Death from Above: The Chemtrail Theory

Author: The Non-metal Alchemist

Persistent criss-cross contrails occur over highly trafficked areas with high humidity. By Richard Newstead: described by Anne Marie Helmenstine from thoughtco.com https://www.thoughtco.com/anne-marie-helmenstine-ph-d-601916     

The Chemtrail conspiracy theory is an idea which proposes that condensation trails, or “Contrails” for short, which are said to be created by traveling aircrafts from a combination of water vapor and engine exhaust in the sky are, instead, Chemical Trails. These “Chemtrails” as most they are popularly named, are believed to be purposely dropped by military ships themselves for a variety of reasons, most of them being nefarious in nature. While to most people Contrails and Chemtrails may seem identical at a glance, people who subscribe to this theory claim that there are several differences between the two. (however, there are a significant amount of people in this group who believe that Contrails don’t exist. Stating that they are simply a myth the government created in order to explain away the trails.)  Differences that are commonly pointed out include, the “criss-cross” formation that Chemtrails typically appear in, different color hues from regular Contrails, (Thoughtco.“Chemtrails Versus Contrails”) and the duration a perceived Contrail may last. Reasons for the “spraying” of Chemtrails are varied but one commonly agreed upon explanation is that the government is using Chemtrails to control the population and to keep from overpopulating the planet. Other interpretations state that the military is testing chemical weapons, or that Chemtrails can induce some sort of mind control on the public. This theory has also been used to explain the California drought from 2011-2017, (wikipedia.org, “California drought manipulation conspiracy theory”) Dane Wigington, a writer for www.GeoEngineeringwatch.org, explains the motivations for the drought to be economical but doesn’t elaborate as to how this would benefit military pockets. 

According to Wikipedia this theory first started to form “after the United States Air Force (USAF) published a 1996 report about weather modification” and were accused of spraying mysterious substance from the sky. These theories started to gain attention online after postings on different forums relating to the topic and gained more popularity as apart of Art Bell’s radio show.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with FAA, NASA, and NOAA published a response to the rumors in 2000 in which they denied “Chemtrailing” as a whole. This only served to strengthen the conviction of believers in this theory, seeing the response as proof of a government cover-up. (Wikipedia “Chemtrail conspiracy theory”) The USAF later released a fact-sheet in the mid-2000s stressing that “Chemtrails” were a myth in response to a military directive. 

According to a poll from Nature has found that 40% of Americans in some capacity believe in the theory, it was also found that 60% of talk about Geoengineering was related to conspiracies like this one. (http://gwagner.com “Solar Geoengineering and the Chemtrails Conspiracy on Social Media”). Multiple purposed experiments of Geoengineering have also met stiff resistance from the believers, even resulting in threats of violence being emailed to scientist and professor such as David Keith. ( TechnologyReview “How one climate scientist combats threats and misinformation from chemtrail conspiracists.”) Proactive members of this conspiracy have made a considerable impact on politics as well, “influencing the Shasta County Board of Supervisors to voted unanimously in favor of a formal inquiry into chemtrail conspiracy claims”, a move that was mocked by major mainstream outlets feverishly. (wikipedia.org, “California drought manipulation conspiracy theory”)

Works cited:  

Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Chemtrails Versus Contrails." ThoughtCo, Jul. 4, 2019, thoughtco.com/chemtrails-versus-contrails-3976090.

Keith, David, “Chemtrails Conspiracy theory.” The Keith Group, Apr 11, 2014, https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/chemtrails-conspiracy-theory.     

Newstead, Richard, “Getting Away”, Photograph, Getty Images, Sep 04, 2015

“Chemtrail conspiracy theory", Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 05:29, 14 March 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

“California drought manipulation conspiracy theory ", Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 08:22, 29 August 2016‎  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_drought_manipulation_conspiracy_theory

Temple, James, “How one climate scientist combats threats and misinformation from chemtrail conspiracists.” TechnologyReview, Jul 26, 2018. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611682/how-one-climate-scientist-combats-threats-and-misinformation-from-chemtrail-conspiracists/.

Wagner, Gernot, “Solar Geoengineering and the Chemtrails Conspiracy on Social Media” gwagner.com, October 31st, 2017, http://gwagner.com/solar-geoengineering-and-the-chemtrails-conspiracy-on-social-media/

Links for further research: 

Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory
https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/chemtrails-conspiracy-theory 
This article explains the “Chemtrail” theory, it’s standard definition and common explanations as to why this act is carried out, such as Mind Control, Sterilization, and population control, among other reasons.

Chemtrail conspiracy theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
Wikipedia article describing general information of “Chemtrails”, going over the history, a timeline of related events, as well as influencers that popularized the theory. 

Chemtrails Versus Contrails
https://www.thoughtco.com/chemtrails-versus-contrails-3976090
An article that details the “differences” between Contrails and Chemtails. 

Aircraft Contrails Factsheet
https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/envir_policy/media/contrails.pdf 
A fact-sheet released by EPA in 2000 describing contrails