# Chemtrails and HAARP **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041 "2014-10-21T16:45:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/1 "2014-10-21T16:45:42Z")
A co-worker and I were discussing the notion of [chemtrails](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chemtrails) last night. He contends that this is a real thing, and that [HAARP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program) ( **H** igh Frequency **A** ctive **A** ural **R** esearch **P** rogram) admitted as much on their website. He repeated this claim many times and insisted I should go to their website and see for myself. When attempting to do just that this afternoon, I can’t seem to get their website to load. The links provided at RationalWiki and Wikipedia (www.haarp.alaska.edu, same URL at each site) have timed out. A quick google search doesn’t find a HAARP page either. Since they’ve been slated for shutdown for a while now, I’m guessing the 'site is no more. Which means I can’t go to their website and see for myself this compelling evidence in support of HAARP’s supposed admission they did indeed release chemicals into the skies above us via jet exhaust. I’m sure that chemtrails have been discussed here before so I’m hoping someone might have an inkling what my friend might have been referring to. A quick aside, and in fairness to my friend slash co-worker, I have to admit I introduced this topic into our discussion because he and I had clashed over conspiracy theories in the past. I effectively ambushed him for my own amusement, and his response was made from a defensive position. I don’t want to mis-characterize him as a raving CT nutter who wouldn’t shut up about HAARP. Also a note to the moderators of this forum; I’ve seen other CT discussion in _Great Debates_ so this seemed the best fit for the topic, but if it’s misplaced, I do apologize and would not object to its relocation. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/2 "2014-10-21T17:00:20Z")
The master speaks on [chemtrails](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2556/are-jet-contrails-the-latest-threat) and [HAARP](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1218/will-haarp-energy-beams-destroy-the-ionosphere). Both are pretty old (and ridiculous) CTs that probably aren’t worth the time to pop the bubble of the person bringing them up. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/3 "2014-10-21T17:01:13Z")
Shut down back in 2013 for lack of funds. [http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-facility-shuts-down](http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-facility-shuts-down) ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/4 "2014-10-21T17:11:27Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Shut down back in 2013 for lack of funds. > > [HAARP Facility Shuts Down](http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-facility-shuts-down) That’s just what they _want_ you to believe! @OP: anyone who seriously buys into the whole chemtrails theory is so far off the deep end that rational thought is clearly beyond them. Either that, or they firmly believe in something they clearly didn’t spend much time thinking through or researching. What, exactly, is the conspiracy here? The government is putting chemicals in jet airliners (chemicals that presumably have weight, so that totally works with how these planes were designed) to poison us. Because apparently the government wants to poison us. If you’re willing to buy into that crap, you’re so divorced from reality that you’re paying child support to it! ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/5 "2014-10-21T19:33:43Z")
To tell the truth, the government allows chemtrail conspiracy theories to persist because it distracts from their _real_ secret use, which is sending communications in a Braille/Morse type language between top-secret installations. Although, the content of said communications is typically along the lines of: **"S-E-N-D M-O-R-E P-I-S-T-A-C-H-I-O-S!"** ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/6 "2014-10-21T20:09:20Z")
> [@orangeapples](#): > > When attempting to do just that this afternoon, I can’t seem to get their website to load. The links provided at RationalWiki and Wikipedia (www.haarp.alaska.edu, same URL at each site) have timed out. A quick google search doesn’t find a HAARP page either. Since they’ve been slated for shutdown for a while now, I’m guessing the 'site is no more. The Wayback Machine to the rescue! [https://web.archive.org/web/\*/www.haarp.alaska.edu](https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.haarp.alaska.edu) June 5, 2013 was the last update. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/7 "2014-10-21T20:27:08Z")
OP, is your coworker also a Truther? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/8 "2014-10-21T21:07:45Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Shut down back in 2013 for lack of funds. > > [HAARP Facility Shuts Down](http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-facility-shuts-down) And I believe it was scheduled to be bulldozed before the winter set in this year, but I’m not sure that happened: > **[Bye-Bye To The Home Of A Favorite Internet Conspiracy Theory](https://www.npr.org/2014/06/10/319539712/bye-bye-to-the-home-of-a-favorite-internet-conspiracy-theory)** > > The U.S. military is closing a facility scientists have used to study the edge of Earth's atmosphere. Conspiracy theorists suspect it's also been used for nefarious activity — like mind control. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/9 "2014-10-21T21:59:45Z")
The response I always give to people who wants to warn me about government mind control: just accept it, you’ll be happier that way ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/10 "2014-10-22T11:33:56Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Because apparently the government wants to poison us. If you’re willing to buy into that crap, you’re so divorced from reality that you’re paying child support to it! The purpose is usually for making the population docile like sheep. But that’s ridiculous, that’s what TV is for. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/11 "2014-10-22T12:29:24Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t want to mis-characterize him as a raving CT nutter who wouldn’t shut up about HAARP. You wouldn’t be mischaracterizing him. And I’d stay away from any heavy machinery that he’s operating. > **[How To Debunk Chemtrails – Contrail Science](https://contrailscience.com/how-to-debunk-chemtrails/)** ---
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/12 "2014-10-22T16:32:35Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > That’s just what they _want_ you to believe! > @OP: anyone who seriously buys into the whole chemtrails theory is so far off the deep end that rational thought is clearly beyond them. Either that, or they firmly believe in something they clearly didn’t spend much time thinking through or researching. **What, exactly, is the conspiracy here?** The government is putting chemicals in jet airliners (chemicals that presumably have weight, so that totally works with how these planes were designed) to poison us. Because apparently the government wants to poison us. If you’re willing to buy into that crap, you’re so divorced from reality that you’re paying child support to it! (Bolding mine) I actually asked him, “Why?” because the notion (like most of the CT’s I’ve heard) is beyond ridiculous. Why would the ever-present They be doing this and what do They hope to achieve? He said it wasn’t weather control, or mind-control, but by golly HAARP admitted to it so it was real and I needed to go to their 'site and see for myself. > [@CurtC](#): > > The Wayback Machine to the rescue! > > [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.haarp.alaska.edu) > > June 5, 2013 was the last update. What people can do with the internet just amazes me. My googling skills are puny, I did not turn that page up in my search. Having spent a bit of time there since you posted that link, I still have no idea what my co-worker was talking about. I see no evidence there that HAARP is connected to ‘chemtrails’. But now I can say, “Dude, I looked, and you’re full of shit,” so thank you most much. > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > OP, is your coworker also a Truther? Well, that’s a qualified maybe. Long story not much longer, during a different conversation, I bounced a few well-known supposed conspiracies off him to gauge his level of commitment to various (what I believe to be) whack-job beliefs. I don’t recall specifics, or his exact responses, but towards the end I asked about the moon landing, and whether or not Nine Eleven was an inside job. His replies were firmly in “the truth is out there” territory, but the entire conversation was light in tone and he might have just been ribbing me. My best guess is that since he fancies himself anti-establishment he’ll give more credence than he should to any proposed theory that casts the Powers That Be in a bad light. Lizard people running the world, though, he just chuckled at that one. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > You wouldn’t be mischaracterizing him. And I’d stay away from any heavy machinery that he’s operating. > > [How To Debunk Chemtrails – Contrail Science](http://contrailscience.com/how-to-debunk-chemtrails/) Ironic, that, since as a regular part of our day-to-day job functions we both operate what could be considered heavy machinery (forklifts and the like). Not exactly earth-moving level of heavy machinery, but it would still hurt a whole lot to get hit by one of those things on the warehouse floor. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/13 "2014-10-22T17:09:01Z")
I only regret that I didn’t introduce the link with “Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to June 5, 2013…” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/14 "2014-10-25T01:23:18Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Although, the content of said communications is typically along the lines of: **“S-E-N-D M-O-R-E P-I-S-T-A-C-H-I-O-S!”** One of the upsides of the Iranian Revolution was the opening it gave the American pistachio growers, just getting their start. Iranian pistachios were tiny and dyed red, originally to cover flaws left by the their cleaning process. Modern, American pistachios are three times the size and can be be sold in their clean, tawny glory. Sure, there were a few years without pistachios, but once production ramped up it’s been a golden age of the pistachio. Or are the big, tasty ones the result of a mutation caused by chemtrails? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/15 "2014-10-25T07:37:48Z")
> [@orangeapples](#): > > (Bolding mine) > I actually asked him, “Why?” because the notion (like most of the CT’s I’ve heard) is beyond ridiculous. Why would the ever-present They be doing this and what do They hope to achieve? He said it wasn’t weather control, or mind-control, but by golly HAARP admitted to it so it was real and I needed to go to their 'site and see for myself. Well, there you go. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/16 "2014-10-28T14:58:50Z")
If some evil group is doing something evil and even admitted it on their website, you’d think it would be bigger news. If the same evil group is evilly suppressing the news on that particular evil deed, why would they put it on their website? ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/18 "2014-10-28T15:36:50Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > If some evil group is doing something evil and even admitted it on their website, you’d think it would be bigger news. > > If the same evil group is evilly suppressing the news on that particular evil deed, why would they put it on their website? Well, isn’t evil usually portrayed as being so gleeful over their evil success that they become incompetent? Evil is as evil does. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/19 "2014-10-28T16:00:15Z")
> [@Taajsgpm](#): > > I recently read that NASA admitted it? no? That NASA admitted what, exactly? And where did you read this? Can you share a link? ---
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chemtrails-and-haarp/702041/20 "2014-10-28T18:33:33Z")
I have yet to find the admission that HAARP allegedly made, so I’m not ready to look into NASA links yet. 🙂 I believe I mentioned earlier in this thread that my friend and I work weekends so I had ample opportunity to press him on the matter the past couple of days. He, in turn, moved his goalposts a few times. Turns out this particular conspiracy is extremely versatile and its design is multifaceted. There was some ambiguous talk of unscrupulous corporate powers, and whether or not they would be willing to poison people. Also, I apparently misrepresented his case in an earlier post because we slipped into climate control territory when we revisited the issue, and we discussed silver oxide and cloud seeding, aluminum something-or-other and barium. This was all credible, he claims, because someone named [Rosalind Peterson](http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/content/about-rosalind-peterson) spoke at the UN at some point. He claims that attempts to debunk her were paper thin and never rose above the “she’s lying!” level of discourse. I did a quick google search via my phone and remarked how she seemed adequately debunked to me in just the first few links I found. Things got a bit heated so I elected to drop the matter. I was hoping to open his eyes, he in turn claims I lack an open mind, and that about has to mean we are at an impasse. Unfortunately I still don’t know what HAARP is supposed to have admitted to. My attempts to run that to ground, as well as following the other leads he provided as I pursued the matter, only muddied the waters. I think contrails are real and chemtrails are nonsense, and have so far found no compelling reason to alter this view. I will, however, as he and I continue to take breaks together and thus leave and then enter the building at the same time, point up at whichever long and streaky cloud might catch my eye and make choking noises as I claim I’m being poisoned. Because I think that’s funny. 😃