Claim: DARPA is Spraying Chemtrails Out of Planes via Jet Fuel

Verdict: False and highly misleading

“That is not happening in my agency. We don’t do that. It’s done, we think, by DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. And a lot of it now is coming out of the jet fuel. You know, those materials are put in jet fuel. I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it.”

– RFK Jr.

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Last week, after his discussion of electromagnetic fields, RFK Jr. made an off-hand reference to “chemtrails.” Although he didn’t say much about it in that speech, he’s been more open about it in the past. So is RFK Jr. right about chemtrails?

Chemtrails vs. Contrails

As a 26-year old Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet explains, the commonly-seen trails emitted from aircraft are contrails. These are simply line-shaped “clouds” formed by condensed water that has frozen into tiny particles of ice.

Air can only hold so much water, and this amount increases as the air temperature increases. So there is condensation – and contrails – if there is too much moisture, or if the temperature decreases.

Hot water vapour is a by-product of the combustion of jet fuel. However, as it is released into the surrounding air, it cools and often condenses into liquid droplets. This is the true cause of most things called “chemtrails.”

What Do Experts Think About Chemtrails?

An interesting paper presented supposed “evidence” of chemtrails to 77 experts in either contrails or atmospheric deposition. Most of this was either in the form of photos of contrails or chemical analyses of water, snow or soil samples.

All but one expert said they had not encountered evidence of a large-scale atmospheric program. For all the photographs, no expert said that such a program was the simplest explanation, and offered explanations generally relating to humidity. For the chemical analyses, over 82% said chemtrail-like programs weren’t the simplest explanation. Here, there was more uncertainty, with up to 14% saying they weren’t sure of the cause, and one even backing a secret atmospheric program as an explanation.

The Final Verdict

RFK Jr.’s claims were made without evidence. There appears to be no DARPA program doing such activity, several agencies regulate aircraft emissions, and jet fuel does not release the chemicals proponents claim it does [3]. This could be all done in secret – theoretically – but there is no evidence of it.