An attack of the vapours: Tennessee bill endorses chemtrails conspiracy theory

The “chemtrails” conspiracy theory is enjoying its moment in the clearly visible, not blocked by government-released toxic chemicals, sun, after the Tennessee state senate passed a bill this month targeting the baseless concept.

Legislation banning the “intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances” swept through the Republican-dominated senate, and will now be considered by the Republican-dominated house, before then being weighed by Tennessee’s Republican governor. There is also a movement to pass a similar law in Pennsylvania.

The Tennessee bill, introduced in the senate by Republican Steve Southerland, does not use the term “chemtrails”. The language in the bill, however – there is talk of the government “intentionally dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere” – directly evokes a decades-old conspiracy theory.

Proponents of the debunked chemtrails idea believe that the cloudy white lines created by airplane emissions are chemicals being released into the atmosphere. The idea is that the government, or shadowy private organizations, are pumping out toxic chemicals, with the aim being anything from modifying the weather to controlling a population’s minds.

This is not happening, scientists say.

“There’s no such thing as chemtrails,” said Alan Robock, a climate science professor at Rutgers university.

“If you look at the sky, sometimes you see contrails from airplanes – condensation trails – and they’re just made out of water. It’s the same thing that happens in the winter when you breathe out and you see a little cloud in front of your mouth. It’s a mixture of warm, humid air with cold, dry air.”

Numerous debunkings of the chemtrails concept have not succeeded in quieting those fearful of airplane condensation trails. A YouGov/Statista survey conducted in 2019 found that 8% of Americans “strongly believe” that “the government is using chemicals to control the population (chemtrails)”. (A further 11% said they “somewhat believe” in the theory.)

Robock suggests that this can be a source of frustration.

“There’s no evidence that anybody is pumping chemicals into airplanes. If this was a huge [government] conspiracy to do those things, do you think nobody would sort of, tell on them?” he said.

Another point is that the legislation to keep Tennessee’s skies clear is essentially futile, given politicians cannot control the sky and the wind.

“It’s not going to make any difference one way or the other – how could they even enforce it? What if somebody did a chemtrail in Kentucky and it drifted over Tennessee? What would they do?” Robock said.

After the Tennessee bill passed the state senate, Doug Mastriano, a state senator in Pennsylvania, declared that he too would pursue a law which would “ensure the skies over Pennsylvania are protected well into the future”.

Mastriano, who lost what had been seen as a winnable election for governor in 2022, has discussed chemtrails publicly before. Last year, he posted a photo on Facebook of some airplane contrails, with the caption: “I have legislation to stop this. I have legislation to stop this. I took this at 4:15pm Monday in Chambersburg [PA]. Normal contrails dissolve / evaporate within 30-90 seconds.”

Both the Tennessee and Pennsylvania efforts avoid the term chemtrails, and instead discuss “solar geoengineering” – the idea that the government may disperse matter, typically sulfur, into the air to reflect sunlight and combat climate change – perhaps in an attempt to avoid criticism for engaging in conspiracy theories.

That has not worked: local and national press have described the legislation as targeting chemtrails, but even the idea that solar geoengineering is something that is a) happening and b) must be prevented is flawed, experts say.

“We are confident that there is no currently active program to actually test” solar geoengineering, a Harvard research group wrote in a recent piece on what it called the “Chemtrails conspiracy theory”.

If solar geoengineering were taking place, Robock said “it would look like what happened after a big volcanic eruption – the sky would be a little bit less blue”, as opposed to having the appearance of airplane contrails.

Karen Douglas, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, said people are drawn to various conspiracy theories because “a simple explanation is often not very attractive”.

“People assume that there must somehow be a bigger explanation, or more going on than people know about. The simple explanations often seem too mundane and not satisfying enough,” Douglas said.

Should the chemtrails legislation pass in the Tennessee house – intriguingly, members are due to consider it on 1 April – then Bill Lee, the state’s Republican governor, will have the final say as to whether it passes into law.

That would be a victory for Monty Fritts, a legislator who has championed the bill in the house, in what is gearing up to be a big month for the Republican.

Fritts introduced a resolution earlier this year calling for Tennesseeans to “join in a 30-day season of prayer and intermittent fasting” in July “to seek God’s hand of mercy healing on Tennessee”.

That motion passed the house on 5 March, and could be adopted around the same time as the chemtrails legislation.