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- Are Americans being poisoned by chemical
trails left by mystery aircraft? MARK PILKINGTON takes to the skies and
sees white lines getting up the noses of the conspiracy crowd.
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- Since late last year, a major new cause
for concern has been plaguing the outer reaches of the Internet. People
all across America, and more recently in Canada and the UK, have been casting
their eyes skywards and noticing mysterious contrail patterns left by æroplanes,
often reported as KC-135 air tankers. These contrails, or "chemtrails",
composed of condensation droplets turned into ice crystals at high altitudes,
take on a variety of forms. Some run parallel to each other, some cross
to form Xs (used to "mark the spot" for satellites, apparently)
and grids, others shape circles, letter Ws and, in one case, the Roman
numeral XII. While in Norwich in early February, this reporter noticed
a giant smiley face formed from clouds high above. Other reports describe
criss-crossing planes laying trails which spread out to form natural-looking
cloud cover. Witnesses have reported seeing 50 to 60 planes flying at a
time.
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- Perhaps it was all that time spent standing
in the cold looking at the sky, but many of those caught outside during
a contrail spread soon found themselves suffering a variety of ailments.
Most seemed to be symptoms usually associated with flu congestion, increased
mucus flows, chills etc but some reports described people coughing up
blood, suffering nosebleeds, grossly inflamed joints and other things too
nasty for flu infections. But, it has to be said, the most recent rash
of reports, between November 1998 and February 1999, did coincide with
the flu season, and the bugs were particularly virulent this year.
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- So far, suggested explanations for the
recent rash of lines in the sky have included mass culling of the US population
(so, who, as one wag put it, would eat all those Big Macs?); weather modification
experiments; biological warfare tests; detection and decontamination of
chemical and biological agents, especially anthrax [FT122:19]; illegal
fuel dumping by military jets, and illicit spraying of the carcinogenic
pesticide ethylene dibromide (EDB). A novel assessment was provided by
Chen Hon-Ming, leader of the God Saves The Earth Flying Saucer Foundation.
In March 1998 he produced his own snapshots of mystery contrails which,
he explained, were produced by God,s own flying machines portents of imminent
Armageddon [FT109:24].
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- Another precursor to the current scare
took place over Cuba in October 1996, when a US plane was spotted releasing
a white substance over Matanzas province, east of Havana. The Cubans suspected
the plane of initiating an infestation of the potato-loving Thryps palmi
as part of the quiet war against their nation, and accused America of "biological
oppression". The US State Department admitted that the plane en route
to eliminating Colombian coca plantations had indeed released white smoke,
but only to mark its position to a commercial airliner. The Cubans were
not convinced [FT103:10].
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- Repetitive and largely apocryphal tales
of contrail-related sickness flooded the Internet over the winter months.
By early February, William Thomas, the "chemtrails," main proponent,
and a possible source of this most recent panic, was claiming to have a
BBC report and photos of 8,100 deaths in the UK from respiratory failure
in three weeks, including the grisly detail that "refrigerated semi-trailers
were used to haul away corpses". This was the first anyone in the
UK had heard of the calamity. Considering its apparent importance, the
contrails story seemed not to exist anywhere but on the web. And, despite
tales of scores of jets filling the skies with deadly trails, the vast
majority of photos presented online showed only clouds or ordinary-looking
emissions none of the celestial blankets we were hearing so much about
and no planes.
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- A slew of fortean phenomena has been
associated with the contrails. Some remembered the clear blobs of jelly
which fell over Oakville, Washington, in August 1994, causing residents
to become ill with particularly nasty flu-like symptoms [FT79:18]. The
ubiquitous Black Helicopters (also said to be responsible for some of the
recent "chemtrail" sprayings), MIBs, and flying triangles were
soon being spotted in the area. Locals blamed the military and dismissed
their suggestion that the blobs were jellyfish remains, blown into the
air after sea-bombing 50 miles (80km) away. In December 1997, Everett,
Washington was subjected to a similar blob fall, again followed by mystery
illnesses.
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- In early October 1998, about 300 starlings
dropped out of the skies over Tacoma, Washington, suffering blood clots
in the heart and lungs and crushed chests. Poison and disease were ruled
out, leading some to suggest that they may have hit a truck or been blown
to earth by a sudden gust of wind [FT118:6]. Another birdfall occurred
on 23 January 1999, when thousands of grackles (blackbirds) hit the deck
near Bastrop, Louisiana, about 323 miles (517 km) north of New Orleans.
The falls continued until 28 January, leaving residents baffled and disturbed
as the hapless birds died slow, painful-looking deaths, appearing to have
difficulty breathing like many sufferers of "chemtrail" poisoning.
Explanations other than contrails included a virus such as encephalitis,
pesticides or avian botulism.
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- Another mystery epidemic has been affecting
farms in Northeast America, most notably Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Whole litters of pigs are turning purple and dying young, then decomposing
at double speed, their fat deposits breaking down and, in the memorable
words of one farmer, turning them into "slop". Crops too are
turning purple and dying before growing properly. Birth defects are also
occurring at an abnormally high rate. In the past couple of years one Pennsylvania
dairy farm has seen a calf born at three times the typical weight, another
born a hermaphrodite and a third born with no neck or tail and reversed
leg joints. Despite multiple tests, the US Environmental Protection Agency
is baffled.
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- Weird weather sometimes seems to follow
contrail sightings. Less than 48 hours after an alleged low-level spraying
over Victoria, BC on 1 March, localised heavy snow hit a nearby town while
hurricane winds hit the region, sweeping their way south into Washington
state USA. Joining the dots has led some to connect the contrails with
weather modification experiments, perhaps in conjunction with conspiracists,
darling, HAARP the High-frequency Active Aural Research Program based
in Alaska and Puerto Rico.
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- One reported physical manifestation of
the contrails is a strange substance usually described as being like spiders,
cobwebs, or in the case of Tommy L Farmer from Tennessee, "six to
eight inches [1520cm] in length and about the diameter of a pencil".
Farmer claims to have collected the material 10 minutes after five planes
had flown over leaving contrails. Such material will be familiar to UFO
buffs as "angel hair", which sometimes drifts to earth after
UFO sightings. In the most recent case, on 10 August 1998 in Qurindi, New
South Wales, 61-year-old Mrs E Stansfield saw 20silver spheres flying overhead;
"when some of them manuvred and increased speed this cobweb-like substance
started to drop to the ground."
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- The Quirindi material was described as
light, whitish and strong like cotton (cotton strands blown over 186 miles
(300km) from large plantations was one initial, rejected, explanation).
When husband John attempted to scoop some up, it disintegrated. Some ufologists
think "angel hair" may be a result of high-altitude electromagnetic
polymerisation of nitrogen and oxygen, perhaps caused by the UFOs, propulsion
system. Most, however, suspect it to be a misidentification of the silk
"parachutes" used to travel long distances by mass-migrating
baby spiders. Indeed, a fast-disintegrating sample of the Quirindi material
handed to ufologist Bill Chalker for analysis did turn out to be spiders,
web.
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- There are several problems with the "chemtrails"
story. One of the key, supposedly mysterious features attributed to them
is their ability to fan out across the sky, creating blankets of cloud
cover. Many breathless observers have described witnessing this process,
which is, in fact, entirely normal. In finely balanced conditions, when
the air at high altitude is near water-saturation point, the ice crystals
leaving a plane,s exhaust can suddenly tip the scales, causing cirrus clouds
to creep gradually across the skies for miles. In an excellent critical
assault, researcher Jay Reynolds made the crucial point that the alleged
chemical-spraying planes are flying far too high to directly affect observers
on the ground, as contrails only form at the freezing temperatures found
5-10 miles (8-16km) up. Witnesses claimed to become ill soon after seeing
trail-leaving planes in the sky, but any sprayed chemical agents or substances
would drift several hundred miles before reaching the ground, most likely
evaporating or degrading before reaching their victims.
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- Noisy "chemtrail" proponent
William Thomas was also selling vitamin and mineral supplements to protect
against chemical warfare agents and the effects of contrail poisonings.
A much-touted lab report circulated by one Richard Finke, pinpointing EDB
traces in the contrails, was also found to be entirely fictitious. A cunning
cash-in on the anxieties of the chemical generation? Perhaps, but as has
been shown on previous occasions with the EQ Pegasi hoax, for example
[FT119:22] it doesn,t take much for the Web,s fringe-dwellers to start
getting the fear.
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- The contrail threat isn,t entirely imagined,
however. NASA has been carrying out genuine research into the possible
effects of contrails and increased air activity on the environment. An
average contrail can last for hours before evolving into cirrus clouds
the largest measured covered 2,000 square miles (5,180sq km) of west America.
Scientists have long been concerned that, with an expected six-fold increase
in plane flights, such cirrus spreads might trap heat in the Earth,s atmosphere,
so contributing to global warning. According to NASA research, cirrus cloud
cover over America has increased five per cent since 1971, with the figure
higher in the north-east. By late April, other than for a few die-hards,
the panic seemed to have abated somewhat. The "chemtrails" crisis
preys on concerns which, to varying extents, we all share continued environmental
pollution, the threat of biological warfare and terrorism, mistrust of
government. It also demonstrates our continuing susceptibility to irrational
fears, the speed with which mass panics can now span continents and cross
oceans, and most clearly of all, our ignorance of the skies under which
we live our lives.
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