Though the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory has long been dismissed by scientists, aviation experts, and other skeptics, the Tennessee legislature has taken it very seriously. On April 11th, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law SB2691, which bans the ‘intentional injection, release, or dispersion’ of chemicals within Tennessee ‘with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight.” Though the law doesn’t explicitly use the word chemtrails, it was inspired by chemtrail conspiracy theorists.
On this episode we talk to independent journalist Teddy Wilson of Radical Reports about the anti-chemtrails bills in Tennessee and other state legislatures.
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REFERENCES
Radical Reports: Why Are GOP State Lawmakers Introducing Bills Based on Claims by Fringe Conspiracy Theorists?
https://www.radicalreports.org/p/why-are-gop-state-lawmakers-introducing
Some Dare Call It Conspiracy: Chemtrails On Trial
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/chemtrails-on-trial-part-1-8--58112535
To what extent do you believe in the conspiracy theory that the government is using chemicals to control the population (chemtrails)?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/959559/conspiracy-belief-government-control-population-chemtrails/
MIT Technology Review Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/05/1087587/solar-geoengineering-could-start-soon-if-it-starts-small/
Aircraft clouds: From chemtrail pseudoscience to the science of contrails
Mètode Science Studies Journal, vol. 8, pp. 181-187, 2018
Universitat de València
https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5117/511766757028/html/
Terrell, Steven. Santa Fe New Mexican. Assignment led journalist/activist into "chemtrail" obsession, 1999
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-santa-fe-new-mexican-chemtrails-1999/133314562/
Welcome to the QAA Podcast, Episode 275, Anti-Chemtrail Laws, featuring Teddy Wilson.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rakitansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
Many state legislatures have started to tackle the most important environmental issue of our time.
Is that climate change?
No.
The loss of biodiversity?
No.
Plastic pollution?
No.
Ocean acidification?
No.
Overfishing?
No.
Freshwater insecurity?
No.
Soil degradation?
Also no.
Rather, multiple state legislatures have taken up the issue of stopping chemtrails.
Travis, I feel like you're talking down to us, you know?
I mean, every single time here I'm like, climate change?
Yeah.
No?
Oh, fuck no.
Loss of biodiversity?
I'm like, yeah.
No.
And then you say no.
And you keep saying no.
It makes me feel bad.
Yeah, I thought for sure it was going to be about overfishing.
It'll be real change in editorial direction of this podcast.
We're going to be talking more about why you can't get certain kinds of fish anymore.
So today, we're going to talk about the origins of the chemtrails conspiracy theory, and we'll speak to independent journalist and researcher Teddy Wilson, who has been covering the development of these bills on his website, Radical Reports.
Now, Chemtrails, this feels like an old conspiracy.
Like, I feel like this was one of the OG conspiracy theories.
Yeah, because it falls under the category of, like, things I can see from anywhere.
Look up.
Whoa, look at that stuff.
It's probably bad.
Yeah, when you go to the rchemtrails subreddit, which isn't, you know, as big as you would think given how sort of universally discussed chemtrails are, it's not a huge community and most of the posts are just pictures of clouds or just pictures of the sky outside of your house at various stages throughout the day.
You know, there'll be a picture of, you know, a couple planes going across the sky and then clouds and then that's sort of it.
With some of these guys, that's kind of a net positive, because at least you've gotten them to leave their house and look at the sky, you know?
So if this is what it takes to, like, get them to kind of gaze at photos of the sky, take photos of the sky, get outside, go for a walk, you know?
Maybe this is your opportunity, Travis, to encourage people to believe in chemtrails so that they can touch grass more often.
Yeah, you know, yeah, it doesn't take a lot of- it's a very low entry point, I'll say that.
It doesn't take a lot of investment in order to get into the Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory.
You literally just have to walk outside and look up.
And for some reason, like, Jake seems completely immune, completely uninterested in this particular conspiracy theory.
This one's not for me.
I don't know why.
I've never been- I don't know.
I've never- There's no good story, no good Yeah there's no it's just it's just okay there's smoke coming out of a plane and then that smoke dissipates and then it what it's doing something it's it's entering my nervous system it's it's making me soy I I don't know there's nothing really for me to grasp on to here yeah
But maybe that'll change, uh, after talking to Travis and, uh, Teddy.
So hopefully this is good.
Cause I do, I, I was actually, I was playing Arma the other night and this guy that I, this random guy that I met, he brought up chemtrails and I didn't really have anything to add to the conversation.
So hopefully I can learn something and, and have, have, you know, something to talk about with my new friend.
Yeah, chemtrails are about getting outside, going for a nice walk, making friends.
Yeah.
By the way, I will say before we move on, 5 out of 10, now I'd say about 7 out of 10 random headset video game conversations, a conspiracy theory is brought up.
If I were to only judge through what people say in my headset online when I'm playing with strangers, I would say 7 out of 10 people just believe in conspiracy theories.
What he doesn't tell you is that 6 out of those 7 times, it's him that brought them up.
Not me.
I don't pill anybody anymore, man.
I'm off that.
Anymore?
I'm off that.
Oh, good.
That's nice to know you're reformed.
So, yeah, I mean, Chemtrails does feel very old school, but it's actually, you know, it's surprisingly young for a conspiracy theory.
It only developed, really, when we were in high school.
So, Chemtrails is the conspiracy theory that high-flying aircraft spray chemical or biological compounds for the purpose of weather modification, psychological manipulation, population control, or biological and chemical Now these claims are totally without merit and the appearance of cloud-like streaks that trail aircraft are actually contrails or condensation trails.
So contrails are simply the normal condensation of water vapor in high-altitude aircraft exhaust under specific atmospheric conditions.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the QAA Podcast.
We're done, right?
Yeah, well, no, no, no.
There's a lot more to it.
I do want to mention that the chemtrails conspiracy theory does have a small amount of support.
A YouGov Statistia survey conducted in 2019 found that 8% of Americans strongly believe that the government is using chemicals to control the population through chemtrails, and a further 11% say they somewhat believe in the theory.
I mean, you're kind of, like, underplaying it.
Even if you say that, like, the 11% add maybe a 2% of people who properly believe, that's still—we're looking at between 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 Americans potentially believing in this thing.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a lot of people.
I love—that's—that's a lot of people.
Travis, they live among us.
Yeah, I suppose when thou vary ten people, statistically speaking, that you see on the street, buy into the chemtrails conspiracy theory.
Yeah, and somewhat believe is still pretty strong when chemtrails are mentioned by name.
Like, this is not just some vague version of the belief.
Like, they are listing it here through chemtrails.
You have to know what that is, and then you're still like, yeah, I somewhat believe that.
I feel like chemtrails are kind of like one of those background processes conspiracy theories where it's one of those things that, you know, yeah, maybe one out of ten sort of generally believe in, but it doesn't really require kind of any further research.
I'm sure you have a handful of guys, you know, who really go down the rabbit hole on chemtrails, but most people seem to just kind of like vaguely accept that they're there, they're weird, they probably shouldn't be there, and just chalk it up to an evil government.
It feels like it's kind of a perfect sort of casual conspiracy theory to sort of believe in.
Yeah, it's flat earth for people who can't commit.
Yeah, kind of.
So though the theory has long been dismissed by scientists, aviation experts, and other skeptics, the Tennessee legislature has taken it very seriously.
On April 11th, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law SB 2691, which bans the intentional injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals within Tennessee with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of sunlight.
Though the law doesn't explicitly use the word chemtrails, it was inspired by chemtrail conspiracy theorists, as we'll talk a little bit later in the episode.
Before we talk to Teddy Wilson, I want to walk through some of the history of the Chemtrails conspiracy theory and the debunk.
I'm just going to do a brief overview of the origins, but if you want something more comprehensive, I actually would recommend checking out the None Dare It Call conspiracy podcast.
Earlier this year, they published a really interesting eight-part series called Chemtrails on Trial, and we'll just link to that in the show notes.
So like I said, the Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory is fairly young, even though people have noticed how flying aircraft can leave miniature clouds behind them for over 100 years.
The origin of the Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory can be traced back to the 1996 publication of a report drafted by researchers at the United States Air Force titled, Weather as a Force Multiplier Owning the Weather in 2025.
The report was intended as a speculative look at future strategies to improve the U.S.
military's ability to affect weather for tactical advantage.
Although the report did not indicate that weather modification was currently taking place, it was cited as evidence by theorists that such activities were already underway.
I will say, though, that if the Air Force takes control of the weather next year, then, you know, egg will be on my face.
I'll save that.
The one individual who really helped popularize chemtrails is the journalist William Thomas.
He wrote a book about chemical warfare and Gulf War syndrome called Bringing the War Home, and he would go on to become obsessed, starting in 1999, with trying to prove that chemtrails were real.
However, his proofs usually came in the form of reporting on people who were sick after they allegedly witnessed contrails in the sky, which of course proves nothing.
So, like, seeing contrails and then getting sick doesn't prove that the contrails made you sick any more than seeing a squirrel and then getting sick proves that the squirrel made you sick.
This is from one of William Thomas's very first articles about chemtrails.
Really?
William Wallace?
by fleets of jet aircraft in elaborate crosshatch patterns are sparking speculation and making people sick across the
United States.
Washington State resident William Wallace became ill.
Really? William Walsh? William Wallace?
Here we go.
There's no fucking way that we were gonna get past like a character played by Mel Gibson.
I know Jake's brain.
I saw the hole in the ground barely covered by fucking leaves.
And where does he go?
Straight down.
Washington State resident William Wallace became ill with severe diarrhea and fatigue after watching several multi-engine jets spend New Year's Day laying cloud lines in an east-to-west grid pattern.
A neighbor working outside came down with similar symptoms, but their wives, who remained indoors, suffered no ill effects from the inexplicable maneuvers, which observers likened to high-altitude, quote, crop-dusting by unidentified multi-engine aircraft.
Wait, so their sickness was having diarrhea and fatigue?
I mean, actually I kind of believe in it now because I'm experiencing that all the time.
Diarrhea and fatigue.
This is just called becoming an adult.
Fact.
Now, while looking into the origins of the chemtrails theories, I found this really fantastic article published on June 20th, 1999 in the Santa Fe, New Mexican as a newspaper.
It was headlined, Assignment Led Journalist Activist into Chemtrail Obsession.
It provides a contemporaneous account of how William Thomas got obsessed with chemtrails.
And it's very straight reporting, but because it's reporting on a In the first week of January, Canadian-based journalist-slash-activist William Thomas got an assignment that would consume most of his time for the past several months.
Thomas, an American who lives in British Columbia, was contacted by an editor of Environmental News Service to investigate a report that a, quote, Washington state man had become ill on New Year's Day after watching several jets make strange marks in the sky.
By the end of the week, Thomas would have the story.
Four days later, a follow-up would appear.
By the end of the month, he would be making the first of several appearances on Art Bell's national radio show, warning late-night listeners of the dangers from the sky.
By now, his name was virtually synonymous with chemtrails.
On his website, Thomas describes himself as a man with a mission.
Quote, I bring the truth, or at least an extra ration of that rare and risky commodity, he says, in an imaginary conversation with a quote-unquote sentry.
So, big red flag already.
You're publishing an imaginary conversation with yourself and some unnamed faceless sentry about how brave and how much of a truth teller you are.
What do you mean, sentry?
Like, is he talking to Cylons?
Like, what is going on here?
I couldn't tell you.
It sounds like, you know, a Yeah, it's like a sentry, a guard of some sort, you know.
Yeah, the chemtrail guard.
It's like, ooh, if like some sort of, you know, guard at the gates gave me guff, this is how I would respond.
Talk about how brave I am.
Another red flag is that he claimed that his reporting was too hot for the mainstream media, even though the reporter in this article couldn't find evidence that William Thomas attempted to pitch his story to the mainstream media.
The Santa Fe, New Mexican report goes on to quote from William Thomas's website.
Today, no U.S.
news organization wants to tackle the real issues behind the Gulf War illness.
Even Rolling Stone and Mother Jones refuse to touch my fully documented history of the Gulf War, he says on his website.
The potential pitfalls for publishers could be worse than the chemical biological fallout from that war.
Asked about those rejections, Thomas replied, "No response from Mother Jones, whose editors know my work from the Gulf
War.
No response from Rolling Stone, despite more than 700 detailed reports from eyewitnesses,
including cops, pilots and military personnel, and continuing spraying over dozens of US and Canadian cities.
It's easier to sell UFOs to major media than a phenomenon as close in many cities as the nearest window."
Mother Jones editor Tim Dickinson said in a recent telephone interview
that he was not familiar with Thomas or his work and knew nothing about the submission.
We've published several pieces on Gulf War illness, he said.
I love this thing.
As close in many cities as the nearest window.
That is really what defines this one.
But what's interesting about this is there's actually probably more government documentation about UFOs now that's been released to the public than there is about chemtrails.
Yet another red flag is that Thomas would imply connections between disease and contrails even though there wasn't real evidence of a link.
In later interviews, Thomas would matter-of-factly mention an Oklahoma lupus epidemic and its implied connection to quote-unquote chemtrails.
Asked whether there is a documented verifiable link between any case of lupus and contrails,
Thomas wrote, "I am tracking outbreaks of lupus, meningitis, mycoplasmas, and even more exotic
diseases throughout the U.S. The toxic molds and pathogens found in our lab samples can lead to
lupus, meningitis, and pneumonia in susceptible individuals."
But, he admitted, there is no proven So, I mean, sounds like chemtrails conspiracy theorists often are just extra anxious about environmental threats to their health, and they kind of project that outwards.
Yeah, and it seems like this is basically how this thing got started.
This guy is just a hypochondriac, and they sort of turned that into part of his journalism career.
It is interesting that it's like almost a bit of a Havana Syndrome thing where it's like people felt really bad a lot of the time due to PTSD and then there was also, you know, real Gulf War illnesses related to, you know, material used or things they were exposed to.
But then, like, we need some, like, proper esoteric explanation for it, right?
There has to be some intent.
It can't just be that we're all feeling extremely bad because we just did a very Bad thing and went to war on another country, caused the death of tons of people.
Yeah, or you could just be like me and keep, you know, share your conspiracy theories about your health just with your doctor on the day of your appointment, as opposed to going online or writing books or doing research on it.
Because I'm a wildly, I'm a wild, rabid conspiracy theorist once I get into that doctor's office.
But once I leave, you know, I sort of keep it to myself.
How's the progress on pilling him?
I think he's trying to pill me that nothing is actually wrong.
Oh, true.
He wants you to take the blue pill.
The article goes on to explain William Thomas's sloppy methodology for his reporting.
In an April article, Thomas wrote, quote, "...two samples were taken from aluminum-sided structures in separate states nearly a year apart after their respective owners went outside in the wake of low-flying aircraft to find dwellings and outbuildings splattered with brown, gel-like substance."
What?
There's diarrhea!
It's coming from the sky and it's giving me diarrhea!
Could it just be that a plane dumped its, uh, you know, its poop deck?
That's not right.
It's poop deck.
No, no, that's fact.
That's now what it's called.
One was from a property near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on which the goo reportedly was dropped on November 17, 1998.
The woman who owned the property later suffered a heart attack, Thomas said.
The other sample was from a house from an unspecified location on the eastern seaboard.
The property owner was a woman whose house, barn, cars, lawn, and driveway were covered by a brown gel on January 17, 1998.
See, this is where, like, it's... Just fucking grab some of that gel, put it in a bag, go get some tests.
Like, fucking explain this.
Don't just... Yeah, if there is a goo, if there is a goo to be analyzed, you best be analyzing it.
You have goo!
Who just leaves goo and goes, oh, it must be bad.
Crazy that so much goo and gunk has dropped from the sky.
This homeowner noticed planes making, quote, tic-tac-toe clouds before the gunk was dropped, Thomas said.
The gunk was dropped?
Oh, man.
Dude, I just want to go out there and drop my gunk.
I like the idea of pilots playing tic-tac-toe with one another.
I mean, that's, I mean, you know, save it for the air show, but that's pretty cool.
The samples were taken to an EPA... Okay, so they did take samples, and the article goes on.
I'm gonna shut up.
The samples were taken to an EPA licensed laboratory, which Thomas refuses to name.
Okay, there we go.
Yeah, I had a sandwich bag full of this shit.
I brought it into someplace, man.
Don't worry about it.
My colleague and I will release the name of our lab and detailed lab test results as soon as we find a publisher willing to pay us for many months of research and reimburse those lab tests, Thomas said.
Okay, so the plot thickens.
That is so cool.
You think you've uncovered one of the biggest conspiracies in history, just an incredible achievement, and you're like, well, fuck, I don't have that much money right now.
It's like, dude, you're almost there.
Just tell us what was in the gunk.
Yeah, it's like, we've uncovered a mystery that could potentially explain the government perpetrating chemical warfare on its citizens.
But first, we gotta get paid.
Come on.
He said that another lab that tested alleged chemtrail-related substance was harassed after the lab's name was published.
He said once he publishes the name of the lab he used, quote, we will lose the services of that lab forever.
Maybe.
Almost as if the lab would be surprised to find out that what they were testing was claimed to be, you know, from a chemtrail.
There are plenty of labs!
Just, whatever.
His mystery laboratory found Pseudomonas fluorescens in the Pennsylvania sample, Thomas said.
This, he said, is a bacteria sometimes employed against oil spills and which can consume jet fuel as a primary food source.
This bacteria can cause upper respiratory illness and serious blood infections in humans, he said.
Also found in this sample was Streptomyces, a fungus, Thomas said, is used to make antibiotics and which can cause, quote, severe infections in humans.
However, one of Thomas' chief critics, Jay Reynolds, an Arkansas engineer who has written several articles challenging and debunking the chemtrails phenomenon, points out that Pseudomonas fluorescens is a common soil bacteria found in many common septic helper additives.
Of the Streptomyces fungus, Reynolds wrote that it's, quote, a very common fungi found in soil.
Reynolds concludes, "All information Thomas relates about his alleged samples is totally undocumented, unsourced, and
therefore unverifiable.
Of the organisms he claims to have identified, the majority are purposefully not identified by name."
*laughs* Oh my god.
Reynolds has written that every organism named by Thomas is common in soil.
Maybe the brown gunk was soil all along.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somebody drove by at high speed and splashed a puddle onto the side of the barn at the same time that a jet flew across and made a line in the sky.
I mean... If soil is dookie and you add water, it becomes mud, which is basically diarrhea.
And it gives you that.
A lot of this stuff is scientific.
The article goes on to explain how Thomas is able to supplement his income he receives while working as a journalist.
Besides questioning Thomas' methods and conclusions, Reynolds also questioned his motives, noting a possible conflict of interest in the fact that on his webpage, Thomas, who spent much of his career writing about chemical and biological warfare, sells vitamins and herbal supplements aimed at relieving chemically-induced illnesses.
Okay.
Okay, so he's got a dog in the fight.
Yeah, yeah.
So he was getting it on the Alex Jones model, you know, real early.
It's like all these, all these, everything's poisoning you all the time, but I have the solution.
Yeah, I love these guys.
They're like, I'm on a quest to figure out what this gunk is.
And at the same time, I can also sell you a cure for what the gunk is.
I got pills and we're jamming so much good gunk into these pills.
I think you need to, if you have bad gunk, you need good gunk to fight it.
Yeah.
So that's essentially how the chemtrails conspiracy theory started.
In the 90s, there was an Air Force report that speculated on using weather modification techniques for the purposes of war.
And then a very pilled journalist who sold supplements named William Thomas tried unsuccessfully to prove that these poisonous chemtrails were real.
Now, to be fair, serious people have proposed geoengineering as a hypothetical means of combating climate change, even though there isn't any evidence that these ideas are being implemented in reality.
Climate researchers have considered the possibility of injecting small particles into the stratosphere to counteract some aspects of climate change.
The idea is that by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back into space, these particles could partially offset The energy imbalance caused by accumulating carbon dioxide, thereby reducing warming as well as extreme storms and many other climate risks.
But it's just hypothetical.
Very recently, the scientists David W. Keith and Wake Smith published an article in the MIT Technology Review which has the provocative headline, Solar Geoengineering Could Start Soon If It Starts Small.
But despite that headline, the authors specifically state that they don't actually support solar geoengineering in the near future.
Other exact words are this.
We oppose near-term deployment of solar geoengineering.
In accord with the Climate Overshoot Commission, the most senior group of political leaders to examine the topic, we support a moratorium on deployment until the science is internationalized and critically assessed, and until some governance architecture is widely agreed upon.
So I think it's just worth mentioning because it's something that, you know, modern Chemtrails supporters often point to, these sort of speculative, hypothetical geoengineering solutions to climate change.
So that brings me back to the Tennessee Chemtrails bill.
The bill is sponsored by Representative Monty Fritz, who put it before the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.
So here he is discussing the bill.
This legislation simply amends, adds a new section of the Tennessee Air Quality Act prohibiting the intentional injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus into the atmosphere within the borders of our state for the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of solar radiation.
Growing up, I would have never thought I'd had to come to y'all with a Request pass a law for this.
But, uh, that is the world we live in.
Awesome.
Yeah.
As a boy, I was not yet pilled, but I have since accessed the internet.
I'm imagining like a post-apocalyptic movie where, uh, the, the entire United States has been chem-trailed into some sort of zombie apocalypse.
And because Tennessee banned it in their airspace, they're the last state, you know, the last state left untouched.
That's exactly what they want.
This is their favorite version of the world.
We were right all along and look at you.
You're all dead now.
Now, Fritz has a history of supporting kooky things to legislature.
Earlier this year, Fritz introduced a resolution calling for Tennesseans to join a 30-day season of prayer and intermittent fasting in July to seek God's hand of mercy healing on Tennessee.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
Vibes, dude.
I love a good resolution to have vibes and just tell Tennesseans that they should pray more and be more, like, loving of God.
To pray more and eat less.
Yeah.
It's worth noting that the law does not have the support of environmentalists and climate scientists.
Scott Banbury, a conservation director of the Tennessee Sierra Club, said of the legislation, quote, as a serious environmental organization, if what was in the bill was actually going on, we would be calling for a stop to it.
It's not happening.
Honestly, we'd be into this if it were real.
Alan Robach, a climate science professor at Rutgers University, when asked about the legislation, told The Guardian that the law is essentially unenforceable.
He said this.
It's not going to make any difference one way or the other.
How could they even enforce it?
What if somebody did a chem trail in Kentucky and it drifted over Tennessee?
What would they do?
Doing a chemtrail.
If they did a chemtrail, yeah, I guess there would be, you know, the chemtrail wars between Tennessee and Kentucky.
Oh, you think you can play tic-tac-toe in our skies, huh?
Well, we'll see about that.
We're gonna come and play tic-tac-toe in yours!
Yeah, we would like to introduce a new bill for an electronic dome that fits over the entire state of Tennessee.
It keeps any kind of air or materials from drifting through the dome.
The dome will vaporize any substance in the air, including jets and airplanes.
I like the way you think.
Are we talking about a bio-dome here?
To discuss this further, we are joined by journalist and researcher Teddy Wilson.
He publishes at RadicalReports.org.
Teddy, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Of course.
I'm glad to be joining you on the podcast.
I've been an avid listener for quite some time.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, this is, I think, a really fascinating topic.
So we've been talking a bit about the Tennessee bill SB 2691.
Now, the bill itself doesn't specifically mention chemtrails.
So how do we know it really is an anti-chemtrail bill?
Well, so this bill and a few others that have been introduced in legislatures around the country borrows language that has been used by chemtrail conspiracy theorists and, in fact, the group I'm not sure if you necessarily call it a group, but the individual that's really the kind of main proponent of these conspiracy theories, at least in terms of lobbying state legislators, has actively promoted this bill as essentially kind of model legislation, those and a few others.
So it, as you said, it doesn't specifically mention chemtrails.
It's interesting how both with this and with that ritual abuse law, they kind of are aware that it's a conspiracy theory.
theorist, including geoengineering and other terminology that you see that they regularly
use.
It's interesting how both with this and with that like ritual abuse law, they kind of are
aware that it's a conspiracy theory, that there are words that if they use it, they'll
kind of show their hand.
So there's always like a bizarre kind of game of, you know, taxonomy.
I feel like they're aware, you know, they know that it's an anti chemtrail bill, like, just like they know that the other one was like a satanic ritual abuse panic type thing.
But anyways.
And there's a few more kind of phrases that are, I think, Even more a wink of an and a nod to the conspiracy theory that have appeared in other bills that are kind of more explicit about it.
So one in New Hampshire and then one in South Dakota uses these phrases specifically.
So there's cloud seeding, I can't believe there's no Orgone mentioned.
excessive electromagnetic radio frequency microwave radiation.
All those terms are kind of the way, the kind of vernacular that these conspiracy theorists use when they're talking
about chemtrails.
I can't believe there's no orgone mention. That's sad.
I think Travis has an orgone batarang.
It's so funny to me to imagine the idea of these legislators and state representatives sort of behind closed doors trying to figure out the language of this stuff and going like, is that too close to the conspiracy?
We don't want to look like wackos here, alright?
There must be some kind of discussion about how do we do this without being labeled the crazies since much of our research is coming from Reddit.
Well, I think a good thing to remember about this, especially when you're talking about state legislatures, is that, you know, you have hundreds of lawmakers around the country.
And if you look at their backgrounds, most of them are not lawyers, right?
Most of them are not constitutional experts, right?
They are everything from people that own car dealerships to chiropractors, right?
And a lot of the writing of these bills is either done by outside groups or In consultation maybe with their staff members.
And I think what I suspect happens is that, especially with these fringe bills, is that you have these people advocating for these really fringe ideas come in and talk to maybe staff members and put together these bills.
And I'm not sure.
There are some, a few cases when I'm, I'm very certain that a lawmaker was very engaged with some of these fringe conspiracy theorists.
But I think in a lot of cases you see lawmakers.
That are introducing bills because, you know, their constituents, and when I say their constituents, especially when we're talking about kind of right-wing Republican lawmakers, is the people that get them elected in Republican primaries.
So all these really fringe ideas, I think, when people come to them with these bills, they're pretty amenable to putting these, these fringe ideas into bills, because let's be honest, hundreds of these bills get introduced and don't go anywhere.
They die in committee.
Um, so like the idea that one actually passed both houses in Tennessee and was signed by the governor was really kind of surprising that one actually made it all the way through.
So I think there are some things to consider about like how involved these lawmakers actually are.
Sure.
Although I do think there's at least some that are very involved with this process.
Yeah, so instead of the lawmakers themselves, it's the conspiracy theories behind Klotzor's being like, well, we got to take this language out.
We got to do this or else, you know, the governor will never sign this.
They'll think it's wild.
So it gets potentially watered down by the time it's even being proposed to people that can get the law sort of, you know, signed in.
Right.
So yeah, I wanted to talk about how basically these legislatures, they, you know, lobbyists have their ear, which is, you know, a common things that happens with legislation, you know, they don't, you know, spring out of the ether.
But in this case, the lobbyists are basically chemtrails conspiracy theorists who are associated
with a site or a network of sites called Zero Geoengineering.
And specifically, this one is run by a woman who goes by the name Jolie Diane.
And so she apparently is what is the individual driving a lot of this legislation.
Is that right?
So these, I mean, these legislatures, these people with real power are basically being
led by a online chemtrails conspiracy theorist.
That's, that's pretty accurate in how you explained it there.
I think, yeah, Jolie Diane has been pretty active within kind of the conspiracy theory space for quite some time.
You know, there's videos of her speaking at conferences or providing testimony at, whether it's local hearings, legislative hearings, or what have you, going back more than a decade.
And so I think it's also instructive, you mentioned this network of sites that falls under zero geoengineering.
And so I'm sure as you all are well aware, is that when you dig into some of these kind of fringe conspiracy theories, they have a tendency to be connected to other fringe conspiracy theories.
And so this conspiracy around chemtrails and the idea of Geoengineering is also really connected to the conspiracy theories around 5G and Wi-Fi networks and the alleged harm that they can do, as well as genetically modified foods, also the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and also chloride in the water.
So it's this whole kind of network of all these different conspiracy theories, many of which have been around for quite some time.
But Diane has been really kind of the primary person that has been pushing these ideas in state legislatures and also within local governments.
There was a story in the last few months that she had this secret meeting with these county officials in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, warning them about the dangers of 5G and Wi-Fi.
So yes, she's really one of the primary people behind this.
And then, of course, all of her propaganda and kind of conspiratorial ideas get spread around in various different places online.
It's crazy because there are so many technologies right now being, like, worked on full speed with lots of money behind them that are pure evil.
We all know they're going to end terribly.
And there's no Jolie Dianes.
Like, we need we need someone to go crazy like this, but about, like, AI and shit.
There's so many technologies I'd love to shut down.
Geoengineering, not on the top of my list of technologies I'd like us to take a second to think about before we embrace them.
Right.
This is what's really frustrating to me.
The people of Tennessee, like everyone else in the United States, do face very serious environmental and health threats, but among them is not geoengineering chemicals.
So the idea that they would prioritize, you know, the paranoid worries of a conspiracist over more immediate and tangible and material threats is disappointing.
Fracking is right there and it is poisoning like the base layer of water.
I mean, it's fucking, it's right there!
You know, it's interesting too, you know, because as happens with a lot of these conspiracy theories, there is, I think one of the reasons that they are so interesting to people and people become so kind of easily enamored with them and easily taken in is because often there are grains of truth within them.
Right.
So to explain to the audience a little bit, to your listeners, so there is kind of two levels to this, right?
You have the idea of chemtrails, right?
Which is the idea that jets flying at high altitudes are not just creating what are commonly referred to as calm trails, which is where essentially condensation within the air, right?
Creating these clouds as these jets fly at high altitudes, the conspiracy theory is That these planes are releasing chemicals into the air and that they're doing it all over the country.
And then underneath that, when you push these theorists, conspiracy theorists, they'll start talking more about geoengineering and they'll start talking about things that really happened.
Right.
And so one example that is often given that I've read and seen a lot is the military, U.S.
military's operations in the 1950s during what was then called Operation Lack.
It was this whole testing scenario where the US military flew planes over the United States in various locations all around the country and released different small particulate chemicals in the air to see how they would distribute.
It was basically testing for what was the best way to release chemical agents in the air for biological and chemical warfare.
And then in addition to that, especially over the course of the last 15 or 10 years, there's been additional reporting and evidence that suggests that in addition to that, there was also the military purposely targeted communities in St.
Louis and possibly other communities with not just these relatively harmless chemical particulates in the air, but actually targeted these communities with Uh, radioactive chemicals and what have you, and it possibly caused real harm.
And of course they were targeting African American communities in St.
Louis.
And so that is all obviously perfectly believable if you know anything about the history of the US military and other, um, really awful shit they've done.
Like the Tuskegee experiments, right?
And so these conspiracy theorists will often cite that as their example for why they think that is happening today all around the country.
They'll take one piece of really awful history and then use that as the basis to forward their conspiratorial claims.
Mm-hmm.
And that is, I mean, a pattern that we see over and over and over again with conspiracy theories, where they will point to one real issue that has been well-researched and has been proven, and then use that as this, you know, as the basis for why it continues to persist in the way that they believe it to, as opposed to, you know, resisting or criticizing the actual event, you know, itself.
Yeah, you know, it's really I mean, I just want to play a video of Julie Diane because yeah, like you mentioned, she has been at this for a while.
She's not content to merely be online spreading conspiracy theories.
She wants to take her conspiracy theories to people with real positions of power.
So here she is a few years ago, falsely claiming that cell towers are somehow connected to geoengineering efforts.
But the most important thing that I want to tell you about is the electromagnetic component.
And there was a question earlier, how do we measure the geoengineering?
One of the ways is the lab tests.
And again, we have 100 tests in a row, over 100 in a row, right now from the United States and around the world that show geoengineering footprints very clearly.
But the other thing that I want you to know, that's the most important thing that I'm going to talk about here, is the electromagnetic piece.
This is an acoustometer, and this is how we measure electromagnetic microwave radiation, which is pollution, but we don't see it.
Okay, and in the ambient area here, what we're seeing, and you'll notice the pulse nature of this.
Okay, I'll turn this down a little bit.
Okay, as biological beings, we're absorbing the microwave radiation.
And what is crucial about this, and most people don't know, is the role of the cell towers in microwave radiation in geoengineering.
Yes, she brought props, dude.
She takes out her little fucking thing.
It's like, oh man, she rocks.
She takes out the thing.
She holds it directly in front of a microphone, which is providing feedback.
And let's talk about the cell towers and all of the phones that are in your pockets right now that are emitting, you know, electromagnetic fields to some degree.
When she brings up the cell towers, she takes out a printed piece of paper.
It looks a lot like what Alex Jones' staff does for him before every broadcast.
Just like a pile of printed out stuff.
I was hoping that she was going to play some EVPs over that.
You know, a ghostly voice saying, like, there are chemicals in the air.
Absolutely.
Well, that's also my favorite brand of conspiracy theorists is the ones that get very analog, right?
So if you even look at the network of websites she has, I mean, they are really old school designed websites, right?
They look like something from maybe the early aughts.
It's not as bad as maybe like she put it together with GeoCities or something, but You know, they are filled with weird HTML.
There's lots of uploads of pictures of what she claims are testing that has been testing results that are done around the country.
It's, it's really interesting when you, when you kind of dive into their, these worlds and, and how they kind of present their evidence.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, this passage of this bill certainly is a big win for her.
I mean, you've been following, I think, some conspiracists, live streamers and podcasters.
So how have they been reacting to the passage of this bill?
Well, it's interesting.
There's been a lot of celebratory type language around the bill.
There's been a few people that have followed it kind of more intently than others.
None of them particularly well-known that have jumped on this.
A few kind of well-known far-right figures may have mentioned it, but people like Paul Harrell, who is this, he's a host of what is called the Millstone Report.
It's part of the Stu Peters Network.
Stu Peters, the far right white nationalist who has a network of shows on Rumble.
And Harold has talked about this in at least two or three different episodes about the passage of this bill and how important it is.
He spends Most of his time either reading from far-right sources online, reading from the bill, or showing just like videos that people have taken of what they are calling chemtrails around the country.
You know, I've seen everything from, you know, people saying, great, now they need to do this around the country.
Some people are saying, yeah, there's no more chemtrails.
I haven't seen any chemtrails in Tennessee since then.
Since the governor signed it.
And so, yeah, it's been interesting to watch this.
And then one other thing I wanted to mention, I thought about it as, while I was listening to that, that clip of Diane talk about the electromagnetic, the radiation and everything, is often when, when I'm looking into these different conspiracy theories, I tend to also look for the grift, like where's the grift?
And there's some kind of standard stuff with Diane and her and her organization, you know, they sell t-shirts and, you
know, they take donations.
But beyond that, there is another grift that is connected in a similar kind of
arc from this show you did recently about the med beds.
Um, and so, you know, at these different conferences, whether you're
talking about kind of the straight up QAnon conferences or even things like CPAC,
there's all kinds of different vendors selling all kinds of snake oil.
I, you know, the med beds, I've seen them, people have posted pictures
of them at different conferences.
But there's also people that were selling things at these conferences,
things that you can wear that look like chain mail, like hats, literal tin foil
hats, basically, to protect yourself from the radiation and, and the, uh, the
effects of geoengineering and all this kind of stuff.
So there's always kind of the additional grift that goes on with these conspiracy theories.
Well, yeah, if you dress up as a knight, like back then, there was no chemtrails.
So in a way, like, you're kind of protecting yourself from it.
You just need a nice bassinet.
You need a fucking...
Lance.
It's gonna be so funny that as conspiracy culture becomes more and more mainstream how this society just sort of gently devolves back into sort of like medieval clothing and Yes, everybody.
It just the whole world looks like a Ren Faire, but safe, but we're safe at least That's the world these sickos want us to live in.
They want beer wenches at every counter.
They want everybody going, hail!
I have a question.
Has there been any good research, I suppose I should have done this myself, but didn't, about what it actually is when people see the streaks in the sky?
You know, is there anybody that's going up to the Tennessee legislation and saying, hey, actually, when you're seeing this, what it actually is, is this.
They're either dumping their fuel, which Which, you know, is bad.
Or they're doing this, or the planes operate in this sort of way.
How did you get this far in the episode and not know about contrails?
What do you mean?
We've talked about it twice!
Oh, I thought contrails was just like another name for chemtrails.
No, contrails are real things, which is, I mean, Travis has explained it, but it makes sense that you were like, eh, whatever.
Well, explain it as if I didn't know anything.
Travis was talking about it, and Jake was on his back, and a little bubble was coming out of his nose repeatedly.
Yeah, it's condensation that occurs within specific conditions when the jet engine comes into contact with the sky.
Yeah, it's usually at high altitudes.
Yeah.
And it's, I mean, that perfectly kind of illustrates kind of why this kind of often takes, I mean, I've seen everyone from scientists I think even maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson might have done a explainer episode about it on his podcast.
Of course.
Well, he's not helping.
He's not helping.
His tone is, it's like Travis, you know, you shut down.
You're like, I'm being fucking condescended to.
And then that's why, you know, we don't listen when contrails come up.
It's like, whatever, dude, nerd.
Well, and then, you know, this is something Harold and others that talk about this online, you know, they deride people like Weatherman.
So there was a really popular YouTube channel, YouTuber that produces a lot of videos about weather and different weather phenomenon.
And I guess he didn't realize that he had a lot of people that thought chemtrails were real among his viewership.
So he posted a video talking about how, you know, chemtrails aren't actually a real thing.
These are comm trails.
This is how it happens.
This is the weather science behind it.
And he just got ratioed.
In his YouTube comments, because I guess he didn't understand.
And it's also one of the things about it is I think that people find appealing is it's one of those conspiracy theories where people can just point up and say, see?
Yeah.
There's lines in the sky that weren't there before.
They're there, explain that, you know, and, and they'll take videos of lines crossing and stuff.
And people say things like, you know, well, how come there's no Kim trails around military bases?
Or how come they're all in rural or how come they're on urban areas?
They have all these different theories and it's because people can just point their smartphones up in the air and take videos.
And they all kind of go viral within these conspiracy spaces online because it's just.
It's one of the easier conspiracy theories to kind of show proof, right?
You can show your evidence just like, here's a video.
It's real.
Well, and it's also like, it's like, well, and I know that planes can do this on command because I was at the beach the other day and a plane flew over and it said, Chris, will you marry me?
You know, and the plane rode it out and it, you know, it's like any, any kind of, any kind of, A trail whatsoever from a flying aircraft, you know, can be baked.
It's so far away, you know, it feels like it's something that's kind of unexplainable out in the ether, even though there is this very simple sort of rational scientific explanation for it.
What's funny is that, like, they want to rename condensation trails, chemical trails, basically.
That's what you're looking at here.
And they're not wrong!
Everything has chemicals!
Like, everything is chemicals, so it's just- Sure!
Sure, yeah.
It's infuriating.
It's like, yeah, of course, yeah, I mean, condensation, air, there's chemicals everywhere.
That's kind of how the world is made up.
And then there's this, you know, this was kind of an interesting little thing,
like within the comments where, you know, when I posted my piece about this from my newsletter
on Twitter, of course, there was a few kind of chemtrail conspiracy theorists that found it
and started replying to it.
And one person posted these pictures of this plane It had weather modification ink on it, right?
And of course, I was like, okay, that's interesting.
So I went and looked up the plane, looked up the tail number.
Yeah, it's a weather modification plane from this company that isn't flying in the United States.
It's a plane that's being used in Saudi Arabia to seed raid clouds in Saudi Arabia to try to get more rain for those large, expensive cities they're building.
So they kind of throw anything up.
So as you discussed in your report, this one in Tennessee passed, but it's not the only anti chemtrail bill being discussed across the country.
You talk about bills in Rhode Island.
Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and South Dakota.
And specifically focusing on New Hampshire, you discuss representative of Jason Gerhard, who is the sponsor of the anti-chemtrail bill HB 1700 in New Hampshire.
In fact, I have a video of him, which he recorded in his car, discussing that bill.
Just a quick public service announcement.
HB 1700 To stop the spraying of our atmosphere, the geoengineering bill will be heard on the House floor tomorrow.
It has a 16 to 3 recommendation from the committee to kill it, which is not good.
So, if you can reach out to your representatives, that would be extremely helpful.
Just tell them, hey, this bill is important.
Let's kick it back to the committee so we can look at it in more detail.
Because as most people know who are going to watch this, we already know what they're doing.
Alright?
So we have to stop it because we're tired of this crap.
That's the motto.
Alright, so if you can, contact your state reps.
Let them know, hey, the vote's coming up tomorrow, HB1700.
Do not accept the committee recommendation of ITL.
We want to kick it back to the committee.
Alright?
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
This is the classic, uh, my wife is mad at me and I'm in my car at night ranting format.
Well, he certainly knows his audience.
If he had been, you know, buttoned up behind a desk with some books in the background, you know, what doesn't play as well?
No!
In a dark car, uh, with traffic moving by, large trucks shifting gears on the freeway, uh, you're, you're in the pocket.
So, I mean, yeah, you also wrote some interesting information on Representative Gerhard, because it gives us an indication of the kind of crowd that are pushing these anti-chemtrails bills.
So what can you tell us about him?
So Representative Jason Gearhart is an interesting character.
You know, I'm, I'm from Texas.
I grew up here.
I live here now.
I'm used to kind of, kind of strange characters getting elected to state legislature, especially kind of far right fringe characters.
And he's kind of one of the more fringier ones that I've seen get elected to, to a state house anywhere.
So Gearhart actually spent 12 years in prison.
In federal prison before his legislative career, he was involved with this anti-government, anti-tax extremist group, this couple Ed and Elaine Brown.
This was, I think, back in late 90s or early 2000s.
And then he was also arrested back in 2021 for placing anti-mass stickers all around the Manchester City Hall.
So he's had a few run-ins with the law.
And he's also aligned himself with Some successionists.
So he introduced a bill that would declare that if the federal government's debt went over a certain amount, $40 trillion I think it was, then New Hampshire would succeed from the union.
And he's tried to connect with far-right extremists from the Texas National Movement, which is another movement here in Texas that wants Texas to succeed from the union.
So he's got quite a pedigree of kind of the far right extremist kind of model of state legislature.
He also tends to reply to his critics quite a bit on Twitter, formerly X, with like memes and such.
He's really kind of the exact caricature of what you would think as kind of a fringy far right state lawmaker.
I mean, he's he's he's might not be the worst.
I mean, considering that there are actual Self-professed white supremacist and neo-Nazis that have gotten elected to state government and different places.
So, but yeah, he's, uh, quite the character.
And he's also openly talked about, uh, working with Zero Engineering and having meetings with Diane.
Um, in fact, in that video clip that you showed, he posted that on, on Twitter X and at the bottom of the video, he had a link.
To the Zero Engineering website.
So we know specifically that at least in New Hampshire, he was very much involved with these fringe figures pushing this legislation.
I just think that it's, you know, I got to give some respect to someone who's so libertarian they COP 12.
That's, that's commitment, man.
Most libertarians just fucking blah, blah, blah.
All talk.
Yeah.
Go, go do something.
Get something done.
COP 12.
I mean, yet another example of how belief-infringed conspiracy theories can really, you know, sort of actualize a person.
You know, you go from being a, you know, federal penitentiary inmate to a state representative, you know, elected to local government.
I mean, that's... the American dream is still alive, but only if you believe in crazy shit.
I think also he might be a good argument for for the fact that New Hampshire probably really does have too many members in their state legislature.
I think the House has like 420 members or something crazy like that.
And in New Hampshire is not exactly A large state.
So if you are electing people like Representative Gearhart here, I think maybe you need to rethink the size of your legislature.
Yeah, it's like a participation trophy government.
Like, everybody gets a seat.
Yeah, in New Hampshire, one in two people are a state representative.
Well, Teddy, thank you so much for talking about what you've discovered diving into this weird legislature that is getting increasingly popular, like six, seven states.
That's quite a significant number of states that are at least considering this legislature.
Very troubling.
So where can people read more about what you've been reporting on?
Uh, yeah, you can you can find all my reporting and my sub stack newsletter.
It's at RadicalReports.org.
I'm actually kind of working on a piece right now that hopefully will come out next week that dives a little bit more kind of into these conspiracy theories, specifically around chemtrails and the 5G and to kind of dig more into where did these conspiracy theories come from?
Who promotes them now?
How did they evolve over time and how they got connected and folded into other conspiracy theories?
You know, it's, as I mentioned earlier, it's one of the many conspiracy theories that people within QAnon have kind of incorporated into their larger larger umbrella of endless conspiracy theories, but it's
not kind of one of the primary ones, I don't think, but it's kind of out there.
So a lot of these have been around for a long time.
As I mentioned, you know, the idea of fluoride in the water is connected to all this and
that's been around.
People have been talking about that since, I don't know, the 70s or 60s, maybe even longer.
So it's, it's, I find these conspiracy theories that have been around for quite some time to be really kind of fascinating and to kind of look at how they evolved and, and also who has kind of, who are the people that have become ideologically predisposed to them?
Because especially over the last four years, since COVID, we've seen some shifting in, in kind of who is ideologically predisposed to different conspiracy theories.
You know, the anti-vax, kind of movement used to be far more part of the kind of
crunchy fringe kind of far left.
But it has been really accepted within the far right even more. And even some of the people that
kind of were part of that crunchy far left have kind of incorporated themselves into the far right.
So it's been kind of interesting to look at how these have evolved. So that's kind of,
I'm trying to take a deep dive down that rabbit hole to kind of pull more of that out.
Which leads me to my final question that, you know, after spending so much time researching
this kind of stuff, specifically chemtrails, do you find that when you, you know, leave your house
that you are looking up more often than not? I mean, has it affected your own sort of way
that you interpret, you know, your reality? - Unfortunately, yes.
(laughing)
But I would say that's true with a lot of what I've chosen to focus on and report on in my career of being a journalist and researcher, is it just kind of seeps into your head.
And I have been looking up quite more often and kind of wondering, why don't I see any Kim Trails?
Are they not around here?
What am I doing wrong?
So where am I?
Is there a military base nearby?
So yeah, unfortunately it does kind of seep into your head sometimes.
Yeah, we found out through a FOIA request that Teddy Wilson does have his own no-fly zone around your person.
I love this jake-stepping.
I got one last question, Teddy.
What are your top five chemtrails that you've seen?
No, I think it's an important discussion about when you read so much of this stuff, you find yourself, you know, and maybe at least for me personally, it's that little insecure piece of my brain that goes, what if I'm wrong?
You know, what if I'm wrong and the crazy people are right?
You know, it's a dangerous space to sort of muck around in because you're inevitably aware of all these theories, so you are actively looking for them, even if it's in an effort to disprove or explain them in a rational way.
Right, I think that's kind of one of the challenges of this work too is to kind of be able to dive into this stuff and kind of keep your bearings and kind of maintain a certain almost kind of clinical distance to some of it but also at the same time kind of allow yourself I guess to Dive a little bit deeper into it and kind of, at least at times, not view it always through a cynical lens.
What I mean is, I think a lot of people that believe in these things and that support these ideas, I think most of the time it's genuine.
Right.
These are our people that most of these people that believe in this stuff and might spread it online.
I don't think they're all grifters.
Right.
I think there you have to understand there's there's so much that is appealing about these different conspiracy theories to people, because as as y'all know, like the whole kind of the reason the main root that of the reason why these conspiracy theories, all of them kind of generally are so appealing is because they offer relatively simple explanation.
For kind of the chaos that is our lives, right?
Within kind of the grand scheme of things, not just within politics and economics, but also kind of within nature and the universe.
And so I think kind of understanding that most of the people that believe in this stuff are believing it for real, genuine reasons.
And that kind of trying to understand what those reasons are, I think, is important to understanding why these conspiracy theories are so effective.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the QAA Podcast.
If you'd like to have more QAA in your life, you can get a second episode for every main one and access to all of our miniseries and past premium episodes by going to patreon.com slash QAA and signing up for five bucks a month.
Other than that, we've got a website, qaapodcast.com.
Listener, until next week, may the deep dish bless you and keep you.
Soaring 10 or more kilometers above you, high-flying jets can be hard to spot on their own.
However, the white lines they leave in their wake, known as contrails, often give away the aircraft's presence.
But why do these aircraft leave these lines in the sky?
In a nutshell, contrails are mostly water in the form of ice crystals.
Clouds are composed of the same stuff.
While clouds are a natural phenomenon, contrails are not.
The most distinctive contrails come from water vapor in the engine's exhaust, combining with high-altitude low ambient temperature to form the white lines.
The hot, humid exhaust from jet engines mixes with the atmosphere, which at high altitude is of much lower vapor pressure and temperature The water vapor contained in the jet exhaust condenses and may freeze, and this mixing process forms a cloud very similar to the one your hot breath makes on a cold day.
Stroud-Rossmann says jet engine exhaust contains carbon dioxide, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, unburned fuel, soot, and metal particles, as well as water vapor.
The soot and other particles in the exhaust provide handy condensation sites for the water vapor.
A 2015 Contrails fact sheet produced by the United States Environmental Protection Agency says contrails have been in our skies since the advent of the jet age.
Depending on the temperature and the amount of moisture in the air at the aircraft altitude, contrails evaporate quickly if the humidity is low, or persist and grow if the humidity is high, the agency's fact sheet reads.
Jet engine exhaust provides only a small portion of the water that forms ice in persistent contrails.
Persistent contrails are mainly composed of water naturally present along the aircraft flight path.
While all jet engines produce exhaust, that exhaust does not necessarily form contrails.
Conditions in the jet's wake must be right.
The surrounding humidity must be high enough, or the air temperature low enough, for water condensation to occur.
Even at 10km above the Earth, these environmental conditions don't always occur.
Atmospheric pressure and humidity at any given location undergo natural daily and seasonal variations and hence are not always suitable for the formation of contrails, says the EPA.
Condensation from decreases in pressure can also create contrails.
When a wing generates lift, it causes a vortex to form at the wing tip and at the tip of the flap when in use.
Both the wingtips and flap tips break the airflow.
That reduces pressure and temperature in the vortex trailing the interrupted airflow.
In turn, that can cause water vapour on hot, humid days to condense into ice crystals forming white lines in the sky.
One of the side effects of the travel downturn is the absence of contrails in many parts of the world.
Skies that are normally messy with dispersing contrails are now blue and uninterrupted.
Depending on your point of view, this is a good or a bad thing.
