There are two distinct schools of thought regarding crazy conspiracy theories. The first school says that they should not be discussed because it gives crazy, deluded, or simply hopelessly ignorant people a platform to stand on, brings them into the mainstream, and validates them. In other words, this school feels that talking about these theories somehow hints that we should take them seriously.
Another school of thought believes that humanity needs to actively work to rid the World of these unrealistic, crazy, and, simply put, bad ideas. It believes that if people talk about these problems long enough and present evidence to the contrary, conspiracy theorists will start abandoning these silly beliefs because they will now have a better explanation. They feel that the first school of thought is a justified risk.
Without wasting time on too much introduction, this post means that, after much thinking, we will give the second school of thought an advantage.
The world is in such a bad shape that some things need to be disproven, and we should strive for this to reach as many people as possible because if science and reason don’t, there is a risk that the conspiracy theorists will. Of course, people can think for themselves, but if they are constantly exposed to one thing, the rebuttal is nowhere to be found …
So, we’ll start with one that’s particularly annoying: Chemtrails. This is a big topic, and we can cover a lot of ground, so we’ll split it into a few posts to be clear enough and not bore people. Sorry for the long introduction. By the way, if you’re a member of the first school of thought—that we shouldn’t give them a platform—you might want to consider switching to the second school of thought.
Chemtrails? What?
The claim is that these trails that airplanes leave in the sky (if they are long-lasting) are chemicals being sprayed for unknown purposes. The craziness often includes such claims as fighting global warming, attempts to reduce the size of the population, the idea that the US military wants to use the weather in future wars, psychological manipulation, etc.
So, in short, aircraft do leave trails behind, but conspiracy theorists argue that these trails are not what they seem—a normal phenomenon but something more sinister. This article will discuss these trails and how they came to exist.
This is necessary because airplanes do leave trails behind. So, to avoid being inclined to believe something that is not true and, quite honestly, is completely crazy, we need to understand why this is happening and how and why these trails form.
Contrails
The typical trail the aircraft leaves is called a contrail, short for condensation trail. Condensation trails form when the by-products of burning the aircraft fuel mix with cool air. The process of burning aircraft fuel leaves behind carbon dioxide and water. So, there is water vapor in the engine exhaust. This means that water droplets can form. How? Well, hot and humid air exits the engine. This is like when you breathe out warm air from your lungs into the frigid air outside. What happens? You provide moisture to the air, so condensation happens. This is not the whole story, as the contrail freezes in the freezing air.
Note that this only served as an illustration, as it’s different.
Back to the contrails explanation. We have established that aircraft engines can produce water vapor. This gets out into the frigid air of the environment. There is now additional heat and humidity in the air as added by the engine exhaust. This water vapor increases air humidity and condenses into water droplets. The solid particles also deposited by the engine exhaust help to form these droplets more quickly. However, this takes some time, so contrails do not form immediately after the by-products of burning fuel are created but a bit later. This is why you see contrails forming at some distance behind the aircraft. Anyway, now we have a combination of water droplets and freezing air. Freezing air is usually meant below -30°C. When you have cold air, those water droplets freeze very quickly. So, you now have ice particles.
This is what the contrails are made from. Contrails are clouds formed by aircraft engine exhaust. Burning aircraft fuel creates by-products that influence the air around the aircraft, increasing condensation into water droplets that then freeze, forming clouds. That is it. Nothing supernatural, nothing mystical, simply fundamental physics.
So, now we know what is happening, and if somebody asks what they are with an open mind, we can explain it in simple terms. This is usually insufficient to disprove the conspiracy, but it is a start. Now that we know what they are, the next steps will be to try to list the usual conspiracy theorists’ objections to this explanation and show that these objections do not make much sense.
Why do some contrails last for different periods?
One of the loudest objections mentioned previously is that while contrails exist, they are not persistent, meaning they should dissipate almost immediately. Because some versions do not dissipate immediately, these are not contrails but Chemtrails—the chemicals governments use to “spray us like bugs.”
This is blatantly WRONG. Contrails sometimes DO persist. This can be seen in the literature, explained by scientists, explained by NASA, visible in historic pictures, etc. So, let’s start with this video, which looks at various books about clouds dating back 70 years. They all agree – Contrails DO persist. Are all those authors “bought” by the government – or what? If they will argue that – well, first, they must resolve an internal inconsistency within their ranks.
Because, you know, some of them say that Chemtrails weren’t even a thing before the 1990s. According to this article, everything started in 1996! So, how can authors from 70 years ago have been brought to say that when Chemtrails weren’t even a thing then? Were they planning to do it 50 years before? Anyway, here is the video made by contrailscience.com:
So, it’s not a matter of trusting individual scientists, government agencies, or NASA. Scientists from all over the years have been saying the same thing. Contrails sometimes DO persist. So, it should be clear that contrails can persist. Scientists have dismissed arguments that contrails do not persist.
“Such trails are normal water-based contrails (condensation trails) that are routinely left by high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions.”– Wikipedia
Every “Chemtrail” claim or sighting is only a harmless contrail, and people arguing that it is not making an argument from incredulity. Argument from incredulity goes like this:
P1: One can’t imagine how X could be true.
P2: – If X is true, then one could imagine how X could be true.
C1: X is false.– RationalWiki
It goes like this in simpler terms: “I cannot see how it could have happened, so it did not.”
And that, my friends, is a fallacy. Just because you couldn’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s untrue. But the fact is, the whole contrail thing is not even that difficult to understand. You only need to have an open mind and be willing to look at the evidence and listen to what scientists say. Of course, if you start from a premise that you do not believe something, you will try hard to find arguments to undermine it. But this means you are not completely honest with yourself, but wish to have your previous opinion validated.
I know that my audience is rational, so I will try to refrain from using the pronoun “you” and instead use the pronoun “they.”
So, if we accept that there are contrails that can stay longer than a few minutes, let’s see why this happens and why such contrails are mistaken for something sinister.
Types of contrails
1. Short-lived contrails
“Disappearing almost as fast as the aeroplane goes across the sky, lasting only a few minutes or less. The air that the aeroplane is passing through is moist, and only a small amount of water vapour is available to form a contrail. The ice particles that do form quickly return to a vapour state.” – NASA
2. Persistent but not spreading contrails
They look like long white lines, like short-lived contrails, but remain visible after the aeroplane disappears. WHY? Well, the explanation is quite simple. The atmospheric conditions are different. The air is very humid, and much water vapour is available.
As Wikipedia says, if the atmosphere is near saturation, the contrail may exist for some time. Conversely, if the atmosphere is dry, the contrail will dissipate quickly.
For more images of these types of Contrails, visit the Contrail Chart at The Contrail Education Project – NASA.
3. Persistent, spreading Contrails
This type will likely cause the most alarm in areas where they spread. The spreading can happen because ice crystals come in diverse sizes; some are smaller, some are bigger, so they get down at different rates – and when you combine that with varying speeds of wind, you get various degrees of spreading. The effect can become very noticeable if you have a lot of air traffic in that area. Wikipedia says that the formation of these types of contrails is remarkably similar to the process of forming “Cirrus uncinus clouds“.
Contrails can have a lateral spread of several kilometres, and given sufficient air traffic, contrails can create an entirely overcast sky that increases the ice budget of individual contrails and persists for hours. – Wikipedia.
For more images of these types of Contrails, visit the Contrail Chart at The Contrail Education Project – NASA.
So, there are different forms of contrails. Most conspiracy theorists would agree that only type 1 – which dissipates quickly is a contrail. However, this is wrong.
If there is more moisture, there is a larger amount of vapour available, so a longer contrail will form because there are more droplets to freeze into the ice particles. By definition, it makes sense that these are more permanent than those in areas with less moisture. More ice in the more humid air stays longer than less ice in the less humid air because the particles do not return so quickly to the vapour state.
Third, we have a persistent and spreading type because of the area’s different wind speeds. So, persistent contrails move in the presence of fierce winds—and you get persistent, spreading contrails.
Conclusion
Now we know why the Chemtrail conspiracy exists. People see contrails and think they are spraying us when the explanation is simple if they are only willing to consider it. We have explored what chemtrails are and the most common objection to why the contrail explanation is not satisfactory to them. But we have also seen that the conspiracy theorists are wrong and that persistent contrails exist, and we know why they exist. So, we have established a case for the phenomenon we have all been seeing in our skies and now know what causes it and the diverse types.
But we have debunked very few claims because it’s still theoretically possible that not everything is a harmless contrail. The fact that contrails can explain everything doesn’t strictly mean that they do indeed explain everything – so a crazy conspiracy theorist can still offer various insane theories about what they are, even though we have a much BETTER and SIMPLER explanation.
But even with only this knowledge, we can and should demand EVIDENCE for their claims about Chemtrails because, as we all know, they are the ones making a claim, and the one making a claim must back it up with evidence. If they offer no physical evidence, they have no case, because as the brilliant late Christopher Hitchens would say:
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence
Christopher Hitchens
So, after this, if a conspiracy theorist gives us no evidence, we can dismiss their claims and walk with our heads held high. However, we might want to try to persuade them or debunk even their claims. This is possible, so stopping at their claims’ real explanation and basic debunking is unnecessary. We can even go further and offer counterarguments to everything they offer.
In the subsequent post in the series, we’ll deal with claims that scientific tests have revealed that chemicals have been sprayed. We’ll see that this is not true. So, until next time – remember to think critically.
Further reading:
- The Contrail Education Project – NASA
- Contrail Science
- Contrail – Wikipedia
- Contrails 101 – Federal Aviation Administration