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Perhaps I can shed some light on this chem-trail/con-trail thing.
I've been in the Air Force for 26 years, and while my field is combat communications, I am familiar with a lot of the flying-type missions.

I'm not familiar with anything that might be considered weather modification.

On the OTHER hand. Two years ago, I had just bought my wife a hot tub for Mother's Day. We decided that it was nice to sit out in the evening and watch the skies. Something I do anyway, is watch the skies, always have, always will. I've very familiar with the air traffic control patterns in our area of the Front Range. I know where planes will be found, I know where they aren't supposed to be.

Late one evening about 5 or 6 weeks after we had the hot tub, and had been sitting out every evening, there was a clear sky, the sun was just going behind the mountains and I noticed several air craft flying in formation. I grabbed some binoculars that I keep sitting near the tub and noted they looked like tankers.

At about the same time I got a good bead on one, it started to show a trail, where it had not been showing one moments before.

When I took my eyes from the binoculars, I saw a string of about 8 or 9 planes. Eight trails for certain could be seen, evenly spaces several thousand feet apart, at around 40 or 50 thousand feet (that's an estimate only, based on the plane - they were KC-135s, I got a very good look at them through my spotter scope a few minutes later).

I watched the planes travel east to west, then the trails ceased.

The planes vanished behind Pikes Peak and the mountain range. About 20 minutes later, the reappeared to the south. By then I had my camera, and my spotter scope (where I confirmed I was seeing a KC-135 tanker). I took a couple of shots, because I'd never seen anything like it before. I figured it was some kind of practice for an air show.

They planes traveled from south to north (almost precisely on true north) - and then they continued the pattern. When they finished, I was seeing a checkerboard pattern. At the same time, I started noticing no more air planes in the area.

The next day was Saturday, so I called over to Peterson and asked about an air show, they weren't aware of anything.

I asked about the "show" I'd observed the night before. They knew "nothing about that". I asked about the patterns they left, and the folks at Operations were not aware of any flights that would have involved tankers flying in formation, nor were they aware of anything else going on the night before.

The Colorado Springs tower DID confirm they had diverted traffic for a couple of hours around the Pikes Peak region for some unknown military maneauvers. But, no one could confirm the exercise.

We don't fly KC-135's out of Peterson, we fly C-130s. None of my pilot friends were aware of anything either.

I wrote it off until I heard an Art Bell show one night. Then it started to click.

So - before Tycho, or anyone else offhandedly dismisses this subject as an urban legend (and you're fine to believe what you will, Sir) I would suggest you all take another look at it.

...

Now, I'm just as skeptical about a lot of this stuff as anyone else, but, I live here in the US Tycho, I work for the government, I've been with the government for 26 years. Don't get me wrong, but, you're writing this off based on a bunch of debunkers that haven't the experience with the US government that I have.

Finally, I'm not saying that they really ARE doing ANYTHING with chemicals, bt it was highly unusual for what I personally saw, and I have not seen it since. (And there were dozens of others who saw it in the area that evening besides me, including pilots who thought something odd was going on).

That was two years ago... since then, we've seen the controversy grow about this, and there are the "believers" and the "skeptics" on both sides of this issue as well.

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I don't have the original photos. I only took two shots, and I didn't consider them important, so I didn't log them in my logs for photos I usually shoot of storms.

I PROBABLY DO have the negatives somewhere, no promises that I will dig them out though. The originals were sent to... Thomas? I can't remember his name. Some guy that was on Art Bell's show. They MIGHT appear on his web site, but I've never seen them and only visited his site once ever.

I'll attempt to locate the negatives (but this was about two years ago, and they might be anywhere including gone. ) But, I'll check.

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Rick, with all due respect, I’m not writing this issue off based on a bunch of debunkers. I’m writing it off based on common sense. Yep, as easy as that.
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And with all due respect in return, common sense is fine, and I agree with you on that. But, you did NOT read my message closely. I'm an eye witness to it. I saw it. You don't have to believe me, but I know what I saw.


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Rick, being an ex-airforce man, you (of all people) should be aware that CONTRAILS form at very high altitudes (about 7 or 8 kms high) where the air is cold and moist. Repeat after me folks, cold & moist. The higher the moisture content, the longer the contrail. They can last from minutes to an entire day.
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It's not "Ex" - I'm still in the military until this November.

Yes I am very, extrememly aware of contrails and how they function. I also am an 'amateur meteorologist', storm chaser, and one of my college studies was Earth Sciences. I know how the atmosphere works, and I know precisely what it takes to form a contrail. That's all well and good. I see them at different times of the day or evening, depending on the temperature at the altitude at which the aircraft fly.

However, you missed the point of the story.

1) I SAW a formation of at least eight aircraft, which I did identify as KC-135s (those are Boeing 707s, with a "stinger", the refueling device under the tail of the plane. You can't possibly confuse them with other planes when you know what you're looking at).

2) The planes were flying side by side at a distance of several thousand feet apart, traveling from east to west when I spotted them.

3) The planes BEGAN to show trails at exactly the same time, across a vast region of the sky. Trust me the weather patterns here are ANYTHING but precise, and thus the chances of EACH AIRCRAFT (scattered over several miles apart) starting to show a contrail at precisely the same time are astronomical in the Pikes Peak region due to the various surges and updrafts from the mountain range). It would not have happened. Period.

4) The planes ceased depositing a cloud trail behind them at EXACTLY the same time. Military precision in flying is, if nothing else both a pleasure to watch, and a pleasure to know our military is capable of doing, in the defense of my country. It was NOT unusual for me to have seen something like that - at air shows throughout the country. Thus, I ASSUMED at the TIME it was some sort of practice for an air show. I was mistaken. There were no air shows anywhere within several states of me on that weekend. (It was a Friday night, generally before air shows, the participants practice the day and evening before the actual shows. That's a fact, check with any air show in your area, or in the US).

5) the planes changed course, after they flew behind the mountain range, and returned roughly twenty minutes later. They came from the south and flew northward, EXACTLY on true north (I have it marked in my yard, because of antenna orientation and communications dishes I have there, so I KNOW which way north is). At precisely the point where the first "contrail" started, the planes again started to show trails. They ended exactly when they had flown to the last one (which was about 2 minutes I think).

From my own observations - I saw a formation of military aircraft, turning on and off some sort of device that allowed for a visible cloud formation. There were NO OTHER CONTRAILS that afternoon, before, OR after. These were NOT contrails. I didn't even consider any other possibilities than it was an air show until I confirmed there weren't any, anywhere near by. When I called the tower, they told me that normal air traffic had been diverted for a full two hours (at least). They only said it had to do with military maneauvers.

I didn't hear ANYTHING about "chemtrails" until about a year later. The pictures popped up to haunt me a few days after I heard the Art Bell show. I sent them off to that guy that runs the web site about it. I've never heard anything else about it, except the occasional posts like this thread.

You are correct about cool and moist. However, it is more COLD and moist. It was late August, probably early September. The lower air was warm and we did not have storms that day. If you have high altitude COLD air, sitting over a WARM lower mass, you get... STORMS. There were none that evening. Thus the air above was within a very close range as the lower air. If I remember that day it was in the high 60's if not mid 70s. There were not other contrails.


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Thus we can conclude that CONTRAILS are consistent with high flying aircraft flying through a cold & moist atmosphere.
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Not in MY case. I do not know about all the other places around the country, but I KNOW from personal experience that ours were not normal contrails. At the very LEAST they were planes venting the kind of smoke you see in air shows. At the MOST they were some kind of chemicals released by the aircraft for some other reason.


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PS: And just because you heard it on Art Bell means jack as far as I’m concerned. Art is the biggest peddler of paranoid mumbo jumbo you could ever hope to come across.
Your eyewitness account in no way convinces me that you witnessed a chemtrail. It does however tell me that you witnessed a CONTRAIL.


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Well, your opinion of Art, is honestly not far from mine. However, at least I have an open mind about the subjects. You are writing it off because you are completely and totally assured it is a contrail. I'm not convinced and in fact, and absolutely positive what I saw that day was not a normal contrail. You simply weren't there and can't make the rash assumption that it WAS because you do not know the weather patterns here. You can't make the assumption it was a contrail because I have just gone back through the material and given you the exact facts as I remember them (I'm afraid I don't keep a daily log on weird occurrences because I generally write them off too as odd things, but don't let them bug me like this is bugging you.)

Let me ask you a question - and this is a serious question. You've stated in several of your notes how people should be using common sense, and yet you also state emphatically that it "CAN'T BE" what someone else says. If you weren't there to personally witness my event, how can you know? (Hell, I might be lying, but anyone that knows me will tell you I do NOT tell lies. I tell it like it happened.)

What is it about someone seeing something they believe to be anomalous and you are coming out vehemently denying the possibility? Does someone pay you to come off sounding like a furiously angry debunker, or is that something you came up with all on your own?

I simply do NOT get it. There are those who look at this stuff and take the time to examine what's been said, carefully, but here you are - attempting to simply say "You people are wrong, you're always wrong, nothing you see is out of the ordinary"?

That reminds me of that movie, "The Wizard of Oz", where Toto opens the curtain, and the four travelers see an old man standing behind the curtain, pulling levers and talking into a microphone - when he realizes he has been discovered, the Old Man says "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Is that what this vehement debunking from so many places means? (Especially, I must note, the UK, Australia and other European countries). I've seem the biggest, loudest protesting from other countries. Can anyone explain that to me???

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Rick Donaldson
Anomalies Network Admin
Colorado Springs
------------------------------ http://survival.anomalies.net
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"The truth is out there..."

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Guess what I am going to check this guy out!! Bet he doesn't know what I do??
Posted on July 26, 2001 at 10:29:06 PM by injun

This should be interesting for those of you who know me and what I do!!

Rick Donaldson
Administrator
Member # 25
posted July 24, 2001 06:09

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