generating unusual contrail patterns.” Believers speculate that the spraying is related to everything from population control to global dimming. Some less fantastic claims involve respiratory illness and flu-like symptoms.
In 1998, eyewitnesses reported rain falling through wide contrails near Ontario, Canada. When samples of water were measured, it was found that there were high concentrations of aluminum – seven times more than the average found in rain around Ontario. Shortly thereafter, residents over a fifty-square-mile area suddenly complained of headaches, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and “feverless flu-like symptoms.”
Even stranger? There were photographs taken of U.S. Air Force tanker planes in the area, shortly before the rain.
What’s the difference between a chemtrail and, say, a normal contrail? Conspiracists argue that chemtrails last much longer, persisting for as long as a half-day before “transforming into cirrus-like clouds.”
Conspiracy theorist William Thomas argues that chemtrails are part of a “massive, covert government operation to delay global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight that is reflected back into space.” Thomas cites evidence that cloud formations at high altitudes have been changing over the past few decades.
Is there any actual truth to these claims?
Denver Weather Examiner Tony Hake says no. With six years’ experience in Naval aviation, Hake should know. “Atmospheric science and aviation science pretty much explain [chemtrails] satisfactorily,” he says. “I don’t think we should give the theory any credence.”
Scientists and federal officials agree with Hake, roundly denying that chemtrails exist. Of conspiracists, NASA atmospheric scientist Patrick Minnis says:
If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy.'”
Most chemtrail theorists rest their beliefs on the long lives of chemtrails when, in fact, it’s perfectly normal for contrails to last several hours. Humidity and temperature control how long contrails last. Also, new contrails are thinner and smaller than older ones, which widen and fan out across the sky.
Still, the idea of chemtrails being used as military weapons or agents against an unwitting public remains a troubling one. Cleveland’s own Dennis Kucinich in 2001 introduced legislation to ban basing weapons in the skies or space. In his legislation, chemtrails were explicitly called as one of many such “exotic weapons” that should be banned.
The bill was criticized by the United States Department of Defense and died in committee.
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