In A Nutshell
“Chemtrail” is a name given to a stream emanating from aircraft in the air that is believed by many to be a secret chemical spraying program by the government. Although there are many varying reasons as to why we would be sprayed, conspiracy theories are normally confined to three main areas: weather modification, population control, and mass inoculation programs. There is no scientific evidence, however, to support any of these theories.
The Whole Bushel
The scientific community has been studying contrails since as early as 1919 and these trails of condensation are completely normal. These condensation trails occur when a high-powered engine burning jet fuel at a high temperature moves through an area of sky that has low vapor pressure and temperature resulting in a cloud.
As there can be many different air conditions, there can be different types of contrail. Some can stay straight and defined, while others dissipate quickly and form cirrus-like cloud cover.
Studies continue today to find how these man-made clouds impact the environment. It is unknown how contrails will affect the climate over the long term, but it is thought they may modify the balance between sunlight and infrared in the atmosphere and possibly the chemistry of the upper atmosphere.
Theorists claim that several chemical tests revealed that aluminum and barium have been sprayed from the sky. These are now known as the infamous “pond sludge” experiments. In reality, all the tests show is normal levels of the stated chemicals. It was since discovered that the experiments were often very badly performed. Soil and water, or sludge, was tested instead of water and although aluminum and barium were found, they were only present in expected amounts.
Similar phenomena were also recently featured on the SyFy show Joe Rogan Questions Everything. The show featured Mick West, a game programmer, writer, and debunker who currently runs websites including MetaBunk.org and ContrailScience.com. Being the front-running debunker on chemtrails and weoponized weather, West was brought in by Rogan to witness an experiment that was set up to prove that HAARP, a $30 million high-frequency ionosphere research facility in Gakona, Alaska, was creating (or at least had the ability to create) clouds and manipulate the weather.
Brooks Agnew, the scientist conducting the experiment, claimed that HAARP was heating up the vast layers of the ionosphere which West immediately beat down, saying “It would be as effective as throwing a hot rock into a river.” (The ionosphere is, of course, incredibly huge.)
Agnew continued to showcase his phase array experiment said to show the effect of HAARP. A water vapor–filled box with an electrical array inside was turned on, creating a static charge, and the cloud of water vapor began to rise and dissipate with Agnew insisting that “nothing was getting hot at all.” (Heat would naturally cause these effects on a small scale, but HAARP is known to use only radio waves. Therefore, if the experiment could be done without using heat, it could help prove HAARP’s secret function.)
When the experiment was over, Agnew presented the aluminium array to West to ensure there was no heat present in the box and that all the parts were indeed cool to the touch. West was still unconvinced and when he reached inside the box to feel the base plate, which Agnew did not list as a variable, he did find that it was indeed hot. West had clearly discovered that Agnew’s model was, in fact, heating water molecules in order to skew the experiment. Yet this is not how HAARP works.
Although the full level of HAARP’s research is classified, it is known that it uses high-frequency radio techniques to focus a pencil thin wave at the ionosphere, agitating an infinitesimal percentage of it. There is absolutely no heat present at ground level when it is working—further debunking Agnew’s experiment.
As the US Navy and Airforce helped fund HAARP in the early ’90s, it is thought that the array is more likely researching future developments in radio communications.
However, it is worth noting that weather manipulation known as “cloud seeding” is something that is possible and has been done by the American government. The most notable example of this is Operation Popeye—a cloud seeding operation during the Vietnam War designed to extend the monsoon season and flood the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a support and logistics route used in the war.
Clouds were seeded with silver iodide and the trail was turned to mud over 45 days of rainfall making it impassable.