‘The Simpsons’ footage altered to push false chemtrails conspiracy theory | Fact check
The claim: Video shows ‘The Simpsons’ predicted chemtrails
A Jan. 31 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows the characters from the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” watching as low-flying planes fly over their house.
The video shows an animated character answering the phone inside the “CIA Weather Control division,” a machine labeled “chemtrails” being turned on, an airplane releasing a thick gray cloud behind it and wind turbines tilting up to the sky. The final portion of the video shows a real-life news broadcast about wildfire smoke enveloping American cities.
“Theyve Done It Again (sic),” reads the post’s caption, which includes the hashtags #prediction and #america.
The Facebook video was shared more than 1,000 times in nearly two weeks.
More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page
Our rating: Altered
The video is altered. It spliced together unrelated clips from “The Simpsons” and “American Dad” to make it appear as if the Simpsons predicted chemtrails. The episode of “The Simpsons” shown in the video does not mention chemtrails, which is a long-debunked conspiracy theory.
The Simpsons did not depict chemtrails, video is edited
The first part of the Facebook video shows a portion of a season 14 episode of “The Simpsons” called “Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington.” The episode’s summary on IMDb states: “The family makes Krusty run for Congress because of air traffic being redirected to fly dangerously close to their house.”
But there is no mention of chemtrails in the episode, which can be viewed in full on the streaming service Disney+.
The other animated scenes in the Facebook video come from a different animated show, “American Dad.” In a season 11 episode of the show titled “Anchorfran,” the main character Stan calls in a favor to the CIA to get them to create a massive storm. The chemtrails machine, airplane and wind turbine scenes appear in the episode.
Fact check: Video of Silicon Valley Bank collapse in ‘The Simpsons’ is altered
The episode plays on the debunked chemtrails conspiracy theory, which posits that the government is using airplanes to release chemicals into the sky to poison the population below.
The white streaks that airplanes leave behind are called condensation trails or contrails. Space.com reports they’re trails of condensed water vapor created by jet engines.
The news clip at the end of the Facebook video also has nothing to do with chemtrails. It was about wildfire smoke enveloping San Francisco in 2020 and New York City in 2023.
The Simpsons are often wrongly credited with predicting historic events. The show’s creators have publicly refuted that it is a harbinger of things to come.
“I would say in general when people say ‘The Simpsons’ has predicted something, it is just that we were satirizing real-life events from years before, and because history keeps repeating, it just seems like we were predicting things,” former showrunner Bill Oakley told Reuters in a 2020 interview.
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
- IMDb, accessed Feb. 13, Bill Oakley
- IMDb, accessed Feb. 14, “American Dad!” Anchorfran
- IMDb, accessed Feb. 14, “The Simpsons” Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington
- Reuters, Aug. 16, 2021, The Simpsons episodes are not evidence of ‘predictive programing’
- Space.com, Aug. 27, 2023, Contrails: What are they and how do they form?
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.
USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.
