Chemtrails or Contrails – Is there any evidence at all ?

(c) Copyright 2016-2017 David Dilworth

Do “Chem-trails” (aircraft Chemical–contrails) exist ?

Are hundreds of pilots secretly and deliberately spraying megatons of toxics from hundreds of high-altitude airplanes on American citizens across the United States, in a daily, massive, ongoing multi-decade pollution campaign ?

Short version: No.

And Who am I? There’s probably no one with more meaningful credentials than I to STOP chemicals getting sprayed on the public.

Why? I literally LED an epic battle of hundreds of Northern California concerned citizens who STOPPED REAL CHEMICAL SPRAYING on California cities and residents by airplanes in 2007-2008.

And We WON ! We stopped the insane spraying.

Since then, I’ve investigated “Chem0Trails” DEEPLY, TWICE ! !

and found ZERO EVIDENCE both times ! !

So you can stop wasting your time and worry – about Chem-trails.

Long Version – Full Article

Credibility:
First: Do I have adequate credibility to analyze the alleged “Chem-trails” from both sides of the Clean Air vs Scientific Scrutiny dispute?

Well, on the “Clean air” side I once led a (conceptually) very closely related campaign — the successful battle to stop the 2008 aerial spraying of (secret and untested) pesticides from airplanes on California cities for the Light Brown Apple Moth.

I conceived of, researched and created the successful lawsuit that stopped the very real aerial spraying of pesticides on the cities of our Monterey Peninsula and Santa Cruz by a rogue California government agency. This included creating the litigation strategy and hiring the law firm to argue it. I also led organizing in every other area of the successful campaign.

I’m also fairly well versed in the relevant scientific research of environmental impacts including: meteorology, fluid dynamics and flight. I have advocated for clean air at National, State and regional levels while serving as an official on Sierra Club’s National & California Clean Air Committees.  Due in part to the LBAM campaign, I understand the many relevant sciences and politics related to aerial spraying of toxics more than well enough to be able to teach a college class on it.

So if anyone could be persuaded that secret toxic spraying of “Chem-trails” exists, shouldn’t I be on the really, really short list ?

On the other side of the debate, the Scientific Scrutiny side, I was responsible for evaluating the evidence and related scientific studies for the LBAM lawsuit.  What’s considerably harder, to win the lawsuit, I had to apply the science to the law – which is hard for many lawyers and nearly impossible for scientists.

In spite of attacks on our science evidence and rationale in that campaign (almost exclusively by those with financial conflicts of interest), two different courts solidly upheld our arguments and stopped the pesticide spraying. We won and stopped the spraying.

(I’ve also served for a decade as a Head Judge for the Monterey County Science Fair, and personally conducted hundreds (depending on your definition, tens of thousands) of commercial and fun experiments.)

I really do get how “experts” can irrationally fight against public interests, and support toxic spraying (actually the pro-spraying scientists all had a financial interest), during our non-profit’s 15 month, $70,000 LBAM campaign my credibility was attacked personally, publicly, repeatedly and bitterly by financially conflicted scientists of the California Department of Agriculture.

I was also attacked by hostile, irrational media (not to mention any names, like the Monterey Herald’s Royal Calkins and Carmel Pine Cone’s Paul Miller) — who despite strong (essentially overwhelming) evidence to the contrary, selectively believed the California government’s false science and legal claims. They both rejected the US-EPA’s conclusions and the Court decisions.

Winning the Court cases vindicated the science, our logic, the law and my efforts to put them together (best of all was the great party to celebrate where I gave  out some 40 awards to the most effective activists).

Research:

To prepare for this article I read extensively about “Chem-Trails.” This included many (certainly not all) but probably most of the most popular arguments, websites, books, and articles arguing that “Chem-Trails” exist, as well as hundreds of pages of technical research and policy documents they used to allegedly support their claims. Additionally, some 8-10 years ago I researched the same claims and spoke with a number of  “Chem-Trails” advocates.

Concern: Chemical Trails from Airplanes?

More than a few kind and thoughtful friends are concerned that government or industry is secretly spraying dangerous chemicals on the American public from high flying jet airplanes essentially everywhere, nearly daily, for more more the past decade. Allegedly you can see them “every day” from almost anywhere in the United States !

To see if there is anything here besides unfounded worry; to get a scientific handle on this, lets start with definitions

What is the Definition of “Chemtrails” ?

Answer: There is none. Period !

There simply is no clear, testable, and verifiable definition for “Chemtrails – scientific or otherwise.” 

There are only vague allegations that some unnamed government or industry has a massive program to spray mega-tons of some chemical or biological materials on the public and has been doing it “every day” for more than a decade and seemingly everywhere. Further, some individuals claim that metal powders Aluminum (dioxide?) and Barium (salts)  are the main materials sprayed.

Unfortunately, basic questions are never clearly answered:

Where’s the evidence? ? ?

and When were “Chem-trails” first (actually – ever) discovered? What evidence did the discoverer observe to decide sky-trails they were not normal contrails from jet aircraft ?

Indeed, and directly on point — how does anyone claiming they see “Chem-trails” — clearly determine they are not normal contrails from jet aircraft ?

What evidence is there ?

Some people I’ve spoken with firmly and  (demonstrably wrongly) believe every trail in the sky are Chem-trails.

Without a clear definition of Chemtrails, how can we even discuss it?

On the other side of the debate, the science  side, there is a clear definition of standard jet-Contrails and they have been studied extensively. Though apparently those research papers are not read, studied or understood by many, if any Chemtrails advocates. Nor could any Chemtrails advocates furnish the answers and definitions I ask for in this article.

Normal Contrails (“condensation trails“) are thin, long clouds of condensation caused by flying aircraft and left behind them.

Contrails are caused by TWO phenomena (weirdly many scientific articles miss one or the other):

1) by Vortexes from wingtips (see the image at the top of this article), or

2) the slightly different mechanism of Condensation of jet aircraft Exhaust in very cold, wet atmosphere. These aircraft created clouds can be water vapor or ice. Contrails may “persist for hours (or days) and spread to be several miles wide, eventually resembling natural cirrus or altocumulus clouds.”

Just like clouds are not perfectly continuous and uniform, Contrails may also disappear and re-appear in localized spots where the air is not quite wet enough or cold enough, resembling a dotted-line, or a line drawn by a pen running out of ink. Contrails are documented in photographs as long ago as the 1940s.

Contrails are very sensitive to temperature and humidity (how wet the air is); meaning they can disappear or reappear with small changes in distance or altitude; sometimes just in a few feet.

Next, lets review some relevant, undisputed facts –

1. Undisputed Fact: Jet Planes (everyday commercial jet aircraft) spew millions of pounds of toxics every day. Every instant their engines are running their engines emit toxic air polllution. And there are some 37 million commercial jet flights per year (as of 2016). Roughly a million people are flying above the ground at any given moment.

Every day, while aloft, normal Jet airplanes normally leave tons of harmful and toxic pollution in their wakes. This toxic pollution is not regulated or limited by any government!

It includes Sulfur Dioxide, Lead, unburnt hydrocarbons and Nitrogen Oxides. Its not intentional pollution, its just reckless corporate greed monsters.

(The “most commonly used aviation gasoline”, “100LL” still contains tetraethyl-lead – which due to its high toxicity is prohibited in ground vehicles. Lead is #2 at the top of ATSDR’s list of most toxic materials in 2015. It took at least 35 years to outlaw tetraethyl-lead  from gasoline car fuels; 35 years after it was known to be deadly.)

2. Undisputed Fact: The US government has conducted some outrageous secret medical experimentation on its own citizens.

U.S. government agencies and industry has  conducted non-consensual, harmful, and unethical Aerial Spraying of US Citizens with Secret Bacteria (Operation Sea-Spray, San Francisco 1963) and Pesticides (LBAM, Monterey and Santa Cruz, 2008).

(The US government also has an outrageous history of conducting non-consensual, Unethical and sometimes deadly, human Medical experimentation including: “the deliberate infection of people with deadly or debilitating diseases,

• exposure of people to biological and chemical weapons,
• human radiation experiments on mentally disabled children,
• injection of people with toxic and radioactive chemicals,
• surgical experiments,
• interrogation and torture experiments, tests involving mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of others.”)

3. Undisputed Fact: US Government has a long and sordid history of covering up big, consequential crimes such as: Watergate, Attempted Assassination of Fidel Castro,  Ronald Regan’s Iran-Contra, and the CIA (erased tapes) Torture Report (2014). Not to mention how the US government wouldn’t even admit the existence of the dangerous spy agency called NSA, or its illegal surveillance of american citizens, until it was unveiled by a 1975 Senate investigation.

4. Undisputed Fact: Geo-engineering (except for many localized worthless Cloud Seeding) is only at the proposal stage.

There are real PROPOSALS to fund GeoEngineering (in this context is also known as Climate Engineering) projects, and some of its scientists and engineers clearly don’t care in the least about any harm to humans.

However, they are ONLY PROPOSALS !

There are no known funded GeoEngineering projects. None !

More specifically – There are no known GeoEngineering projects intentionally spraying chemicals or metals (toxic or not) in the atmosphere  from aircraft. What is sprayed is known negligent toxic polluting.

The two exceptions are the painfully useless practice of “Cloud-Seeding“(1) and a few ocean seeding experiments spreading huge amounts of rust (iron oxide) from boats.

5. Undisputed Fact: Cloud Seeding is real, and there is no dispute that governments really do spray toxic chemicals (silver iodide) and “dry ice” (not toxic) from airplanes. What is dramatically different from the alleged “Chem-trails” is how excruciatingly tiny amounts of Cloud seeding is actually done – (hundreds of pounds vs “Chem-Trails” alleged unlimited megatons). This is primarily due to huge costs of flying and essentially no detectable effect. In addition, Cloud seeding is done at low levels, (a few thousand feet) and never by commercial size jets at 30,000 feet or higher.

Because it is so expensive, and so extraordinarily ineffective(1) there are extremely few examples of Cloud seeding. Evidence of successful cloud seeding is even rarer. In sharp contrast, “Chem-trails” are alleged to be occurring daily, nearly everywhere. Further, cloud seeding is rarely, if ever, conducted on days with clear skies – because it needs clouds to seed. This means you would almost never see Cloud Seeding from the ground.

6. Undisputed Fact: Spray Drifts hundreds of miles when released at Jet aircraft heights

Even in the faintest breeze, sprayed liquids or particulates will drift many, many miles when dropped from only 1,000 feet. When sprayed from typical jet cruising altitudes of 35,000 feet, most dust, or powder or mist would probably drift hundreds of miles away, possibly thousands of miles away !

Next, some not necessarily agreed to, but unavoidably necessary implications of the “Chem-trails” conjecture:

To spray all across the United States, full-time, over decades —

• Toxics: Mega-tons of material must be purchased and transported to the planes. This would create hundreds of records of purchases and transit.

• Aircraft: Dozens to hundreds to thousands of aircraft must be used for thousands to millions of hours of flight time. This would create thousands of documents including Flight & Strategy plans.

• Crowds: Hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of people must be paid to do all this – and keep it secret. Not impossible, but difficult. Thousands of NSA staff kept their massive, outrageously invasive surveillance of Americans a secret for more than a decade – until Edward Snowden.

On the other hand, don’t forget the genuine outrageous secret never revealed by hundreds of FBI staff, of the widespread violations to our Constitutional Rights ordered by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It was called COINTELPRO, and remained a deadly secret until some amazingly brave citizens literally burgled an FBI office to steal documents exposing this outrageous program.

Myths and Fallacies: Frequent allegations —

* Myth: Sky Trails are a new phenomena; in the past decade or so.

Truth: Simply wrong. Normal contrails from aircraft have been described in books for at least 70 years. There are photographs from World War II era.

* Myth: Normal Jet Contrails only last minutes, but Chemtrails last for hours.

Truth: This first part is Flat wrong – normal jet Contrails can easily last for hours, sometimes days. Any introductory article on Contrails will confirm this.

The second part  (“Chemtrails last for hours”) is an untestable claim because 1) there is no clear “Chem-trails” definition, and 2) ZERO documented evidence. 

* Myth: Photographs of Aircraft “Chem-Trail Spraying” Equipment

The alleged photographs of spray tanks “. . . turned out to be pictures of ballast tanks used to flight test weight distribution changes in new airliner designs; the tubes simply allow water to be pumped from tank to tank, simulating passenger motion in the cabin for the aircraft test.” (Again Thanks to Dave Thomas, Skeptical Briefs, 2008)

* Myth: Gaps in sky trails, can supposedly only be caused by turning sprayers on and off.

“Simply explained as normal humidity variations in the atmosphere. The sky often displays varying levels of humidity with spotty clouds, and the same conditions apply to the clouds condensing from jet trails.”  (Thanks to Dave Thomas, Skeptical Briefs Volume 18.3, September 2008)

* Myth: Crosshatch jet trails in skies must be toxic, somehow not normal contrails.

Truth: Crosshatch jet trails are totally normal contrail behavior from jets crossing paths at close altitudes in standard aircraft flight lanes. Roughly, all airplanes travel East or West at different altitudes from those going North or South.

The rhyme is something like “West-bound is ‘even’, East-bound is ‘odd.’ ” – meaning even or odd thousands of feet in altitude (like 32,000 vs 33,000).

* Misleading: Lots of people are concerned and talking about it.

Lots of people get excited and talk about ghosts too. That is not evidence that ghosts are real.  This is only a Logical fallacy – not evidence.  But if you want to believe in either – of course that is your privilege.

* Misleading: “Mountain of chemicals from sky.”

As described above, Standard Jet aircraft “normally” eject major air pollution, including the highly toxic metal Lead, but even after reading dozens of “chem-trails” websites and books and their best efforts, I found Zero evidence of additional secret pollution such as aluminum or barium spread from planes.

* Misleading: Skies are not blue any more.

Totally subjective claim with no documented evidence; at least none related to this claim or “chem-trails.”

While skies may indeed be less clear due to general global air pollution, including that from jet aircraft, documenting this would require measuring across decades, then somehow correlating changes related to the undefined, undocumented flights of known Chemtrail spraying airplanes. Since there is no documentation of any Chemtrail flights, period, it is not possible to correlate anything.

For Chemtrails to exist – Both of the following must be true —

* Either government or industry would have to PAY for the megatons of toxic chemicals / materials. That would be at least tens to hundreds of millions of dollars – a year. That amount of money is hard to hide for decades.

* Either government or industry would have to fly those airplanes. They would be spraying or releasing those toxic chemicals on our cities and citizens.

Which prompts these 12 questions:

Question 1: If there is a secret “Chem-Trails” project, why would they allow VISIBLE spraying in an decades long, widespread manner ? Wouldn’t “they” take pains to make it invisible – like by flying at night ?

Question 2: If “Chem-trails” actually looked different from normal contrails, isn’t that another big reason to make them invisible ? Especially after all the publicity the conjecture gets ?

Question 3: Since particles or droplets sprayed by aircraft at 35,000 feet would drift hundreds to thousands of miles before reaching the ground, why would you be worried about seeing aircraft spraying at 35,000 feet above you? 

Question 3 b.– Shouldn’t you instead be worried if any spraying is occurring hundreds to thousands of miles upwind of California – way out over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, South of the Aleutian Islands ?

Question 4: Why would hundreds of pilots and crew spray toxics on their own country and cities, along with their families and children ?

Question 5: Why are there Zero documents on Wikileaks describing any specific Chem-trails program ? (and No, Cloud Seeding, aka “Precipitation Modification” doesn’t count.)

Question 6:  Why have no Whistleblowers shown up with documents describing such a project ? (The one purported whistleblower had no documents or photographs. She could only describe undocumented materials – that she never saw, (she assumed they were chemicals) in an undisclosed building. And absolutely nothing even hinting the materials were to be sprayed from aircraft.)

Question 7: Who would pay millions, tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for such an experiment ?

(Since the idea of “Chem-trails” has no precedent, it is inherently an experiment.)

Question 8: Why would “chem-trails” spread out any differently than normal jet-contrails ? Aren’t the air disturbing wakes of jets darn similar ?

Question 9: Why would “chem-trails” last a different amount of time from normal contrails ?

Question 10: How common is Aluminum in ground water ?

Aluminum Oxide (A2O3) is the third most abundant element in the Earth surface; after oxygen and silica. It is rare to find soils without any trace of aluminum. So any soil, snow or water samples showing Aluminum is reasonably normal.

Question 11: How common is Ethylene dibromide ?

Ethylene dibromide has been used in Leaded Gas since World War 2. Because Lead is banned in automobiles, the only remaining use is in Aircraft fuel.

Question 12: How common is Barium in ground water ?

Barium is a common natural water pollutant, particularly near Volcanoes (as in the volcanic Mt Shasta, one place some advocates claim it is found in abnormally high amounts).

Conclusions:

Given the innumerable outrageous acts by the US government and industry and unethical American medical researchers that harmed American citizens, along with the arrogant proposals for GeoEngineering,  it is easy to understand why someone would believe in Chemtrails – without any physical evidence.

However, with a project that necessarily involves decades, ten of millions to billions of dollars, hundreds of jet aircraft, pilots, maintenance crew and mountains of paperwork, why is there still zero evidence ?

Zero Evidence !

In spite of all that suspicious but circumstantial evidence —

• • The problems with “Chem-trails” claims in 2016 are the same as I found 8-10 years ago — while some arguments are different and cleaner, there is still Zero documented evidence that “Chem-Trails” have occurred.

Zero !

There is still zero evidence of any aircraft spraying of aluminum or barium above ground levels.

Zero program documents,

Zero Flight Plans,

Zero funding documents or budget line items,

Zero videos,

Zero witnesses with documents, 

ZERO EVIDENCE at all — that  “Chem-trails” are anything other than everyday “normal” contrails from jets. 

None, zero, zip, nada. Nothing. Not one document.

All, not most, ALL so-called “evidence” provided by “Chem-trails” advocates is either purely circumstantial or mistaken, and all of it has huge, HUGE, evidence gaps if one tries to “connect the dots”- because the dots just do not connect.

Circumstantial (no matter how seemingly powerful), unlinked bits of ambiguous evidence and arm-waving do not substitute for simple, clear evidence and a rational explanation.

What’s worse, in this case the circumstantial “evidence” is painfully weak.

How would you like to be convicted of a crime based on purely circumstantial evidence ? Suppose you were nearby at the same time a bank was robbed – and your car is the same color as the getaway car ! 

To put my view of the so-called “evidence” by advocates in context — let me compare it to when I had the honor and pleasure of serving as Head Judge for a County Science Fair for a decade. 

In my opinion, some 95+ percent of the children‘s Science Fair projects provided a better grasp of what constitutes evidence than the best of all “Chem-Trails” spokespeople put together.

Evidence Gap: 

There is no documented evidence linking any aircraft at high altitudes — with any chemicals found on the ground. (Other than the “normal” tons of toxics, including lead, ejected from jet engines and Cloud Seeding.). Zero Evidence !

Burden of Proof:

Chemtrails “advocates” (I’m assuming they would prefer to be wrong about the existence of Chem-trails) have not yet met the bare minimum of providing any rational evidence: 

This means, as of 2016, because there is no evidence, the Burden of Proof is still on those claiming “Chem-trails” exist. So, until some actual Physical  evidence shows up, there is no need for skeptics to refute anything.

Violently Expensive with no Rational Beneficiary:

Almost as problematic — it doesn’t even come close to making any financial sense for anyone (government or industry) to conduct such a widespread, decades long, violently expensive experiment.

(OK, the CIA does have a huge Black Budget, does do immensely stupid and lethal things, and have hidden their deadly deeds with lies for decades . . . My one hope is that their rapidly increasing incompetence continues to exceed their evil.)

Any of the following would be useful evidence from Chem-trails advocates: 

Where is it occurring (specifically): Latitude and Longitude and Altitude at a specific date and time; compass direction would be better. That way a specific flight and plane and pilots can be tracked down.

Who is doing the spraying?

Who is flying the planes?

Which flight numbers ? Which aircraft numbers ? What kind of aircraft? What altitudes ?

Which Airports? 

How are the alleged Chem-trails different from normal jet contrails?

Documents showing mega-tons of toxics were purchased or delivered. 

Government budgets showing expenditures or approvals for such a project.

Studies of aircraft spraying, describing where the spray landed and was measured.

But none of this is provided. None.

Summary:

The US does have a hideous government-industry alliance that truly does collude to do horrible things to our civilization’s health, BUT . . . There Are No Chemtrails.

That is, there is Zero Evidence of Chemtrails as they are vaguely and ambiguously defined by advocates.

There is a Gigantic Difference between Zero evidence and Some evidence.

Unfortunately, there is Zero direct evidence of “Chem-trails.” Period. 

No evidence linking any chemicals on the ground with aircraft spraying.

Because there is no evidence, the “Burden of Proof” remains on “Chem-trails” claimants until evidence arrives.

There are no videos showing an aircraft spraying any alleged “Chemtrails.”

*** Zero evidence means that claiming “Chem-trails” exist – is a completely, totally, wholly unproven, worthless, empty conjecture !

*** What is clearly going on here in nearly every case is “Chemtrails” advocates are seeing normal jet contrails and calling them “Chem-trails.”

Nearly every  “Chem-trails expert” I’ve been able to ask questions has nearly ZERO familiarity with, or understanding of, normal jet contrails !?!

When  you don’t understand the common, everyday physics that you are confusing with exotic phenomena, why should anyone care what you think ?

________________

Now, does this mean “Chem-trails” are not occurring?

Oddly, No. Just like the complete and absolute lack of evidence for Unicorns – does not prove there are no Unicorns.

In any case, while there is not even a hair’s breadth more than Zero Evidence of “Chem-trails” . . .

  – there are Mountains of evidence of normal, everyday Jet Contrails . . .

 

What next?

My advice starts with a question.

Don’t you already have more than enough real, undisputed toxics to deal with in your everyday life?

Those toxics you can genuinely help stop.

So, let me respectfully recommend, until there is ANY actual unambiguous evidence of “chem-trails” toxic sprays, you can put the “Chem-trails” worry on an attic shelf and you can get on with the rest of your life.

What else can you do about Clean Air and Aircraft pollution ?

If you want to do something REAL and important to protect your breathing air from known, unarguable toxics — Now ! (and what the heck – to protect you in case future aerial-spraying from the proposed GeoEngineering experiments actually get funded and approved.)  —

• Email your Congress person today and tell them you are outraged how Jet Airplanes eject tons of harmful and toxic pollution including the highly toxic metal Lead in their wakes every day and you want laws passed immediately to regulate and limit this deadly pollution NOW !

or Call them – RIGHT NOW !

Thank you – for all of us.

#  #  #

(1)  Is Cloud Seeding a pseudoscience ? In 2004 the United States National Research Council released a report stating that to date, “there is still no convincing scientific proof of the efficacy of intentional weather modification as it only has 30% or less chance of success.”

Notes:

As empty as this claim is I refuse to use the term “Conspiracy Theory” for two big reasons.

1. Chemtrails is not a “theory“ in any scientific sense; not even close.
Until Chemtrails is clearly defined, the claim cannot rise above the concept of a conjecture. The proper way to describe it is as a “Chemtrails conjecture.”

2. The term “Conspiracy Theory” is intended to censor, disparage or stifle debate and is used as an ad hominem distraction attack on those who ask questions about certain subjects.

Further reading:

Mick Wests’ Contrail Science website

Video of Contrails, including rare Flap contrails

“Correcting Pesticide Definition and Exposing Gross Hypocrisy in Letter to Carmel Pine Cone Editor Paul Miller”

“Was the Herald’s Letter-Editor Royal Calkins Caught Censoring & BlackListing, then Lying to Cover it up?”

Further Ill-advised for reading:

There’s a silly book trying to convince some that Chemtrails exist. We might call it masterful as it wastes 272 pages with distractions, false information and arm waving — yet fails to come up a single instance of actual Chemtrails evidence.  The embarrasing book is called  “Chemtrails, HAARP, and the full specctrum dominance of Planet Earth”

# # #