posted 03-07-2001 05:26 PM            

Conspiracy theorists read between lines in the sky
By Traci Watson
USA TODAY

A new conspiracy theory sweeping the Internet and radio talk shows has set parts of the federal government on edge.

The theory: The white lines of condensed water vapor that jets leave in the sky, called contrails, are actually a toxic substance the government deliberately sprays on an unsuspecting populace.

Federal bureaucracies have gotten thousands of phone calls, e-mails and letters in recent years from people demanding to know what is being sprayed and why. Some of the missives are threatening.

It's impossible to tell how many supporters these ideas have attracted, but the people who believe them say they're tired of getting the brush-off from officials. And they're tired of health problems they blame on ''spraying.''

''This is blatant. This is in your face,'' says Philip Marie Sr., a retired nuclear quality engineer from Bartlett, N.H., who says the sky above his quiet town is often crisscrossed with ''spray'' trails.

''No one will address it,'' he says. ''Everyone stonewalls this thing.''

The situation Marie and others describe is straight out of The X-Files. He and others report one day looking up at the sky and realizing that they were seeing abnormal contrails: contrails that lingered and spread into wispy clouds, multiple contrails arranged in tick-tack-toe-like grids or parallel lines, contrails being laid down by white planes without registration numbers.

Full article here...
http://usatoday.com/usatonline/20010307/3117139s.htm

posted 03-07-2001 06:11 PM            

''If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy,' '' says atmospheric scientist Patrick Minnis of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. ''Logic is not exactly a real selling point for most of them.''

"Some, such as Minnis, are outraged enough by the claims of chemtrail believers that they have trolled Internet chat rooms to correct misinformation or have gotten into arguments with callers."