Our world is flooded with conflicting special interests pushing contradictory ideas and perspectives fueled by social media. So, you can’t blame folks for getting confused when trying to understand some of the mysterious phenomena that surround us. Because it’s happened before and will likely happen again somewhere, it doesn’t take much imagination to suspect how secret government experiments might be impacting our environment and health. But just as it is our responsibility to keep governments and other powerful entities accountable, it is also our obligation to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction, casting aside the imagined so that we can focus on real issues and problems. This story will use critical thinking and the scientific method to help clear up some popular misconceptions about what has been popularly called geoengineering, AKA climate intervention or modification.
Geoengineering Cultures and Confirmation Bias
We can start with more than a decade of very public statements and events that finally inspired this story. My first big wakeup call came around 2011, while wandering into one of those Occupy Wall Street encampments at City Hall; I noticed a giant “Chemtrails=Geoengineering=Crimes Against Humanity” banner draped across the plaza. When I extended my hand and politely quizzed the protagonist about his sign, he asked me why I was bothering to explain the science for him and then he walked away in frustration. While radio-channel surfing several years ago, I chanced upon a DJ on a famously progressive-leaning all-news station asking for donations during a pledge drive. She was ranting about how chemtrails were so prevalent one day and absent on others, proving that some sort of secret government program was responsible for spraying our skies with poisonous chemicals that were changing our weather and how their investigative reporters were getting to the bottom of it all. Then there was the popular local TV news anchor who went on a special assignment interviewing people who believed that their health problems only flared up when those mysterious chemtrails appeared overhead above 25,000 feet. That perspective earned a series of prime-time TV stories shamelessly designed to boost network ratings.
More recently, on May 15, 2025, I stumbled upon a popular right-leaning radio talk show interview with the documentary-maker, chemtrail promoter, and champion of climate conspiracy theories, Matt Landman. He trumpeted to millions of listeners how recent devasting fires in Hawaii and California (and other tragic disasters) were caused by geoengineering. He also claimed that rainmaking had been “perfected”, and all that government and other “powers that be” had to do is flip a switch and make it rain on top of those fires and put them out. I was finally pushed into doing this story when a friend of mine, who is educated about these matters, wrote, “I know several people including some smart friends who 100% believe jet trails are a nefarious something that is being done by the “government”. They say if the jet trails were just vapor, they would disappear right away and they don’t.”
Regardless of your politics (geoengineering believers are commonly found on the far right and far left of the political spectrum) … Mission Control, we have a big information problem that needs our attention. Objective scientific explanations and analyses of climate intervention makes a lot of people uncomfortable; presenting solid evidence that unveils mysteries and may challenge true believers can foster resentment. Scientists and educators are sometimes intimidated until they become uneasy about truth-telling in such a hyped-up confirmation bias cancel culture. So, we must jump into this pop-culture controversy with our continuing commitment to just keep to the facts.
Jet Trails or Contrails or Chemtrails?
People have noticed and photographed jet trails (or contrails) in the sky for a century, ever since the beginning of jet aviation. In my book, The California Sky Watcher, I wrote about the science behind contrails in the section about clouds. Here is an excerpt with some editing for this story:
When you see jet trails—or condensation trails (contrails)—forming, they are announcing that the upper altitudes, where jets are flying, are near their dew points. You might notice them during any season, but once they form, they are likely to drift faster with higher-velocity winds as nature’s winter jet streams sweep farther south. Jets emit particulates and moisture from their exhaust into air at around 30,000 feet (9,140 m) altitude. Way up there, where it may be colder than –50°F (–46°C), vapor will almost immediately freeze around the jet exhaust to form ice-crystal cirrus-cloud streaks. When jet trails are thicker and last longer, there are often cirrus clouds forming near them in the saturated air at these high altitudes. When drier upper layers are not near their dew points, the jet trails will quickly sublimate (turn from ice directly into vapor) and disappear into the clear air. Jet trails may also quickly form by a process called aerodynamic condensation, which occurs as air is forced over the wings, causing adiabatic expansion and cooling of the moist air to its dew point. If you want to learn the detailed physics behind that specific process, here’s an article.
Technologies (see below) allow us to track particular airline flights that might be making trails; just follow their flight patterns. Research has shown that these slender clouds can combine to block and reflect enough shortwave sunlight back to space to suppress afternoon surface temperatures downward by a degree or more. When conditions are favorable, look for the linear shadows they can cast through hazy skies. But they also absorb longwave radiation from Earth’s surface at night, only to reradiate it back toward the surface, keeping overnight low temperatures just a bit warmer. The net result might be slight global warming in our atmosphere. At these high altitudes, the suspended jet exhaust pollution will likely be carried hundreds or thousands of miles in strong upper-level winds until it gets diluted and dispersed into global circulation patterns.
You might recognize how foolish it would be to attempt to poison a particular place or population with a chemtrail above 25,000 feet that is likely to drift a continent or ocean away as it is mixing and dispersing in the upper atmosphere. And then there are the thousands of scientists, engineers, pilots, and all the support staff and other workers who would be keeping these secrets from all of us. And don’t take my word or it. Check out the following explanations from the experts who dedicate their careers to researching this stuff.
Chem trails debunked: Royal Aeronautical Society
American Meteorological Society, 2017 Research Paper on Contrails
You can also use several apps (Flightradar24 , FlightAware , Plane Finder) that allow you to track flights in real-time and see exactly what planes are flying overhead. Flightradar24 even offers an augmented reality (AR) feature to identify planes by pointing your device at the sky.
Some who have finally cast aside their claims of secret government flight chemtrails still argue that someone is purposely placing chemicals, designed to poison us and/or change the climate, into jet fuels. But fuels must be carefully formulated to keep flights safe and efficient and the dangerous chemicals often mentioned aren’t even found in jet fuels. Nevertheless, public officials, including our current US Health and Human Services Secretary, have fueled these rumors with reckless rhetoric and empty promises.
Some political leaders (from at least 8 states) are even trying to pass legislation to stop something that doesn’t exist. Here is an article that traces the roots of several decades of geoengineering history and some myths that have often been championed by those on the far left and then far right of the political spectrum, which is now morphing into legislation of the bizarre.
Weather Radar
Another rumor gone viral (and promoted by some who must know better) is how weather radar stations are designed to change our weather. But radar technologies have been widely used in law enforcement and air traffic control and our atmosphere has always been bombarded with radio waves from the universe, not to mention more than a century of humans’ radio and TV waves. Equipment within “those round domes” you might see uses Doppler radar (microwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum) to detect the speed and direction of moving objects. They use the Doppler effect, tracking the change in frequency of their propagated and then reflected radio waves, to measure the direction and speed of objects in the sky. Those spherical “radomes” are just shells designed to shield the sensitive equipment inside and minimize interference with radar signals.
These radar technologies have greatly improved forecasters’ ability to immediately monitor precipitation and storms as they form and move and they can even detect powerful winds and circulations in the clouds before they become dangerous funnel clouds or deadly tornadoes. You can thank such technologies for saving thousands of lives each year and making your plane flights safer. Yet, in the spirit of you can’t make this stuff up, some clueless (or worse) public officials have proposed banning them! Here’s another plea to not take my word for it and do your own research. How radar works
Weather radar stations in the US, including both NEXRAD (Next-Generation Radar) and TDWR (Terminal Doppler Weather Radar), are operated by different federal agencies. The National Weather Service (NWS), an agency within NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), operates and maintains NEXRAD stations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains and operates TDWR stations. Additionally, the US Air Force also plays a role in the NEXRAD system.
You may also have heard the sordid stories about HAARP, especially from talk radio programs and other media looking to boost their ratings. This acronym for the scientific research facility in Alaska stands for High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, where they have been using a high-frequency transmitter to study the ionosphere, that charged-up rarified top or our atmosphere that affects radio wave propagation and extends from more than 30 miles high on out into space. Unfortunately, HAARP research scientists have been accused of manipulating weather and even engaging in mind control, which should make us wonder who’s trying to control whom.
Cloud Seeding
Here’s where humans have been experimenting with weather modification for years, but with mixed results at best. So that we don’t try to reinvent the wheel, I will use another edited excerpt from my California Sky Watcher book to summarize cloud seeding in California:
“Cloud seeding is one of the most studied and debated forms of weather modification. It exploits natural processes to enhance precipitation from thick clouds that are potential precipitation producers. Such cloud-seeding experiments date back more than seventy years, with some “success.” Remember that most of the substantial rain you have experienced in California started high in the clouds as ice and snow that eventually melted before reaching the ground. In some clouds with favorable dynamics, adding just the right number of minute particles (either launched from the ground or from planes) that can act as freezing nuclei (such as silver iodide) seems to slightly enhance precipitation totals. This happens as the freezing nuclei grow layers of ice by attracting very cold water in clouds that then freezes on to the nuclei surfaces. (This is also known as the Bergeron process.) The ice crystals grow large enough to fall through the clouds, attracting more moisture along the way and producing heavier precipitation than might have been expected. (Similar methods have been used to clear thick, cold fog banks.) This process does not work in warm clouds that may drop lighter rain and drizzle.
Rain- and snowmaking is a tricky business given that even when seeding is considered successful, a lot of uncertainty and risk management remains. We have much more to learn about weather modification, which explains why the American Meteorological Society encourages only the most well-designed experimentation and research and recommends caution when people are fooling around with these natural processes. In spite of these uncertainties, as of 2025, several California agencies continued experimenting with cloud-seeding efforts, especially to enhance Sierra Nevada snowpacks. (An increasing number of studies have suggested snowfall enhancement success of up to 3–10 percent in the mountains.) Water and utility districts such as in Sacramento and the East Bay, PG&E, the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, and Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties continue their experimental programs, hoping for the best.
We have come a long way since Charles Hatfield roamed our drought-stricken state in the early 1900s, advancing what some believed to be his magical rainmaking skills. When he was finally hired to break the 1915 drought in San Diego, by chance a historic nearly 30 inches (76 cm) of rain fell in less than a month, causing devastating and deadly flooding. Hatfield’s shenanigans even inspired a classic 1950s Western movie, The Rainmaker. Our weather knowledge then was barely a drop in the bucket compared to what we know today, as better-informed scientists and would-be rainmakers continue with their weather modification debates and efforts. Such struggles with nature make me suspect that the Native Americans before us better understood some of California’s weather and water cycles.”
The historic July 4, 2025 flash flood tragedy along the Guadalupe River in Texas (see our adjacent website story) brought cloud seeding into the headlines again when it was learned how a California-based company called “Rainmaker” had been working in Texas. But the company had only seeded two small clouds in distant south-central Texas two days before the flood, and the puffy potential rainmakers evaporated within a couple of hours. Rainmaker wisely suspended operations two days before the Texas floods as moist air masses moved toward the region and forecast models warned of big storms in the days ahead. Still, clueless social media posts pointed fingers in attempts to displace the blame.
You will find a wealth of links to research on cloud seeding at the end of this story (below).
Become Part of the Solution by Spreading the Knowledge
It is our responsibility to combat confirmation bias by moving forward with transparency and integrity. Please share these back-to-reality facts with your friends who have been misled by some skeptics who are well-intentioned, some who are true believers and followers, some who take advantage of people’s fears and vulnerabilities, and others who should know better. Show them how old-fashioned critical thinking and use of the scientific method can clear up any confusion they might have about climate intervention/modification, or what they call geoengineering. And if they insist on following these distracting conspiracy theory trails that lead to dead ends, remind them of the old adage I have slightly modified, but applies perfectly here: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, weird weather we’re having, eh?”
To repeat “Don’t take my word for it.”, here are some relevant links to share:
The Latest AMS Statement on Climate Intervention
NOAA Fact Check on Climate Modification
Weather Modification Project Reports from NOAA
Cloud Seeding Links and Details:
Recent GAO paper on Cloud Seeding
In case you missed that Texas flash flood/cloud seeding article, here’s the link sent from climatologist Bill Patzert.
From 2016: The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has been regulating and monitoring cloud seeding programs in California, which are used to enhance precipitation, particularly snow and rain. These programs involve the release of substances like silver iodide into clouds to promote ice crystal formation and increase precipitation. The DWR requires sponsors to file notices of intent and comply with environmental regulations.
To track cloud seeding programs in the US, you can consult resources that include the Colorado Virtual Library, NOAA’s Library, and the North American Weather Modification Council. Some other states also have their own programs, such as Colorado’s Weather Modification Program. Additionally, organizations such as the Desert Research Institute conduct research and operate cloud seeding projects.
Just in case you haven’t seen enough contrail images ….
THE END
