Chemtrails: Real or Not?
What you always thought were simply contrails are really dangerous chemicals being sprayed.
Filed under Conspiracies, Environment, Urban Legends
| Skeptoid #27 February 15, 2007 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
Episode 27, February 15, 2007
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4027
Today we're going to put on our Men In Black suits, buy a plane ticket, and spray the world with mysterious chemicals as part of an evil government conspiracy. For today's subject is chemtrails.
Wow. Where to begin. I read a fair amount of skeptical, paranormal, and conspiracy web sites, but I don't recall ever reading so much vituperation, anger, and name calling as when I read a few forums discussing chemtrails. If you're not familiar with the term, chemtrails are what some conspiracy theorists call aircraft condensation trails. Most of them don't believe that conventional contrails exist, and that when you see one, you're actually seeing a trail of mysterious airborne chemicals sprayed from the aircraft. Those who do concede the existence of contrails often claim subtle differences in appearance or behavior between a condensation trail and a chemical trail.
First, let's discuss exactly what a contrail is. A condensation trail, also called a vapor trail, forms at altitudes above 25,000 feet in temperatures below -40 degrees when engine exhaust condenses into ice crystals, creating an artificial cirrus cloud. Water is produced by hydrocarbon burning engines in about the same quantity as fuel consumed, and in the right conditions, this extra addition of water into the air pushes the water vapor past the saturation point, and condensation occurs. It takes a moment to happen, which accounts for the contrail appearing a short distance behind the aircraft, rather than immediately, like you'd see from a smoke pod on an aerobatic plane, or like when a crop duster releases chemicals. Contrails can also be caused at high altitudes by the extreme low pressure areas created by wingtip vortices, which reduce the temperature enough to condense the existing moisture in the air. As previously mentioned, many chemtrail believers claim that there is no such thing as a condensation trail. Since they're well understood, 100% reproducible, and observable practically any time you look into the sky, the onus is really on the believers to prove that no such thing is possible. In my opinion they have quite an uphill battle on this one.
By the way, in case you're wondering whether I meant Celsius or Fahrenheit when I said -40 degrees, here's a bit of science trivia for you. -40 is the point where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are the same. If you can figure out where Fahrenheit and Kelvins intersect, go to Skeptoid.com and post it in the forum.
Some chemtrail believers say that the population is being gassed with some unknown chemical for an unknown reason. Others tie into pop culture, suggesting that chemtrails are the active manifestation of one proposal to combat global warming by placing dust into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight. One guy told me "You guys are so full of yourselves just can't conceive of spiritual warfare can you? Try this fact: malevolent interdimensional entities are involved — project keep the human slave race suppressed."
Like all conspiracy theories, chemtrails require us to accept the existence of a coverup of mammoth proportions. In this case, virtually every aircraft maintenance worker at every airport in the world needs to be either part of the conspiracy, or living under a threat from Men in Black, with not a single whistle blower or deathbed confession in decades. Yet the threats are not frightening enough to prevent stories like the following from appearing on the Internet:
For reasons you will understand as you read this I can not divulge my identity. I am an aircraft mechanic for a major airline. I work at one of our maintenance bases located at a large airport. One day last month I was called out from our base to work on a plane for another airline. When I got to the plane I found out that the problem was in waste disposal system. When I got into the bay I realized that something was not right. There were more tanks, pumps, and pipes then should have been there. As I tried to find the problem I quickly realized the extra piping and tanks were not connected to the waste disposal system, at all. To my amazement the manuals did not show any of the extra equipment I had seen with my own eyes. I even tied in to the manufacturer files and still found nothing. I could trace the control wires from the box to the pumps and valves but there were no control circuits coming into the unit. The only wires coming into the unit was a power connection to the aircraft's main power bus. The system had 1 large tank and 2 smaller tanks. It was hard to tell in the cramped compartment, but it looked like the large tank could hold about 50 gallons. The tanks were connected to a fill and drain valve that passed through the fuselage just behind the drain valve for the waste system. I discovered that the pipes from this mystery system lead to every 1 out of 3 of the static discharge wicks. These wicks had been "hollowed out" to allow whatever flows through these pipes to be discharged through the fake wicks.
About 30 minutes later I was paged to see the General Manager. When I went in his office I found that our union rep and two others who I did not know were waiting on me. He told me that a serious problem had been discovered. He said that I was being written up and suspended for turning in false paperwork. I sat at home the first day of my suspension wondering what the hell had happened to me. That evening I received a phone call. The voice told me "Now you know what happens to mechanics who poke around in things they shouldn't. The next time you start working on systems that are no concern of yours you will lose your job! As it is, I'm feeling generous, I believe that you'll be able to go back to work soon." CLICK. Well that's it. Now I know 'THEY' are watching me.
Another forum poster replied:
I, too, work for an airline, though I work in upper management levels. I wish I could document everything I am about to relate to you, but to do so is next to impossible and would result in possible physical harm to me. Airline companies in America have been participating in something called Project Cloverleaf for a few years now. The earliest date anyone remembers being briefed on it is 1998. I was briefed on it in 1999. The few airline employees who were briefed on Project Cloverleaf were all made to undergo background checks, and before we were briefed on it we were made to sign non-disclosure agreements, which basically state that if we tell anyone what we know we could be imprisoned. About twenty employees in our office were briefed along with me by two officials from some government agency. They didn't tell us which one. They told us that the government was going to pay our airline, along with others, to release special chemicals from commercial aircraft. When asked what the chemicals were and why we were going to spray them, they told us that information was given on a need-to-know basis and we weren't cleared for it. He seemed perturbed at this question and told us in a tone of authority that the public doesn't need to know what's going on, but that this program is in their best interests. He also stated that we should not tell anyone, nor ask any more questions about it.
I take back my comment about the lack of whistle blowers. It seems that just about everyone is discussing it freely, and since the government is openly laying out virtually all the essential details to 20 people in every airline office in the world with complicity from all the union reps, why the secrecy? If we're truly on the edge of a global warming catastrophe and a worldwide cooperative effort to spray reflective dust into the atmosphere is the only way we can save ourselves, wouldn't a little glasnost be a more effective approach? Of course it would, but then we wouldn't have had those two very exciting and original stories.
If the goal was to drug a population, you'd put the gas where it could reach people, you wouldn't release a minute quantity into the jet stream where it's going to be diluted to undetectable levels and eventually rain into the oceans. If the goal is to put reflective dust into the atmosphere to fight global warming, you'd need to plant it a lot higher than commercial jets can travel if you don't want it to rain right back to earth (in fact you need to put it well up into the stratosphere, not just at the top of the troposphere), and you'd need a lot more than can ever be delivered with 50 gallon tanks. But then, the arguments in favor of chemtrails don't appear to be based on any kind of logic. They appear to be based on nothing more than imagined conspiracies and sightings of visible contrails, which are well understood, and are being left by planes every hour of the day over every city in the world, and have been for over 50 years. It's how the malevolent interdimensional entities remind us of their ominous presence.
© 2007 Skeptoid Media, Inc.
References & Further Reading
Anonymous. "An Airline Manager's Statement." Aerosol Crimes & Cover Up. C.E. Carnicom, 22 May 2000. Web. 11 Nov. 2009. <http://www.carnicom.com/mgr1.htm>
Anonymous. "A Mechanics Statement." Aerosol Crimes & Cover Up. C.E. Carnicom, 19 May 2000. Web. 11 Nov. 2009. <http://www.carnicom.com/mech1.htm>
Bruce Conway. "The Chemtrail Smoking Gun - Proof of Global Geoengineering Projects." Lightwatcher. Illumina Publishing, 20 Jun. 2003. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. <http://www.lightwatcher.com/chemtrails/smoking_gun.html>
Hope, Ray. America Sold Out. Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2003. 145-152.
Ludlum, David M. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1991. 24-26.
U.S. Air Force. "Contrails Facts." Official website of the U.S. Airforce. U.S. Air Force, 13 Oct. 2005. Web. 5 Nov. 2009. <http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-051013-001.pdf>
United States Environmental Protetion Agency. "Aircraft Contrails Factsheet (EPA430-F-00-005)." United States Environmental Protetion Agency. 1 Sep. 2000, EPA430-F-00-005.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"Chemtrails: Real or Not?" Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
15 Feb 2007. Web.
16 May 2012. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4027>
Discuss!
10 most recent comments | Show all 89 comments
Chris - you sprayed herbicide in a war. No comparison. Your dismissal is 'rediculous'[sic]
Even without research the basic premise of a worldwide conspiracy doesn't stand up. We can't even cooperate to agree on fishing quotas, or action on Syria, or oil production quotas, or land rights, or how to pronounce 'tomato' and yet we can maintain a secret conspiracy like the one you imagine, across the whole globe. Get a grip.
Martin Byrne, Dublin, Ireland
March 03, 2012 4:59pm
I've been an amateur astronomer for 27 years. I've spent countless hours under the night sky. I watch weather conditions during the day in order to get the feel of what the night sky will be like. In 1996, after 11 years of astronomy, I started noticing these very odd contrails in the sky. Large X's that didn’t go away. Grids that resembled tic tac toe lines. They were so unusual that I would call my husband and children out to see them. We didn't have a computer then but when we did go on line in 2000 I saw some pictures of what were called chemtrails; they resembled what I had been seeing for years. When my daughter caught the bus to school in the morning to the east we would see planes taking off and their contrails lit up by the rising sun. I have 11 x 80 binoculars and I would watch the jets in the morning. Several times, however, I saw planes leaving very thick trails across the sky and I looked at the planes through my binoculars...they were black planes and looked nothing at all like the commercial jets. They would leave thick contrails behind them that would fan out and cover the sky. What kind of planes were they and what were they doing? I have no idea. But I've noticed these X's and grids across the sky more frequently in the past 16 years, and they seem to be followed by a drastic change in our weather. So I don't know what to think. But they certainly are peculiar and they don't evaporate like regular contrails do at all. I never saw them before 1996.
Julie, Youngstown, Ohio
March 08, 2012 6:45pm
People wake up and look at what is being hidden in plain sight. Duh! The world is a dualistic place just as there is good! there is evil! And an evil agenda, and Money is the root of all evil, not just the love of money. Money rules the world and the ruthless elite people who have all the money are just selfish and Evil power mongers who needs to live their own lives and start treating people the way they would want to be treated. To those of you who don't believe in the chem-trails you are very naive, not to think that the agenda in the new world order isn't to reduce the world population to 1/2 billion people. We are already over 6 billion strong and growing now, so what do you think they won't do to get rid of 5 and 1/2 billion people? Don't discredit the conspiracy theorist, we are the only people outside of the elite, that can see clearly! Maybe the chemical are meant to make the people passive while the rugs are being pull out from under us!
Chicken Little, Las Vegas
March 29, 2012 2:35pm
Wow the whackjobs are out in force on this topic. Anyway, great job on this subject Brian.
Robert Clary, Tillsonburg Ontario Canada
April 13, 2012 1:05pm
LOL...the Logical Fallacy is flowing fast and thick on this one! Brilliant as usual.....I've used this page as a one-link rebuttal several times already...
Vincent Najger, Cairns Australia
April 17, 2012 3:42pm
Brian, you refer to con trails in the jetstream. I agree, condensation trails are quite clearly very high, whereas these non-condensation trails are significantly lower.
Majelka, New Zealand
April 17, 2012 5:31pm
"As previously mentioned, many chemtrail believers claim that there is no such thing as a condensation trail. Since they're well understood, 100% reproducible, and observable practically any time you look into the sky, the onus is really on the believers to prove that no such thing is possible"
Yeah, dude! By now, they really are observable any time you look in the sky, allright (but haven't been 10-20 years ago). But lately, contrails are so "normal" that you don't even have to look at the sky anymore, because they appear in fictional reality as well, in the Disney's latest logo and in animated movies from Dreamworks! Contrails just HAD TO BE IN THERE, because they are SO NATURAL AND WELL UNDERSTOOD, that no child should grow up without being familiar with their appearance and their presence in the skies!!
Readers and skeptics, check for these in your own movie copies, and explain these to me:
"Contrails" in the Cars animated movie (stylized as tire tracks)
http://globalskywatch.com/chemtrails/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=50
"Contrails" in the Disney logo!!
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/198/chemtrailsdisney.jpg/
"Contrails" in the Kung-Fu Panda 2 animated movie, from Dreamworks:
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/6874/chemtrailskungfupanda21.jpg
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/6874/chemtrailskungfupanda22.jpg
I predict that very soon we're gonna see contrails on clothing and food items, because they are EVERYWHERE, VERY NATURAL AND WELL UNDERSTOOD!
Octavian Popil, Romania
April 18, 2012 12:04am
The amount of secrecy, deception, and corruption in our society today is disheartening. It is difficult to tell the truth from maniac conspiracy fodder.
The Illuminati and Freemasons exist no doubt, but to what capacity and for what purpose? Who knows.
I have just discovered this web site and look forward to reading more articles from this man.
Norvus, Columbia, Missouri
April 29, 2012 8:57pm
I'm sorry Brian but I think you need to take another look at what's going on in the sky.
I certainly am not advocating any conspiracy theory at this point,( nor am I discounting any ), but like Julie, I started seeing them around 1996, and I've held some trails under observation for over an hour, on occasion.
We have had jet aircraft flying overhead for at least 50 years now, but it's only in the last 15-16 years that these strange trails have been around. I dont think there were any major changes to jet-fuel back in 1996 that may have started to create these long-lasting "contrails" that I have observed gradually spreading out and discolouring the sky, far more than what one would expect from water condensation, which I have also observed. Parallel lines that start and finish evenly over a certain area are another sign that some sort of deliberate spraying is going on. That is apart from patchwork patterns that criss-cross the sky. It is entirely possible that both contrails and chemtrails are being observed.
My belief is that many of us are so saturated with conspiracy theories that we have become prone to dismissing anything out of the ordinary, but I respectfully urge you in the interests of true knowledge to simply go and observe without any bias, discarding any "Men In Black" references, and start from the ground up, so to speak, in true investigative fashion.
Macky, Auckland
May 14, 2012 12:20am
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For all purposees, maybe people should go look up even declassified documents on the C.I.A website, in vietnam we sprayed them as well, and we knew that by spraying the certain area, we could flood them from the mountains sides, from where they had bunkers, the government lies, this website is rediculous!
Chris, Oregon
February 28, 2012 12:56pm