An article circulated online, asserting that NASA had confessed to dispersing airborne lithium over Americans. The piece from April 19, 2016, posted on AnonHQ, claimed to offer evidence that NASA openly admitted to the practice of spraying lithium, a drug commonly used to treat individuals with bipolar disorder, into the ionosphere. It purportedly cited NASA personnel acknowledging the intentional release of lithium and other chemicals into the environment, alleging that NASA’s motivations for such actions remained concealed and even unidentified to many of its employees.
The article suggested sinister motives behind the alleged dosing of Americans with lithium, tying it to vague notions of mass vaccinations through aerosolized vaccines. However, the cited studies and articles failed to correlate with the purported conspiracy. One mentioned study from 2003 discussed aerosolized vaccines administered to human subjects, while another piece in The New England Journal of Medicine examined aerosolized measles vaccines in children in India, neither having any direct link to the alleged chemical dispersal.
Included in the post was a video titled “NASA admits chemtrails,” which presented an audio recording featuring a conversation between a person named “Sue” and NASA astrophysicist Douglas Rowland. However, the discussion was misleadingly edited, leading to misconceptions about NASA’s intentions. Rowland clarified that lithium was part of a scientific study to understand upper atmospheric wind patterns, a publicly disclosed project using lithium vapor trails to track atmospheric movements, a common scientific practice.
Contrary to the sensational claims, the use of lithium in NASA’s research was openly documented and had no secretive or clandestine agenda. The agency had been employing lithium in rocket launches since the 1950s to study upper atmospheric phenomena, specifically to observe wind and ion drifts in the ionosphere. NASA’s research with lithium was intended to understand natural atmospheric behaviors rather than manipulate them, debunking the conspiracy theories alleging sinister motives behind the lithium dispersion.
The article’s attempt to link unrelated scientific studies, misinterpret audio recordings, and misrepresent NASA’s disclosed research created a false narrative about NASA’s use of lithium, falsely attributing malicious intent to well-established scientific practices.