Conspiracy theories often surround the streaks left by jet aircraft in the sky, commonly known as contrails. While scientifically explained as condensation trails resulting from water vapor in the exhaust plume freezing, some conspiracy theorists propose the idea of “chemtrails.” They allege a clandestine government plot to modify weather or deploy a biological warfare weapon. Nearly 17 percent of Americans, including celebrities like Kylie Jenner and the late Prince, have entertained this theory. Seeking to debunk such claims, scientists from the University of California, Irvine, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and the nonprofit Near Zero organization surveyed 77 atmospheric chemists and geoscientists.
The findings, published in Environmental Research Letters, revealed that 98.7 percent of the surveyed scientists found no evidence of a large-scale program spraying chemicals into the sky. Even when presented with alleged evidence from chemtrail proponents, such as strontium, barium, and aluminum in water, soil, and snow samples, researchers concluded these could be explained by well-understood physics and chemistry related to aircraft contrails and atmospheric aerosols.
The study dismissed the chemtrails conspiracy theory as lacking scientific support. The one scientist who responded affirmatively mentioned finding high levels of atmospheric barium in a remote area but did not categorically rule out deliberate spraying. Study co-author Steven Davis emphasized the lack of scientific consensus supporting the idea that governments, military, or airlines collude in a nefarious program to harm the planet through aerial spraying. Davis related the chemtrails conspiracy theory’s emergence to the internet’s growth and stressed its lack of credibility within the scientific community.