Several contrails show up in this amazing video sequence of a full year of days shown simultaneously.

A History of the Sky

The chemtrail conspiracy theory seems to frequently misidentify ordinary contrails as “chemtrails” – some kind of secret spraying program. This theory comes in many flavors, and these’s a large number of things people bring up as “evidence” to support this theory. I’ve tried to gather all the debunks of this evidence in one place here, for easy reference. This is a work in progress, and will remain on the front page here as I expand and refine it. Continue reading »

Sometimes planes leave contrails, and sometimes they don’t.  It depends on the weather, and specifically it depends on the weather at altitude.  It’s also very localized.  A plane might leave a trail in one region, and another plane a mile away might not leave a trail.

NASA have put together a contrail forecast page that you can use to roughly predict when contrails are likely for a given region, and a given altitude.  The following image should be the current forecast

The presence of a circle at a particular point simply tells you if the conditions are favorable for contrail formation at the altitude indicated by the color of the circle.  The size of the circle only varies so different altitudes can be shown at the same point, but the smaller the circle, the higher the altitude.

The Mb scale on the left is the measure of atmospheric pressure in millibars.  This can roughly be translated to altitude, as pressure decreases fairly uniformly with altitude.  Planes actually use the air pressure to measure their altitude using an altimeter, but you have to set it to the local sea level pressure in order to get an accurate result for landing and take-off.  To avoid confusion, planes flying above 18,000 feet all set their altimeters to the same reference, 29.92 inchs of mercury, or 1013.25mb (for sea level).

The scale starts at 400mb, which is around 23,500 feet, and goes to 125mb, or about 48,500 feet.

The page describes how this works, and I repeat it here in full:

The RUC model data are representations of the complete 3-dimensional structure of wind, temperature, and humidity over the USA at a resolution of 25 mb and 40 km. The horizontal resolution has been degraded to 1° latitude x 1° longitude to facilitate the computations. Because they are based on a sparse number of actual in situ (balloon sonde) data taken every 12 hours and satellite measurements, the RUC data are not a perfect representation of the various meteorological parameters, especially water vapor. The model humidity at upper levels of the atmosphere is often too low, reflecting the current biases known to exist in our measurement system. Persistent contrails require a relative humidity with respect to ice (RHI) that exceeds 100%. We know that contrails are sometimes observed in areas where estimates of the RHI are less than 100%. The existence of contrails in those locations highlights the “dry-bias” in the humidity fields.

Because the input data do not perfectly characterize the meteorological conditions, the diagnoses of persistent contrail conditions are only estimates and will not detect all of the areas where persistent contrails will form and may also add areas of formation that do not exist. All estimates of persistent contrail formation conditions are based on a modified Appleman curve using three different engine propulsion efficiencies. To give some idea of where contrails may form, but are not diagnosed, we have included information about RHI for values above 70% for single-level plots.

Two forms of results are presented.

1. Favorable contrail conditions, for a range of pressure levels between 125 and 400 mb, are represented as concentric circles – color coded with reducing diameter for each level. These results can be displayed for engine efficiencies of 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4.

Favorable contrail conditions at each level, represented by ‘X’, along with relative humidity w.r.t ice (RHI). These results are only available for engine efficiencies of 0.3.

[Original Post Dec 7 2010, updated Feb 13th 2011 with German contrail]

This is a remarkably common news story:  It’s just after sunset, someone looks towards the west and they see the short contrail of a jet plane illuminated by the sun.  It looks red, like fire.  They zoom in with their video camera.   They don’t know what it is, thinking it’s a fireball, a meteor, or some kind of UFO, so they alert the local media.  The local media published it, and occasionally the story grows.

Here’s one from Germany:

From this video: Continue reading »

This must be the least missile-like mystery-missile ever. Taken Sunday, Jan 2nd, 2011, at “about three in the afternoon. The video shows a jet contrail – barely moving relative to the clouds. It’s just a jet that happened to fly directly overhead, so the approaching contrail looks vertical.

http://www.kiiitv.com/global/category.asp?c=194871&clipId=5436881&autostart=true

After showing the video, they go on to show some actual missiles, which look nothing like this as they zip into the sky at several thousand miles an hour.

It’s an optical illusion, see:

http://contrailscience.com/contrails-are-usually-horizontal/

Continue reading »

CASE CLOSED:  It was Red Bull Air Force!

Update:  Here’s the google earth file

I was forwarded an interesting video on TMZ a few days ago:

http://www.tmz.com/2010/12/09/manu-ginobili-ufo-video-san-antonio-spurs/

It shows Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs as he observes some kind of UFO in the sky behind him.  At first it looks like the short sunlit contrail of a plane.  But then it seems to be moving much too fast, even changing direction.

Continue reading »

I think the one thing that prevented most people from seeing the supposed “missile” trail as what it was (a jet contrail, almost certainly from flight UPS902 from Hawaii), was the illusion that it looked like it was going straight up. Compare one photo of the 902 trail with a typical Space Shuttle Launch

You can see how the casual viewer might get confused

The documentary film “What in the World are They Spraying“, by Michael J. Murphy, attempts to promote the Chemtrail Conspiracy Theory (which states that long lasting contrails are actually the result of secret government spray operations), and proposes a possible explanation: that the trails part of a geoengineering project involving injecting large amounts of aluminum into the atmosphere to block the suns rays.

Multiple parallel trails over Mt Shasta, California. Taken in 1989, ten years before the chemtrail operations were supposed to have begun.

The basic premise of the film is:

• Normal Contrails fade away quickly
• Scientists have talked about geoengineering using aluminum sprayed from planes
• Since 1999, trails have been observed to persist for a long time
• Tests in various locations at ground level have found different levels of aluminum
• Monsanto has genetically engineered  aluminum resistent crops
• The government denies any spraying or geoengineering is going on
• THEREFORE:  The trails are aluminum being sprayed as part of a secret government geoengineering project.

Normal contrails can persist and spread

That reasoning is somewhat suspect even if you accept all the points. But where it really falls down is that it’s based on a false assumption – that “normal” contrails quickly fade away.   In reality, normal contrails can persist for hours, and spread out to cover the sky.  Whether they do this or not is entirely dependent on the atmospheric conditions that the plane is flying through, so it depends on the weather, and on the altitude of the plane. This is something that has been observed since 1921. Just look at any book on the weather, like this one from 1981:

Continue reading »

Most of the traffic to this site comes via Google and other search engines. It’s interesting to look at what people typed in to that ended up here. Quite often it’s just a few words like “chemtrail aircraft pictures” or “contrails engine”, but sometimes it’s a question. I see them ask their questions and end up here, but I’m not sure if they find the right answer.

So I present the “Infrequently Asked Questions” (exactly as typed into Google).  I’ll update this from time to time when I see a new question.

Why does a contrail vanish?
Contrails are made of ice crystals from water in the exhaust and the surrounding air. They vanish because the ice turns back into water vapor. If will vanish faster if the air is dry and/or relatively warm. They can stay for a long time though.

Contrails, which are ice particles vs chemtrails?
Some people say the longer lasting trails are “chemtrails”, but there’s no evidence to support this, as some trails have always lasted a long time.

How long lasting trails are created?
Exactly the same as the short trails. They just last longer because of the weather at that altitude (which is often unrelated to the weather on the ground).  When it’s cold and humid at 30,000 feet, then contrails at 30,000 feet will last longer.

How long have chemtrails being going on for?
The chemtrail story was first told around 1997.

How planes create acid rain
Acid rain is caused mostly by ground based industrial pollution of ammonia, carbon, nitrogen and sulfur. Very little comes from planes. Planes could create acid rain by deliberately spraying large amount of sulfur to affect the climate, but there’s no evidence that anyone have ever done this.  In fact the creation of acid rain is a very big reason why they will not.

Why don’t we see many contrails anymore?
The amount of air traffic has not changed much in the last 2-3 years.  So if you’ve suddenly stopped seeing contrails then it’s probably because it’s summer, and the conditions for contrail formation don’t exist that frequently in summer.  Particularly in places like southern California, which have hot dry summers.  I’ve seen far fewer contrails now it’s June.

Why do military jets leave a contrails?
For the same reason commercial and private jets leave contrails: water in the exhaust freezes to create trails of ice clouds.  Military jets might create different contrails depending on the circumstances, as they have different engines (particularly fighter jets).

Do all planes make chemtrails?
All planes can make contrails, but only if they fly high enough to encounter cold enough air.  In very cold places like Alaska, even cars can make contrails. The trails that people suspect of being “chemtrails” are probably just contrails.

Can contrails stay in the air?
Yes.  Contrails are physically almost identical to clouds, so they act like clouds.  They are usually a bit denser than clouds, so can stay around longer if conditions are right.

What jets can you see contrails from?
Any jet flying through cold enough and moist enough air will produce contrails. In more marginal conditions then it depends on the “contrail factor” of the engine.  If it’s warm or dry enough then no jets will be able to leave a contrail.

What is bill hr 2977 about?
It’s about the weaponization of space.  It bans “space based” weapons, and list several, including “chemtrails” (which is pretty odd, as “chemtrails” are not space based, unless you consider flying in a passenger jet to be space travel).  It was written by some UFO enthusiasts.

Is there barium in gasoline?
Not according to Google, except if added via fuel additives, and those mentioned were old, and related to diesel. You might get some barium in the exhaust from barium additives in the engine lubricants, such as Barium Hydroxide Octahydrate.

Why would two planes fly next to each other?
The most likely explanation is that they just look like they are next to each other, but really one is a thousand feet or more above the other.  However they might be planes on a photo shoot or military planes practicing maneuvers.

Do contrails cause climate change
Yes. Although the amount and nature of this is still uncertain.  It’s also a different kind of climate change to CO2 emissions, because if we stopped flying then the contrail climate change would also stop immediately.  If we stop emitting CO2, then it would still take decades for it to have an effect.

Black line in sky in front of plane?
That is a volumetric shadow.  Only visible when the contrail is lined up with the sun relative to the observer, so the observer is inside the shadow.

Do contrails create pollution?
No.  Contrails are just ice clouds made from the water in plane engine exhausts.  However some people consider this to be visual pollution.  Plane engine exhaust is pollution just like car and truck exhaust is, however a plane creates the same amount of pollution wether it leaves a contrail or not.

Why do regular planes leave a trail?
All planes leave trails if the conditions are right at the altitude they are flying.   If you see one plane leaving a trail, and another not, then they are probably at slightly different altitudes.  It only takes a few hundred feet.

Can a contrail form at any height?
Yes.  However in most of the world the answer is no, as it’s too warm at the lower altitudes.  Typically contrails form above 25,000 feet (five miles up), in temperatures of -40F or colder.  In very cold places like Alaska they can form at ground level.

How long after chemtrails is it safe to go outside
There’s no real evidence that “chemtrails” are anything other than persistent contrails.  However if an aerosol was being sprayed then remember  that aerosols basically hang in the air, falling at 1 foot per second they would take at least eight hours to reach the ground, and by that time would have spread over an area of thousands of square miles, lingering in the air for days.  So essentially the answer would be: never.

are the elite ptb still chemspraying the popualce of the world?
No. At least if they are then they are doing it without leaving any evidence, which would be rather impressive with the millions of people that would need to be involved in covering it up.

How can you tell the difference of a plane dumping fuel or leaving contrails?
Most planes dump fuel from the wingtips.  It also usually happens  at a lower altitude.  The resultant plume is much hazier than a contrail, and evaporates quickly.

How long will it take the droplet to fall 2000 m if it goes 1 cm every second?
1 meter is 100 cm. So 2000 meters is 200,000 cm. At 1 cm per second it would take 200,000 seconds, which is 55 hours, or just over two days.  Wolfram Alpha is useful for things like this.

Why was contrail forecasting important to the Air Force in the 1950s but not in the 1980s?
It was and still is important.  The reason has always been because of stealth – a plane might dodge the radar, but if it leaves a long contrail then it’s hard to hide.  Perhaps in the 1950s there was more of a focus on spy planes, and now they have either been largely replaced by satellites, or they have figured out how to avoid contrail producing regions of the atmosphere.

Can contrails blow accross the sky in a straight line?
Yes.  Air moves as large circulating masses.  If you look at a weather map, in  any given 50 mile wide region the air is moving pretty much in the same direction.  So a contrail will move like that.  It will distort eventually, depending on atmospheric conditions.

Why can you hear some planes but not others?
Different sized planes can be at very different altitudes bu look the same.  A plane at 30,000 feet that is twice the size of one at 15,000 feet will look like it’s the same, but will be further away, so quieter.  But a more dramatic difference is between planes that are climbing at 90% of  full power, and those that are descending, at maybe 5% of full power.  The descending plane will be vastly quieter than the climbing plane.  This also applies to planes at cruising altitude when they make relatively small altitude adjustments.

Do people actually believe in chemtrails?
Some people are probably trolling, or promoting the theory for some reason like selling their books or medical products.  However many people do seem to genuinely believe that the theory is supported by the evidence.  I think this site shows that it is not.  The believers tend to also believe a varied range of other conspiracy theories.

Why do orbs seem to follow contrails?
“Orbs” are things in the sky that appear round from a great distance, or in a photo or video (often they are individual bokeh highlights).   They are things like plastic bags, balloons, planes, birds, clouds, or even specks of dust in a bright light.  They don’t actually follow contrails, it’s just that you were looking at the contrail, and you saw orbs. They are everywhere in the sky if you look long enough.

Who came up with the theory of chemtrails?
The theory grew online around 1997 out of concerns regarding pollution from jet fuel additives.  It’s not clear if one person started it, but some of the early names mentioned are Larry Wayne Harris, Richard Finke, John Grace, and Bill Brumbaugh.  It has been greatly propmted by William Thomas, Art Bell and Jeff Rense.

Is chemtrails responsible for acid rain?
If planes were spraying something like sulphur, then that would create acid rain.  But there’s no evidence that they are.  The human causes of acid rain are things like power stations, factories and transportation.

Do commercial airlines seed clouds on the west coast
Not in the usual sense of making low rain clouds rain more.  But contrails are clouds, and the ones that persist are essentially”seeded” by the engine exhaust. But contrails are ice clouds, and don’t produce rain.  They do sometimes make the sky overcast.

Normal atmospheric barium levels?
Via the EPA: The primary source of barium in the atmosphere is industrial emissions. Barium concentrations ranging from 0.0002 ug/m3 to 0.028 ug/m3 (mean of 0.012 ug/m3) have been detected in urban areas of North America (ATSDR, 1992). Barium is naturally occurring in most surface waters and in public drinking water supplies. Barium content in U.S. drinking water supplies ranges from 1 to 20 ug/L; in some areas barium concentrations as high as 10,000 ug/L have been detected (WHO, 1990). Barium is ubiquitous in soils, with concentration ranging from 15 to 3000 ppm.

Of course you’ve got to watch your units there.  Also note that the measurement of barium in the atmosphere is in micrograms per cubic meter OF AIR. The concentration of barium in airborne dust is an entirely different measurement, which is where Arizona Skywatch went so badly wrong.

How long does it take an airplane to reach 30,000 ft
At an average climb rate of 1800 feet/minute, it would take about 16 minutes.  But it can vary a lot based on the plane, the load, and what the pilot wants.  An SR-71 could do it in less than three minutes if pushed. Larger commercial jets can take up to 30 minutes or more.   Not all planes even go up to 30,000 feet, especially for short flights.

Does NASA claim that contrails cannot form in the stratosphere
No. Nasa says:

Contrails usually form in the upper portion of the troposphere and in the lower stratosphere where jet aircraft normally fly, generally between about 8 and 12 km altitude (~26,000 to 39,000 feet). They can also form closer to the ground when the air is very cold and has enough moisture.