9 Conspiracy Theories More Interesting Than QAnon

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: The streaks left by aircraft in the sky, called contrails, are also changing the weather, making us sick, and controlling our minds. They’re not, of course. But that’s what the “chemtrail” conspiracy theorists believe.

Adherents to this conspiracy theory cite a paper published by the Air Force in 1996 as the inspiration for this theory. In that paper, titled, “Weather as a Force Multiplier,” military researchers speculated over whether they could use weather manipulation in combat. Even though this was explicitly presented as speculative futurism, conspiracy theorists had seen enough to become suspicious. Believers have gathered “evidence” that supposedly shows that chemtrails are longer, brighter, and do not dissipate as normal contrails do, Smithsonian explains. Additionally, they have also supposedly gathered samples from the air and water.

Atmospheric scientists assert that chemtrails aren’t real. In 2016, dozens of scientists published a paper stating that they had not encountered evidence of a secret spraying program and that alleged evidence could be explained through other factors, such as typical airplane contrail formation and poor data sampling.