Understanding our atmosphere through science, not speculation. A detailed resource that debunks geoengineering and chemtrail conspiracies, weather-modification myths, and misinformation about the sky.
What would it actually take to run a nationwide US “chemtrail” operation?
Our analysis reveals the staggering logistics — 165 aircraft, thousands of workers, and billions of dollars each year. The numbers tell their own story.
Contrails can linger and spread because they are essentially man-made cirrus clouds formed from ice crystals at high altitude. A cloud is made of water vapour, just like a contrail. Therefore if a cloud can linger, so can a contrail. When an aircraft’s hot exhaust mixes with cold, humid air, the resulting condensation freezes, creating thin white trails.
Physicist David Grimes’s 2016 mathematical model shows that large conspiracies such as Chemtrails inevitably unravel through leaks. His analysis demonstrates that a secret global spraying programme involving thousands of people over decades is statistically implausible.
Cloud seeding and so-called “chemtrails” are fundamentally different, though often confused in conspiracy circles. Cloud seeding is a small-scale, scientifically documented technique in which aircraft introduce minute amounts of silver iodide into existing clouds to encourage rainfall; it does not involve spraying chemicals into clear skies, nor does it leave visible white streaks. Chemtrails.
Sun dimming, or solar radiation management (SRM), involves deliberately reducing incoming solar energy. A key method, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), disperses reflective particles to raise Earth’s albedo, similar to cooling observed after volcanic eruptions. While models suggest this could lower global temperatures, risks include ozone depletion, altered rainfall patterns, and termination shock make it a highly uncertain intervention.
Chemtrail believers often argue that certain cloud types are “new” formations created by secret weather manipulation, yet this claim overlooks the long history of cloud observation. Many of the patterns they point to have been described and classified by meteorologists for decades, with some recorded in cloud atlases from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Belief in conspiracies such as chemtrails and covert geoengineering programmes reveals more about the human psyche than about the atmosphere. We investigate individual motives, socio-cultural triggers, cognitive biases and online networks, offering a nuanced psychology-based explanation of why these theories persist.
Not all clouds fit neatly into the ten main genera. Some appear as distinctive features or as by-products of atmospheric processes. These forms provide visual evidence of atmospheric motion or turbulence and are important signals for weather observers and forecasters.
Persistent contrails form only when aircraft exhaust encounters air that is both cold enough for condensation and supersaturated with respect to ice. Understanding temperature thresholds, humidity profiles and upper tropospheric dynamics allows accurate prediction of when contrails will persist, spread and evolve into cirrus like layers.
The UK government, via its Advanced Research & Invention Agency (Aria), has launched a research programme worth approximately £56.8 million aimed at small-scale experiments in solar radiation management (SRM). These are explicitly not deployment: the studies are in experimental and modelling phases, with stringent oversight, assessments, and public/community consultations required before any outdoor trial moves forward.
Clouds are more than just shapes in the sky — they’re important clues about what’s happening in the atmosphere. Scientists classify them into ten main types, grouped by the altitude where they form. Each type has its own appearance and often hints at the kind of weather we can expect.
