It is believed by some that contrails, or a trail of condensed water from an aircraft at high altitude, are chemtrails that contain chemicals made to harm humans. These chemicals are supposedly put in these jets by the government for various goals such as for profit solar radiation management, weather modification, mind control, human population control, and biological warfare, that is they are causing respiratory and other health problems. This all began in the 1990s when investigative journalists started to describe implied plots by the government to inject poisons into the atmosphere by the trails of jet planes. This belief is still believed by many today but the Air Force and many other scientific agencies have responded to these various information sites with information on why they are incorrect. Information concerning this extraordinary belief is online and YouTube. This extraordinary belief is important to look at because many individuals believe that the government has a secret plan to harm their citizens.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The evidence backing up the claim that there is a large secret program that the government is poisoning people from aircraft is very weak, as most are just photos of the sky and not hard evidence. It’s said that chemtrails look just like normal contrails, but are thicker, extend across the sky, and laid down in patters, like X’s, grids, or parallel lines. They do not dissipate quickly, instead they open into formations that look like fake cirrus-type clouds that last for hours. Witnesses have photographed military and unmarked jets who leave these long-lasting trails. The chemicals that are being released are said to be unknown, because only a few planes in the world can analyze them and they are expensive. Chemtrailers have said they have tested the soil that these chemtrails have fallen on and have found chemicals. A panel of 77 atmospheric chemists and geochemists have responded to these claims to give their findings. The patterns found in these contrails are from multiple aircrafts flying in different directions of each other intersecting their trails. Contrails can last anywhere from a second to several hours as it depends on atmospheric conditions at the altitude the plane is flying. There are no scientific findings of chemicals in these trails, and for the soil tests scientists say that whoever collected the samples they did not do so properly.
People who believe in this conspiracy think that the government has their own agenda and should be to blame for many health issues in America. Ultimately these people are misinformed. When scientists try to disprove their beliefs, their explanation is ultimately considered just a part of the ‘cover up.’ The evidence that is presented for chemtrails do not have any strong evidence that explains it. The belief of chemical spraying would mean that thousands of people would be sworn to secrecy, like pilots, delivery men, aircraft maintainers, ect., and that not one person would have leaked the truth.
Believers in this theory come from all around the United States and all levels of education. There is a chemtrial group on Facebook with about 114,000 members. Many of these people are outcasts, and having this social group of similar people backing up their beliefs they feel more accepted. These believers feel a sense of belonging in their group but also have a sense of being different as only a small population believes this. A reason people believe in chemtrails is they want to blame bad things happening to them, like sicknesses, on a higher power because they are controlling them.
Ockham’s Razor, or when choosing a possible explanation for a phenomenon the simplest one is usually the best, can help fight this theory. As water vapor condensing in high-altitude, very cold air is simpler than the idea that the government is secretly spraying people with chemicals for their own personal benefit. Closed groups of like-minded people one of the big reasons why conspiracy theories solidify online. When closed off groups are supporting each other by sharing their ideas who believe the same things often further confirms what they believe. There’s confirmation biases where people can get caught up in only believing that chemtrails are real and anything against it is fake or covering up the truth. These people also have a distrust to authority as the government are the people who are running chemtrails.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory#cite_note-Cairns2014-27
https://skepticalinquirer.org/newsletter/chemtrail_conspiracy/?/sb/show/chemtrail_conspiracy
https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/chemtrails-conspiracy-theory
I commented on another person’s post about chemtrails as well, but the specific goal with the other blog was just mind-control itself. I liked your post as well because you give other alternatives as to what people believe is the goal for these contrails. I think the part that grabbed my absolute attention the most was when you were explaining how geochemists etc. tested the grounds on which chemtrails had fallen and found a positive sign of excess chemicals in the soil. First of all, how could they accurately track the falling pattern of these so called “chemicals” all the way to the ground? Second, how do you test soil for chemicals? What’s a normal reading for the earth’s crust at baseline before these mysterious chemtrails land on it? These are just some of the questions I have regarding this experiment! Overall, very nice post!
Yeah I had the same thought about testing the soil for chemicals. I never found any articles on what chemicals were found or even where it was. Im assuming maybe they tested soil that had been sprayed with pesticides as that has many chemicals in it? Also, planes fly so high in the air that it would be impossible to know exactly where these ‘chemicals’ would fall. But we have learned about how people will only accept any information that further deepens their belief in conspiracy so I am sure when they found a chemical in the dirt they wouldn’t contribute it to any other reason than to chemtrails.
Government conspiracies are really just mistrust in the government so they are paranoid that the government is after them. I commented on another person’s post as well on chemtrails and it focused more on mind-control while you focused on sickness. One of the big questions that I asked in the other one is, how is the government protected from this if there really are chemtrails? I also find it interesting that when the tested the soil, obviously they wouldn’t have tested it before because they didn’t know that a “Chemtrail” would be there but to think that these people believe this is scientific evidence is kind of interesting. It goes to show how a lot of people don’t know the basics on scientific experiments.
If chemtrails were real I think alot of people from the government would be going to jail, and I would even know what to trust to be real. That would change the whole countries view on who is running our country. For this to be true that would mean thousands of people who are involved are able to keep this all to themselves without someone finding out.
This chemtrail conspiracy theory is very typical contains most of the elements we learned in the class. Although having little or no authentic evidence, people would still contribute their lack of information to government’s conspiracy. To be honest, they even don’t have named the chemicals that would cause danger, not mention really list some example of how flight’s air route is directly related to certain disease in the region. However, this groups of people would not stop blaming government for this chemtrails, because what they really could get form the conspiracy theorizing is a false concept that illness not happens randomly but controlled by somebody.
I think the people who believe that the government is causing illnesses that they feel powerless. Instead of the belief that people can just randomly get sick that an evil power (in this case the government) is in control of these random bad things. The believers have a sense of control knowing this because no else know and they know the ‘truth’.
The idea that the government is able to control peoples minds, the weather, human population and more just with a chemical from a plane is definitely an extraordinary belief. In your blog post you hit almost every aspect of elements of conspiracy theories that we discussed in class. If the government were actually able to control something with a thing as simple as a chemical expelling from an airplane, what would you want them to control?
I would be scared if the government was actually spraying people with chemicals. If the government was spraying chemicals from an airplane, I don’t know what I would want them to control. Maybe control emotions by making people more calm so there would be less violence in the world.
You should be honest, and change the name of this page; you’re not investigating extraordinary beliefs, you attempting to label them all as nonsense. (Credit where credit is due; you do a good job of pretending to be open minded about it.)
In my opinion, extraordinary beliefs do not require extraordinary proof; merely adequate proof. I make this distinction, because the assumption that is carried with this so often repeated axiom is that there has to be some element of the dramatic about the proof. That it has to match the emotional impact of the extraordinary assertion. This is not at all scientific. But, it does allow those who have already decided that they know what is real and unreal to dismiss proofs offered, if they fail to make the grade for dramatic impact.
Furthermore, you cite Occam’s razor, principle of parsimony. I would like to point out a couple of things about this. First off, the vast majority of those who cite Occam on this point have consistently failed to understand its context. And, even often misunderstand/misquote the axiom itself. Occam’s observation on this point was not that one should not multiply hypothesizes needlessly (as it so often stated) but that one should not multiply generalities needlessly. (If you want some clarity on this, read a book called “Nihilism Before Nietzsche” which has a chapter on what Occam’s model of consciousness was, and how his axioms related to that model.)
But, even if we are to accept the common definition given, that of so-called parsimony, I would like to point out the following. If empirical science had rested on this principle alone (i.e. the simplest explanation being the most likely to be correct), then it would have remained stranded in 18-19th century physics. I mean, of course, that several of the most important advances in the understanding of the nature of the cosmos run counter to parsimony. Einstein’s relativity, atomic and sub-atomic theories, Quantum mechanics and chaos theory… none of these are immediately apparent in our physical interactions with the world; they are not the simplest explanation. Yet they are true; and represent some of the most significant findings of the last hundred years.
Thank you, Steve. After reading one of these, I quickly realized the student’s intention was not to explore extraordinary beliefs, or even the psychology behind why people believe extraordinary ideas, (which, based on the bold and assertive text, “THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EXTRAORDINARY BELIEFS”, at top of the page, is what I assumed the article would be about). After reading a few more, it’s completely obvious that the intention of this section of this website, is, as you point out, to label extraordinary beliefs as nonsense. It would be less annoying to me, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, if the title was changed to something more appropriate. “APOLOGETICS FOR DEBUNKING CONSPIRACY THEORIES” seems like a good choice. Either that, or, “HERE ARE THE STANDARD ARGUMENTS AGAINST SOME COMMON CONSPIRACY THEORIES”. Also, I agree with your opinion that extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary proof, but rather, adequate proof. The fact that the idea isn’t based in science, paired with the placement of the sentence causes me to think the author included it for a dramatic effect. Which, for me, set the tone and discredited the author. (Also, to the students: do you actually pay real money to take this class?!)