Chemtrails, Weather Modification, and Geoengineering Conspiracies: People Are Gullible

     Once I was having a conversation with an older woman. She said she had just gotten her Ph.D. at the local university, a quite liberal-oriented one. The subject of fracking came up, and I told her that I worked in the oil & gas industry and that I thought that while there are obvious downsides to fracking, the benefits far outweigh the risks. Later, she mentioned the problem of chemtrails. I was rather baffled, considering a highly educated person to know the truth that the smoke trails from jets are really condensation from the combustion of jet fuel, known as contrails, and nothing more. Much like the perceived dangers of 5G and other techno-phobias, the idea of chemtrails has stuck around, unfortunately.

     Several state governments have had bills introduced, some signed into law, that forbid these chemtrails, which are seen as a form of weather modification or geoengineering, despite the fact that this has not been happening. There have been some companies and academics that have done experiments with weather modification in the past, some open and some secret, but there is no evidence that the practice is widespread or of any real significance. These experiments are often short-lived and confined to very localized areas.

    Geoengineering can include many things. It can be argued that burning fossil fuels or anything is geoengineering. Wind turbines are geoengineering since they affect local wind patterns. Agriculture is geoengineering since it alters the land and atmosphere. Construction is geoengineering. Of course, geoengineering usually refers to two main processes: emplacing aerosol particles in the stratosphere to reflect sunlight or fertilizing the ocean. In the context of conspiracy theories, it is putting particles in the atmosphere that is the issue, particularly in the context of weather modification. There are companies and countries that have an interest in geoengineering and weather modification. There is an International Journal of Geoengineering, and this is an ongoing academic field. There are some countries that have an interest in weather modification and ‘cloud seeding.’ These are countries like Saudi Arabia, where it is very dry, and further droughts could cause more problems. The effects of weather modification and cloud seeding have been found to be limited and local. The notion that there are secret geoengineering and weather modification experiments going on is a bit ridiculous. The practice would only be used in drought-prone areas such as deserts. Dwindling groundwater and surface water resources is one motivation for interest in cloud seeding.  There was one event many years ago where a group illegally fertilized a part of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon with iron particles as a geoengineering experiment. They got into some trouble for doing that, and the results were effective but limited in extent.

     Those on the political left had previously been the ones to criticize geoengineering as a solution to climate change since it was not renewable energy and could allow fossil fuel companies to continue to pollute and provide us with the energy we need. They often called it a false solution and emphasized the dangers of unintended consequences, taking a precautionary approach. Some planned experiments were abandoned. Some of these were backed by Bill Gates, which, if known more widely, would tie into the numerous ridiculous Gates conspiracies.   

     In 2023, Augustus Doricko started a cloud-seeding company called Rainmaker, active in Texas. He notes that he has been harassed quite a bit since the catastrophic flooding in Central Texas, where a massive amount of rain, 15 inches, fell in a short time, causing a deadly flood.  

“The amount of energy involved in making storms like that is astronomical compared to anything you can do with cloud seeding,” said Bob Rauber, an emeritus professor in atmoshpheric science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied the technology. “We’re talking about a very small increase on a natural process at best.”

     An article in the Washington Post suggests that cloud seeding has become a scapegoat for natural disasters. However, Doricko’s company was active in the general area before the Texas rain.

“This much is true: On the afternoon of July 2, a single-engine plane operated by the El Segundo, California-based start-up Rainmaker flew on a cloud-seeding job over Runge, Texas, more than 100 miles southeast of Kerr County. Over the course of about 20 minutes, it released about 70 grams of silver iodide into a pair of clouds; the mission was followed by a modest drizzle that dropped less than half a centimeter of rain over the parched farms below, Doricko said.”

“The run was part of a contract that Rainmaker had entered this spring with the South Texas Weather Modification Association, a nonprofit funded by local water management districts to refill reservoirs and boost rainfall over cropland.”

“Soon after, Doricko said, his company’s meteorologists saw a storm front approaching and called off their operations in the area. By the morning of July 4, the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry had dumped up to 15 inches of rain over parts of Kerr County.”

     While it may be tempting to implicate the downwind cloud seeding, the overwhelming fact is that the remnants of a powerful tropical storm came through, bringing heavy rain. Those given to conspiracy theories, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Michael Flynn, took off with the connection.

“At least 39 countries have cloud-seeding programs, according to a December report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. China has invested at least $2 billion since 2014. Saudi Arabia spent more than $250 million on cloud seeding in 2022 alone, according to the report, and the United Arab Emirates and India have invested millions of dollars more in recent years.”

“While 10 U.S. states have proposed or passed laws banning cloud seeding, nine in the West — amid the worst droughts some areas have seen in 1,200 years — spend millions of dollars a year to squeeze rain or snow out of clouds. Utah leads the pack, with a $5 million annual cloud-seeding budget.”

“Research on cloud seeding is limited, according to the GAO report. But a 2017 research project in Idaho used high-tech radar to track silver iodide particles as they entered clouds, caused ice crystals to form and created snowfall, demonstrating that winter cloud seeding can create a small but noticeable increase in precipitation — something like a fraction of a millimeter of extra snow in a single event.”

“Companies that do this type of stuff have to be very careful. When it looks like there’s going to be a large storm, you just don’t do it. You stay away from it,” Rauber said.”

“The federal government “pretty much” ended its cloud-seeding experiments in the 1980s, he said.”

     Meanwhile, a whacko militia group in Oklahoma called Veterans on Patrol wants to dismantle weather radars, which oddly, would make weather forecasting much more difficult, da, including tornadoes, which are common in the area. In the militia’s Operation Leaning Tower, some Doppler radars in Oklahoma have been vandalized. This is reminiscent of the 5G cell towers that were vandalized amid the pandemic. The militia leader noted:

"They can embed their technology and civilian infrastructure in every home and every household utilizing the phones and their network towers to not only control the weather, modify the weather, but they can [target] individuals,” Meyer, a Christian Nationalist, told News9.”

"When the military plays God with the weather, they're mocking our Heavenly Father by calling one of his most favorite instruments a 'weather weapon,'" Meyer added.”

     Trump EPA chief Lee Zeldin attempted to debunk the conspiracy theories while giving those who espouse them undue respect, suggesting that their concerns were justified.

“Americans have questions about geoengineering and contrails,” Zeldin wrote in a post on X. “They expect honesty and transparency from their government when seeking answers. For years, people who asked questions in good faith were dismissed, even vilified by the media and their own government. This ends today.”

“Americans have legitimate questions about contrails and geoengineering, and they deserve straight answers,”

     After confirming that the U.S. government is not involved in any large-scale geoengineering projects, he also said that the agency:

“…shares the significant reservations many Americans have when it comes to geoengineering activities.”

Thus, he is seeking to dispel their concerns but also is legitimizing those concerns of whackos! The following quote from head whacko RFK Jr. thanking Zeldin for the deference is quite shocking and makes me kind of ashamed to have him in our government. As reported by Rolling Stone:

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health secretary and an avowed chemtrails conspiracy theorist, also responded to Zeldin as if the EPA chief had affirmed his views on the subject instead of discrediting them. “I’m so proud of my friend Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump for their commitment to finally shatter the Deep State Omerta regarding the diabolical mass poisoning of our people, our communities, our waterways and farms, and our purple mountains, majesty,” Kennedy wrote on X. This was despite the EPA reports making it clear that contrails are not “poisoning” anybody.”

     Some people say we are living in a post-truth world where “alternative facts” are a reality. I would recommend the work of author and psychologist Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic Magazine, for understanding conspiracy theories and their appeal. His excellent 2011 book, ‘The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies: How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths’ is a fantastic book on the subject.

     Shermer sees the post-modernist media-reinforced idea of ‘truth is relative’ being taken too far and out of context to allow more possibilities than is realistic. As the X-Files had it – we want to believe. ‘The truth is out there.’ He agrees but intervenes, saying that science is by magnitudes the best method of discerning truth. Many or most people believe in the supernatural and the paranormal when asked. Perhaps it is the persistence of life’s mysteries that leads to this, or as he says, a misunderstanding of the scientific process. But why do people still believe, regardless of what science says?

“Belief change comes from a combination of personal psychological readiness and a deeper social and cultural shift in the underlying zeitgeist, which is affected in part by education but is more the product of larger and harder-to-define political, economic, religious, and social changes.”

     Shermer thinks conspiracy theories are often highly improbable, illogical, tend to snowball, and yet can be held onto even in the face of heaps of refuting evidence. Shermer thinks that they are believed due to not applying pattern detection filters and are aided by confirmation bias and hindsight bias, manipulating information to the narrative.

     I am not sure why we give conspiracy theorists such deference and legitimacy. This illogical folk mob psychology type of behavior is simply not becoming of a logical human being. It may seem a bit mean, but I think it is best that we ignore and ridicule such ideas lest they gain even more influence than they have. In any case, Shermer’s book about the psychology of belief is highly recommended. I wrote a detailed summary and review of the book. Perhaps I will post it here. 

    

 

 

References:

 

Militia fueled by bizarre conspiracy theory brings down weather radars. Sarah K. Burris. Raw Story. July 9, 2025. Militia fueled by bizarre conspiracy theory brings down weather radars

He seeded clouds over Texas. Then came the conspiracy theories. Will Oremus, Nicolás Rivero. The Washington Post. July 10, 2025. He seeded clouds over Texas. Then came the conspiracy theories.

Trump's EPA Chief Tried to Debunk Chemtrails, but Nobody Actually Read the Report. Miles Klee. Rolling Stone. July 10, 2025. Trump's EPA Chief Tried to Debunk Chemtrails, but Nobody Actually Read the Report

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies: How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths – by Michael Shermer (Henry Holt, 2011)