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

https://rense.com/general4/fre.htm

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2016/08/14/are-conspiracy-theorists-right-about-nefarious-chemtrails/#6c1f26927378

People who believe in the flat earth theory do not think the Earth is round. While on the planet’s surface, it feels and looks flat, so they believe they dismiss all evidence to the contrary. The flat earth society contains people from America and Europe and has been growing since 2009 (Wolchover 2017). Believing that the Earth is flat is one of the ultimate conspiracy theories. There is ample evidence that the Earth is round, but they believe since only what they can see from Earth’s surface is flat that that is the only conclusion.

They believe that the Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall wall of ice, around the rim. The society members claim that NASA employees guard this ice wall to stop people from climbing over, and in theory, falling off the disc of Earth. This can be argued by the people in NASA who have been to space and have taken multiple pictures from satellites showing that the Earth is round. The flat-earthers believe that these photos taken from space are photo shopped. They also say that Earth’s gravity is an illusion, and that objects do not fall downward. Instead, the disc of Earth accelerates them upwards by a mystical force called ‘dark energy.’ This can easily be disputed by Einstein’s theory of relativity. They have a belief that GPS devices are manipulated to make aircraft pilots think that they are flying in straight lines above a sphere, but they are actually flying in circles above the disc of Earth. The reason why the world’s most powerful people are trying to conceal the true flat shape of the Earth is not certain by the Flat Earth Society, but it could be financial. On the Flat Earth society FAQ page, they explain that it would be logically cheaper to fake a space program than to actually have one. On the Flat Earth’s Society’s website, they have a lot of evidence supporting that the Earth is flat, that they explain is derived from many different aspects of science and philosophy. Another argument they make is relying on one’s own senses, meaning just looking around at the surroundings around you and seeing how everything is laid out pretty much flat. The horizon is a flat line, the clouds are flat, and the movement of the sun is flat, so our senses are telling us that we are not on a spherical heliocentric world.

A belief is a cognitive representation of the nature of reality, including our inner experiences, the world around us, and the world beyond. Flat earthers believe in the earth being flat as if the evidence for the earth being round is lacking. It’s not that they do not believe the evidence of the spherical earth, they just deny them. The believers are misinformed and misinterpreting evidence. This theory has a lot to do with confirmation bias. They are so attached to the belief that the Earth is flat that they deny that that there is an alternative explanation, even if demonstrated by science. There overall stance has a major distrust of authority, which sort of binds them to a sort of anti-globalist agenda. Overall, they have a conviction not to trust multinational corporations with unregulated political power, such as NASA.

The belief of the flat Earth was common in ancient Greece, India, China, and a wide range of indigenous cultures. The ancient Greek conception had some similarities with that of early Egyptian thought that the Earth was a large disc surrounded a huge body of water. Today, many people still believe this theory and it is very much accredited to celebrities that believe in this. Rapper B.o.B went on a twitter crusade where he demanded to know why is could not see the earths curve. It was also streamlined on the news when Mike Hughes launched himself and a $20,000 steam powered rocket into the air to prove that the earth is flat. Also, basketball player Kyrie Irving did a podcast where he could not be convinced that the earth was round.

The human brain is sort of made to believe and find conspiracy theories, meaning it has an ability to find meaningful patterns in the world around it.. People are very evolved in the ability to draw conclusions and predict outcomes based on observations and sensory data. The three main things that contribute to the appeal of the Flat Earth Theory is confirmation bias, proportionality bias and illusory pattern perception. Confirmation bias is when people’s willingness to accept that fit what they already believe. This is true with flat earthers because they totally discredit any scientific explanation against their beliefs. Proportionality bias is the inclination to believe that big events must have big causes. This relates to the flat earthers because we fund so much into NASA that they believe that NASA must be doing something that is not right. Illusionary pattern perception is to see causal relations where there may not be any. And this can be explained when they say how the horizon and clouds are flat looking to us that the Earth has to be flat.

Work Cited

https://www.livescience.com/24310-flat-earth-belief.html

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php/topic,1324.msg1312141.html#msg1312141

https://www.theawl.com/2017/12/flat-earthers-and-the-psychology-behind-conspiracy-theories/

https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/flat-wrong-misunderstood-history-flat-earth-theories/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/12/23/conspiracy-theory-psychology/815121001/

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/nation/2017/12/23/conspiracy-theory-psychology/815121001/?from=new-cookie