Chemtrails: Harmful Chemicals, or Harmful Propaganda?

The piece of propaganda we are going to look at today is an article by Patti Kanduch in the Missoulian, titled “Nation ignoring dangers of chemtrails”. Most people have probably heard the term ‘chemtrail’ before, but let me quickly explain what it means before we move onto the article.

“Chemtrails” are how conspiracy theorists refer to the white, cloud-like stripes left behind by airplanes. These stripes are actually water condensation trails, called “contrails”.

The theory is that the government is disguising chemical and biological agents in contrails, making them “chemtrails”.

Why are people convinced these aren’t normal contrails? Well, their supporting evidence is that normal contrails dissipate pretty quickly, so if they’re lingering, there must be something else in them.

Believers are convinced that these chemtrails have malicious intentions, which are speculated over but not agreed upon. Some of the most common suggestions are weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, biological or chemical warfare, or testing of biological or chemical agents on a population. They believe that these chemtrails are causing respiratory and other health problems.

So, is any of this true? Science says no. Several reports have been published that debunk the myth of chemtrails.

And yet, lots of people still believe that chemtrails are real, and that the organizations debunking it are “in” on the conspiracy. Those of us that believe in science and don’t buy into the chemtrails conspiracy theory are called out in this article, just by the title “nation ignoring dangers of chemtrails”.

What’s actually dangerous is the faulty information Kanduch is spreading. A widespread belief in chemtrails does nothing but cause mistrust in the U.S. government and scientific experts, the same way that anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers do. It preys on people’s fear, and in this case, there’s nothing they can do to avoid chemtrails — it just creates a state of fear. Propaganda that disseminates false information to create fear is harmful.

This piece is also harmful and dangerous because it utilizes manipulation tactics to generate the response the author is looking for.

The author opens with a reference to nuclear weapon testing in 1945, reminding people of the scary reality that the government has hurt people in the past, simply by not knowing what they were doing.

This plays on the natural fear we all have for our own safety, activating our emotions. It also sets up the government as an opponent, reminding us of a past failure, which helps her minimize their credibility, and therefore minimizing the credibility of their publications proving chemtrails false.

As Kanduch begins to talk about chemtrails, she mentions a statement from an engineer at Boeing, who said these were not contrails from passenger jets. This gives the impression of chemtrails being endorsed by an expert, but here’s the problem. She’s omitting the context, deciding not to mention that other planes fly besides passenger jets, like cargo airplanes and private jets. It seems the point she’s trying to make is that the planes leaving the so-called chemtrails are suspicious, but the reality is that the lack of context is what makes it sound true.

The author also gives people an incentive to believe her by saying “you’d have to be blind or dumb not to notice them”. This paints a dichotomy: either you agree with her, or you are blind or dumb.

She continues to provoke fear by suggesting that chemtrails can cause a myriad of health problems. To prove her point, she cites a neurosurgeon’s statement that nano-aluminum can cause Alzheimer’s — whether or not that statement is true, the neurosurgeon was not referencing chemtrails at the time, misleading readers to interpret the statement in her favor.

In the end, like all conspiracy theories, we can take the lesson to resist blindly following authorities, but in doing so, be cautious to avoid falling into the trap of disinformation.

I chose to look into the chemtrails conspiracy theory because I had heard of it, but wasn’t really sure what it meant, whether or not it was true, or how many people believed it. As it turns out, the chemtrail conspiracy theory isn’t as widespread as many others, but it doesn’t sound quite as outrageous as some of the others we’ve learned about this semester. Like all conspiracy theories, it’s almost impossible to disprove. It’s proponents aren’t being that outlandish when they say they don’t believe the government or scientists because they don’t have testable evidence to back them up; it’s really just a matter of them saying no, it’s not true. The conspiracy theorists don’t have any testable evidence, either, but still — that puts them on an even playing field with the scientists and government officials as far as evidence goes, which isn’t usually the case for conspiracy theories.

As I reviewed possible articles, Facebook pages and groups, and videos, I found that a lot of the content out there sounds paranoid and unfounded. This struck my interest even more because it’s a theory that really could be rationalized and sound pretty convincing if done right. What I chose was an opinion piece that was well rationalized but also employed many manipulative propaganda techniques, making it significantly more harmful than the ‘raving’ irrational postings. If someone is on the fence of believing a conspiracy theory, a well-reasoned argument that appeals to persuasive techniques goes a long way.

What stuck me about this article was the clear confirmation bias the author personally experienced in her attempts to convince the rest of us. Her evidence is manipulative, as she cites information that doesn’t really back up her point. At the same time, she clearly believes in what she’s writing, which goes to show that she clearly has fallen into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theory propaganda herself.

In creating my screencast video, I wanted to be able to cohesively explain what the conspiracy theory was before moving on to the harmful and dangerous nature of the article. The difficulty became sticking to the time limit and choosing which information to ‘cut’ when there was too much content. I used screen captures of the article and highlighting to demonstrate specific points while trying to keep it simple. For me, it’s easier to understand the content of a video if I can follow along and see for myself, so I tried to do that here.

I struggled with graphics that were explanatory but still simple; I felt it was important not to have a 3 minute video with overwhelming amounts of information, but the point of a screencast recording is to have visuals in addition to audio. After a few takes, I decided that simplistic visuals with a more conversational tone gave my video the balance I was looking for.

Kanduch, P. (2015, December 09). Nation ignoring dangers of chemtrails. Retrieved from https://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/nation-ignoring-dangers-of-chemtrails/article_7dc065bd-cb08-59c2-b90c-a6c088753f4f.html

File:Contrail.fourengined.arp.jpg. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1856927

File:Contrails.jpg. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=400001