Fact check: False claim ‘chemtrails’ and HAARP are used to manipulate the weather

The claim: Chemtrails, HAARP used to create droughts, floods, blizzards and hurricanes

A Jan. 16 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) claims unnamed actors are artificially creating large-scale, destructive weather events. 

“First they aerosolize the sky with nanoparticles, then they ionize the atmosphere using H.A.A.R.P, creating droughts, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, etc.,” reads the text in one of the images featured in the post.

Additional images in the post make similar claims about the government having the ability to control the weather.

The Instagram post was liked more than 3,000 times in a week.

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Our rating: False 

All three elements of this post are wrong. Scientists and pilots confirm there is no evidence that planes are spraying harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. Researchers at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, also known as HAARP, say the technology does not have the ability to manipulate the weather. And meteorologists and climate scientists say large-scale weather events cannot be artificially created. 

No evidence behind ‘chemtrails’ conspiracy theory 

The top image featured in the first slide of the post shows airplane condensation trails streaking across the sky. Condensation trails, also known as “contrails,” are the white streaks of condensed water vapor left in the sky in the wake of an aircraft or rocket.

The text in the image refers to the chemtrails conspiracy theory that claims contrails are actually chemical or biological agents released as part of a covert operation.

Experts say the theory lacks any credibility. Claims purporting to prove chemtrails are real have been repeatedly debunked by USA TODAY and other fact-checkers. 

Fact check: No evidence of negative health effects from airplane contrails

In 2016, a group of researchers surveyed 77 of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists on whether there was evidence that chemtrails existed, as USA TODAY previously reported. All but one of those scientists concluded there is no evidence to support the theory.

HAARP can’t manipulate the weather, scientists say  

HAARP, which is also mentioned in the post, utilizes an array of high-frequency transmitters to conduct various experiments in the ionosphere. This upper-layer of the Earth’s atmosphere is made of charged particles and reflects radio waves. 

The program’s transmitters use radio waves to “temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere,” allowing scientists to study phenomena normally hard to observe in nature, according to the program’s website.

Jessica Matthews, the HAARP program manager at the University of Alaska, previously told USA TODAY the program’s transmitters and experiments cannot manipulate the weather.

“Radio waves in the frequency ranges that HAARP transmits are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere – the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth’s weather,” she said. “Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather.”

Fact check: High-frequency research program studies ionosphere, can’t create hurricanes

Keith Groves, associate director of the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston College, agreed. 

“There is no credible mechanism by which HAARP can modify the weather or the neutral atmosphere in any detectable way,” Groves previously told USA TODAY. “Claims of this type are completely unfounded. They are sensational, but neither serious nor scientific.” 

Experts agree major weather events can’t be manufactured

Large-scale storms like blizzards and hurricanes are created and fed by global weather patterns and require specific atmospheric conditions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Charles Konrad, director of NOAA’s Southeast Regional Climate Center, said no one has the ability to create a storm, especially at the scale of a hurricane. 

“Major weather events require incredible amounts of energy,” Konrad said. “There’s just no way that humans can just put stuff up in the atmosphere and cause these events to happen.” 

A localized form of weather manipulation called cloud-seeding is possible and utilizes aircraft to induce precipitation at a small scale. Cloud-seeding airplanes use flares mounted to the wings and belly of the plane to inject clouds with silver iodide particles. But the process only works if there are existing clouds in the sky with lots of moisture in them, according to cloud-seeding experts.

Cloud seeding efforts also only increase precipitation on a “microscale” in a localized area, according to Julie Gondzar, the program manager for Wyoming’s Weather Modification Program. 

“A lot of people think it’s manipulating the weather pattern,” Gondzar said in an email to USA TODAY. “We are essentially just playing with cloud dynamics and cloud physics, on a super, super small scale.

Fact check: No, patents for tornado machines don’t prove that natural disasters are man-made

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the post for comment. 

Our fact-check sources:

• USA TODAY, Aug. 16, 2016, Scientists disprove airplane ‘chemtrail’ theory
• USA TODAY, Oct. 28, 2022, Fact check: High-frequency research program studies ionosphere, can’t create hurricanes
• USA TODAY, Dec. 14, 2022, Fact check: False claim that barrels pictured on planes contain ‘chemtrails’
• Charles Konrad, Jan. 20, Phone interview with USA TODAY 
• CNN, Dec. 22, 2018, New technology can make clouds drop rain
• CNN, Sept. 30, 2018, Drought woes? This tech can literally make it rain
• CNN, Mar. 14, 2022, Scientists in the US are flying planes into clouds to make it snow more
• Environmental Protection Agency, September 2000, Aircraft Contrails Factsheet 
• George Bomar, Jan. 17, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• Frank Marks, Jan. 24, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• HAARP, accessed Jan. 19, About HAARP
• HAARP, accessed Jan. 19, FAQ
• Harvard University, accessed Jan. 19, Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory
• Julie Gondzar, Jan. 20, Email exchange with USA TODAY 
• NOAA, May 12, 2021, How do hurricanes form?
• NOAA, accessed Jan. 19, Ionosphere
• NASA Science, accessed Oct. 13-25, 10 Things to Know About the Ionosphere
• Scientific American, March 16, 2021, Eight States Are Seeding Clouds to Overcome Megadrought 
• Smithsonian Magazine, Aug. 22, 2016, Science Officially Debunks Chemtrails, But the Conspiracy Will Likely Live On
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, accessed Jan. 20, Blizzards
• Associated Press, April 20, 2022, Cloud seeding didn’t cause 2016, 2022 flooding in Australia 
• BBC, July 23, 2022, Chemtrails: What’s the truth behind the conspiracy theory?
• Reuters, Oct. 19. 2021, Fact Check-Climate change is not a cover-up for humans intentionally controlling the weather

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