> Health and Disease > Respiratory > asthma

It started in the winter of 1998. Sky-obscuring "chemtrails" have been observed by thousands of eyewitnesses–including pilots, police officers and former military personnel–over Canada, the USA, Britain, Australia and allied European nations. Within Canada, Victoria, Vancouver, the BC Interior, Moose Jaw, Edmonton and much of Ontario have been hit particularly hard.

On March 15, 2001, radio reporter S.T. Brendt interviewed a senior air traffic control manager with the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) who was responsible for commercial aircraft over the northeastern United States. The FAA manager admitted he was being ordered to divert commercial flights around formations of US Air Force (USAF) Stratotankers. On whether the Air Force jets crossed into Canadian air space, he replied "yes."

Each of the 650 USAF Stratotankers carries 150,000 pounds of transferable fuel. Each of the 50 KC-10s (refuelling jets) carries about 320,000 pounds. Speaking under strict anonymity, the FAA official said the purpose of the military missions was weather modification.

The particles sprayed into the stratosphere by the big jets act as moisture-attracting nuclei, forming clouds and precipitation. Immediately after the March weather modification missions, the northeastern seaboard was struck by unseasonable snowstorms that confounded 70-year-old residents and piled eight-foot snowdrifts against some homes. At least one fatality resulted due to collapsing roofs.

The inert aluminum spread by the jets is not considered a human health hazard. But according to the New England Journal of Medicine, microscopic particles in the air can kill city dwellers prematurely. Further, a 1993 Harvard study has identified particles with a diameter of less than 10 micrometres (microns) as a threat to public health. Death rates increase with the rise in particulate pollution.

Nevertheless, a leaked draft document from the International Panel on Climate Change said the panel considers spraying up to 10 million tons of microscopic aluminum particles "in the range of 10 to 100 microns" as a possible solution to avoid global warming.

Seeds of Infection

The FAA traffic control manager decided to come forward after his wife was diagnosed with sudden adult onset asthma following a March 12, 2001 aerial onslaught by 30 tankers over New Hampshire. She had no history of allergy. Their children also suffered severe reactions, including an infant son who was rushed to hospital with a gushing nosebleed.

Similarly, hospitals across Canada and the USA have been jammed in the wake of the chemtrails, with patients complaining of acute gastrointestinal and upper respiratory ailments, pneumonia, heart problems, aching joints, sudden extreme fatigue, vertigo, excruciating headaches, short-term memory loss, inability to concentrate, nosebleeds, sore necks and twitching eyelids. Unlike flu symptoms, body temperatures typically drop among chemtrail-exposed patients. These apparent fungal infections could be caused when aluminum particles bring down the fungi, bacteria and viruses found to be living and reproducing in the upper atmosphere. Professor Emeritus Robert Falk at the University of Texas has also found that metal-munching bacteria "metabolize aluminum" in his tests.

In November 1999, residents of Espanola, Ont. presented a petition to Parliament after USAF tankers sprayed sky-obscuring chemicals. Townspeople claimed that they were making children and adults sick over a 50 square-mile area. Lab tests of rainwater falling through the chemical clouds measured amounts of aluminum particles seven times higher than federal health safety limits.

Back in March, according to the FAA official, the chemicals spread in lingering white plumes by the big tankers showed up on air traffic control radars as a "haze." Such cloudy radar returns are consistent with clouds of talcum-fine aluminum particles released by high-flying tankers in a process an official USAF study on "Owning The Weather" calls "aerial obscuration."

Although chemtrails have crossed the sky over Comox, BC, a Canadian Forces spokesman at the Comox air base recently insisted that "no such joint operation exists." However, doctors are puzzled by the results of hair sample analyses of sick patients on Denman Island and in Vancouver and Toronto, which show aluminum levels much higher than usual "kitchen contaminant" levels.

My investigation continues.

Chemtrails Revealed

The manager for planning and environment at the Victoria Airport Authority has confirmed that “chemtrails” spread by US Air Force tanker jets over the BC capital are a joint US-Canadian military operation. The airport environmental officer was responding to a Victoria resident’s inquiry concerning big jets laying plumes in lingering Xs, circles and tic-tac-toe grids over the British Columbia capital for the past two years. “They wouldn’t give me any specifics on it,” resident Terry Stewart said, referring to his control tower queries. “Very odd.”

William Thomas is the author of Scorched Earth, Bringing The War Home and Probing The Chemtrail Conundrum. He lives on Gabriola Island, BC.

Source: alive #227, September 2001