Chemtrail conspiracy theory

The term chemtrails [ˈkem.treɪlz] ( listen^{? /i} is a portmanteau of English chemicals for "chemicals" and contrails for "condensation trails", Germanized roughly "Chemikalienstreifen"), occasionally also poison clouds, and is used in connection with a conspiracy theory spread since the 1990s for an allegedly special type of contrails.

These contrails are not said to be due to aircraft exhaust gases condensed at high altitude, but according to the conspiracy theory, to the deliberate worldwide spread of chemicals or additives that absolutely do not occur during regular operation of the aircraft. It is claimed that chemtrails are more durable than normal contrails and spread more widely. However, cirrus clouds that spread out further due to contrails are well known as contrail cirrus.

On the other hand, agricultural and military aircraft (see e.g. Agent Orange) or aircraft for local weather control (hail defense), which has not been very effective so far, bring chemicals into the lower atmosphere, but these are not the subject of the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory. Fuel dumping or smoke cartridges in aerobatics are also not topics of chemtrail supporters.

As a motive for chemtrails are claimed, among other things, geoengineering, a targeted population reduction or military purposes. The conspiracy theory has been widespread on the Internet since 1996 at the latest.

According to the German Federal Environmental Agency, there is no scientific evidence for either the spreading of chemicals or conspicuously changed contrails. Similar statements are known from non-governmental organizations, meteorologists and governmental institutions, which has not been able to reduce the popularity and spread of the "pure fiction" so far.

Background

The conspiracy theory is based on speculation in the mid-1990s that the US Air Force was planning to use weather manipulation and contrails for military purposes. The Air Force sees the chemtrail theories as a hoax, with which, among other things, a strategy paper "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" is said to have been reacted to at the time, but without corresponding to actual military plans or capabilities.

Concept and intentions

The term chemtrail is used to describe certain long-lasting contrails, some of which appear in grids, which are said not to be normal contrails consisting of ice crystals, but rather spray trails of various chemical substances. There is no consensus on the supposed composition of these alleged substances, but adherents often name barium and aluminum compounds as components.

Normally, the propagation form and speed as well as the persistence of contrails depend on factors such as temperature, local wind speed and humidity. At low humidity, contrails dissipate more quickly. At high humidity, on the other hand, exhaust particles can act as crystallization nuclei, binding further water vapor and spreading widely with appropriate currents. An increased tendency to long-lived condensation trails - often in conjunction with cirrus cloud formation - is found in the vicinity of approaching weather fronts, which transport moisture into the high air layers through lifting processes (gliding up during frontal passage). This is how the condensation level is reached.

In meteorology contrails are called man-made cirrus clouds (Cirrus homogenitus). They have been known for far longer than "organized climate change" according to the conspiracy theory. The observed increase in frequency and spread of contrails in the sky is mainly related to the strong growth of air traffic. In Germany alone, the number of transport operations by flights has increased fivefold since the 1980s. With more than two million take-offs and landings per year, this leads to the development of a significantly larger number of contrails than before. In addition, modern turbine engines tend to produce more contrails; their more efficient combustion leads to increased water vapour emissions and lower exhaust temperatures. The clouds formed by aircraft and their effects are being studied scientifically; they alter visibility conditions in the atmosphere. On the other hand, increasing stripe structures represent an aesthetic change in the visible sky.

Technical implementations

There are various, partly contradictory and technically inconclusive attempts to explain the technical prerequisites of chemtrails. According to one variant, chemicals are added to aircraft fuels. This would rule out the spread of polymers, microbes or pharmaceutically active substances, as assumed by some conspiracy theorists, since these would be destroyed in the combustion chambers of the engines. The spread of pure metallic or mineral substances via this route, on the other hand, would lead to high wear on the turbine blades of the engines.

Other assumptions assume that the substances are spread by means of built-in spraying devices. Such devices could be hidden behind closed flaps on the underside of the aircraft. Thus, special spraying machines with instructed personnel could spread chemtrails, or the substances would be sprayed automatically, unnoticed by the pilots, during the flight of normal airliners through hollow wires at the wing edges. In fact, condensation trails occasionally form at sharp edges and sensors even at lower altitudes - allegedly secret flaps or spraying systems would be detected by service personnel and crew during pre-flight checks at the latest. These processes are occasionally thought to be fuel dumping, but this is only permitted in emergencies.

Motives and goals

Various objectives are assumed by representatives of the chemtrail theory. Substances are to be sprayed in order to carry out geoengineering. This is supposed to weaken the greenhouse effect by reflecting sunlight and thus reduce global warming. The Welsbach patent is often cited here, in which the possibility of reducing the greenhouse effect by means of large-scale distribution of particles in the atmosphere is described. It is also speculated that chemtrails could serve to reduce the population. According to this theory, the added chemicals should reduce the population's ability to procreate or simply poison it. The film "Why in the world are they spraying?" ("Why in the world are they spraying?") suspects, among other things, a deliberate poisoning and alteration of the pH value of the soil with aluminium compounds in order to render conventional seeds unusable. Seed corporations would have long since developed genetically modified aluminium-resistant varieties as a preventive measure.

US bomber over Austria, 1944. Vapour trails could be seen in large numbers in the sky even then.

Statements from politicians and non-governmental organisations

In 2004, the magazine Raum & Zeit reported on alleged chemtrails in the article "The Destruction of the Sky". Subsequently, citizens asked the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) what this was all about. In March 2011, the agency published a statement saying that the claims made in said article were not credible. According to the statement, if theoretical ideas of climate protection through the application of various substances existed, there is no evidence that these have been implemented in concrete terms to date. The UBA refers to the German Weather Service, in whose observation data no conspicuous changes in the behaviour of condensation trails are recorded. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is also not aware of any such phenomena, although it has been studying the effect of aviation emissions on the atmosphere for many years. Inquiries with the German Air Traffic Control and the German Meteorological Service did not reveal any evidence of conspicuous aircraft movements or contrails. WHO has no knowledge of the existence of particular chemtrails. The Department of Defense and the European headquarters of the U.S. Air Force stated that they were not involved in any such projects. The Air Force also responded to theories that it manipulates weather with a briefing paper on contrails. The Air Force does not manipulate the weather and has no plans to start doing so.

The Greenpeace magazine assessed the speculations about chemtrails in 2004 in a separate article as conspiracy theory and agreed with the findings of the Federal Environment Agency.

Mention of chemtrails in the US is made in 2001 in a bill, the Space Preservation Act, first introduced to Congress by politician Dennis Kucinich. The bill was defeated and Kucinich, who was not directly involved in the drafting of the bill, later expressed that he was not aware of the mention of chemtrails and that he was not interested in the issue.

In March 2007, Austrian members of the National Council of the FPÖ put a parliamentary question to the then Minister of Agriculture, Josef Pröll (ÖVP). In response, the Ministry of Agriculture clarified that it had been aware of the issue of chemtrails for some time and that it would classify such processes as extremely problematic, but that after extensive research there were no indications of such substances being spread over Austria.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the NPD put a small question in the state parliament on chemtrails in 2010 to accuse the government of "weather manipulation". Alfred Steinleitner of the NPD gave a lecture on March 16, 2011 in Deggendorf on the topic "'Chemtrails' - Global Chemical Crime in the Atmosphere!!!" The main spokesman for the chemtrails movement in Germany is the lawyer Dominik Storr, who had a legal dispute with Jörg Kachelmann on this topic.

The environmental spokesman of the CDU parliamentary group in the Lower Saxony state parliament, Martin Bäumer, wanted to have investigations carried out into the existence of chemtrails and asked three parliamentary questions in this regard in 2016. The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment replied that no such investigation was planned due to costs in the five-digit range.