Long trails in the sky left by planes aren’t ‘chemtrails’

A post on Facebook claims to demonstrate the difference between a contrail and a “chemtrail” being left in the sky by aeroplanes.

The post, which has been shared more than a hundred times, includes side-by-side images of two contrails—the white lines of water vapour sometimes seen trailing aircraft—with the caption “its really that simple” [sic].

But both of the lines pictured are actually normal contrails.

As we’ve said many times before, “chemtrails” are a reference to a false but enduring conspiracy theory that claims these white lines are evidence of a plot to spread poison or control the weather by spraying chemicals from aircraft.

One of the trails in the graphic is longer, and text in the image says a “chemtrail” can be identified when the “trail extends for miles” and “lasts for hours”. While the other image, defined as a contrail, only “extends for feet” and “lasts for seconds”. 

In fact, it’s perfectly normal for contrails to remain in the sky for a long time.

Water vapour produced by aeroplane engines freezes at high altitude, forming long thin lines of cloud. The amount of time these contrails remain visible depends on the humidity of the air. 

If the air is humid, the crystals remain where they are, often spreading out to leave a fluffy trail trail where the aircraft has passed and remaining in the sky for many hours. 

But if the air is very dry the ice crystals will quickly change from a solid to a gas and become invisible. 

We have previously written about a very similar post, explaining that the appearance of contrails can be affected by a number of different factors. 

The chemtrails conspiracy theory claims that these clouds are actually chemicals sprayed deliberately, either as poisons or to influence the weather. This isn’t the case.

Geoengineering—which the Met Office defines as deliberately manipulating the climate on a large scale, potentially by injecting aerosols into the high atmosphere—has been suggested as a theoretical possibility, but it is not already taking place, beyond some limited and proposed small-scale experiments.

Image courtesy of Nestek