From a round earther's perspective, alleged "chemtrails" simply don't exist, and are just a manifestation of yet another conspiracy theory.What we see in the image (above) are correctly described as "contrails". Contrails are lengthy condensation "trails" formed behind jet aircraft when their engine's condensate rapidly freezes into ice crystals. When burned, fuel containing hydrogen is combined with oxygen in the air to form water vapour, among other byproducts. Contrails form when water vapour in the exhaust from jet engines then freezes high in the troposphere where aircraft cruise. If the ambient air is dry, contrails will evaporate almost immediately. The ambient air must be close to saturation with water for a persistent condensation trail to form.
And this image (below) shows what
chemtrails look like (and European Honey Buzzards):
Patrick Minnis Ph.D, B.Eng, M.Sc, a senior research scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, studied satellite images of contrail clouds of military craft during the three days airports were shut down in the US after the 9/11 attacks. On a typical day, an estimated
13,000 planes criss-cross the nation's skies.
They create so many contrails that cross each other's paths that the satellite images are just a blur. Minnis found that the cirrus clouds formed from these contrails lasted an average of
six to eight hours and that six to eight contrails can grow to form a cloud cover the size of Massachusetts.
To understand the extent to which conspiracy theorists are prepared to go, check out these two images which were posted to two separate blogs:
100's of commercial airline pilots protesting in New York against chemtrails...
They don't look like conspiracy theorists to me.
(Meaning responsible airline captains couldn't and/or wouldn't be lying would they? And they, of all people, should know.)
Over 700 hundred Continental and United pilots, joined by additional pilots from other Air Line Pilots Association
(ALPA) carriers, demonstrate in front of Wall Street on September 27, 2011 in New York City.
The first image (obviously) is from a "chemtrail" conspiracy site, and the second image is from the UK
Daily Mail (Australia) site. I wonder how many flat earthers also believe that the US government is spraying its citizens with some sort of chemical cocktail in order to dumb them down? I don't for a moment believe it is, but judging by some of the weird and wonderful responses from the flat earthers, I'm beginning to have a
tiny modicum of doubt.