Everyone sees planes and jets passing everyday. I’m sure you have also noticed the trails the plane leaves, and how everyone thinks they are harmless. Some people believe those trails are causing chemical warfare and harming everything and everyone around us. Chemtrails refer to the theory that the government are in a secret program to emit toxic chemicals into the atmosphere from aircrafts that form contrails in the sky.
The government has different motivations for doing this which is reduction of life expectancy and weather control. Believers of this conspiracy say that the normal contrails of an aircraft disappear quickly and the contrails with chemical additives linger for longer. The chemtrails are believed to cause respiratory illnesses and other health problems.
The theories of chemtrails first began to become popular when the Air Force wrote a weather report about weather modification in 1996. Then in the 1990s the USAF was accused of spraying the U.S with unknown chemicals. Those theories were spreading on the internet and as the chemtrail conspiracy spread the government was getting calls and letters left and right of mad people. Then in the early 2000s the USAF released a document dispelling all rumors and conspiracies saying that “they are not conducting any weather modification experiments or programs and have no plans to do so in the future.” A survey was conducted in 2011 and had people say if believe in the conspiracy or not. 16.6 percent of people believe in the theory. 77 experts had to give a conclusion whether all of them thought if the theory was true or not. All but one scientist that was part of the study said they found no evidence of a chemtrail experiment. The one scientist who disagreed with them found a high level of atmosphere barium in one area where the soil contained very low levels of the chemical element.
Extraordinary claims like these require lots and lots of strong evidence. Yet all the evidence of this theory is so weak. The most common claim of why they think they are raining down chemicals is because the contrails look “different”. If there really was a huge secret program to have planes rain down dangerous chemicals it would have to have lots of people and it would be very difficult to keep a program like this a secret. We don’t trust the government to always do the right thing but what we do trust is good individuals who take risks and expose government secrets. If you believe in chemtrails I want you to ask yourself how you can be so certain that there is a huge conspiracy like this. The internet is filled with people who are sure about stuff that isn’t true. If you want to believe it or not it doesn’t really matter because at the end of the day it is just a conspiracy theory.
Juan Hernandez
Nazareth Academy – DMSF Class of 2026
Photo by Pablo Varela on Unsplash