What are chemtrails? Conspiracy theory re-emerges online

Everybody has seen those white streaks that trail after airplanes and contrast with the blue sky to create stripes.

According to science, condensation trails, as the lines are known, are created when water vapour around aeroplane exhaust gases condenses and freezes.

However, a growing number have a different theory about these stripes, as a recent trending tweet on X implies.

What is the chemtrails theory?

More and more people are coming to suspect that the contrails are actually chemtrails, a conspiracy theory that claims the government is spraying chemicals across these trails and they are not just condensation.

Decades before the conspiracy theory became popular, in the 1950s and 1960s, a secret series of germ warfare tests blasted poisons over a large portion of Britain via the air.

A chemical substance was also sprayed upon San Francisco in 1950 by a ship in an attempt to simulate the consequences of a bioweapon attack on a populated city.Such covert tests are cited by proponents of the chemtrails conspiracy theory to support their claims. They contend, however, that we are continuously and clearly being sprayed with tonnes of hazardous chemicals for an ever-changing range of causes.

The core tenet of the chemtrails conspiracy theory is that poisonous chemicals are secreted into the air by the government, the wealthy, or a combination of the two, causing contrails to appear as white lines rather than being caused by water vapour at all.

Views differ on the intended use of these purportedly harmful substances. Some people think the chemicals are being used to control people's minds, some think they are being used to poison humans and still others claim the government is using them to manipulate the weather.

Followers of the idea can be found in the UK, Europe, Australia, the Americas and almost anywhere commercial or military planes are flown.

Whether you believe it or not, the conspiracy theory has had an impact on social media and pop culture.

Thousands of individuals follow accounts on X that are devoted to monitoring and sharing evidence of these chemtrails.

A Facebook post went viral in 2021, drawing hundreds of responses, alleging that President Joe Biden "manipulated" the weather with chemtrails, causing Texas to experience a cold chill for a week in February of that year.

The same year, American singer Lana Del Rey released a song titled Chemtrails Over the Country Club, contrasting the imagery of chemtrails with the sweet summer of suburbia.