So I am cruising down Snelling on a Sunny Monday afternoon..

[kickysnana]

and as I approach Har Mar Mall from the south I spy a 16 year old standing on the concrete median, wearing a blue hospital face mask and pointing up at the sky. I follow his hand and see he is pointing to a series of widening contrails above.

Competing thoughts enter my head. Glad that he is paying attention to something other than Lady Gaga but too bad that he has to worry about what our government might actually be doing and O God, I sure hope he is wrong.

[dodger501]

1. I don't get it

What was he pointing at?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Airplanes flying overhead?

This is something new?

[ISUGRADIA]

3. Sinister Meaning to Conspiracy Theorists

See wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

The chemtrail conspiracy theory holds that some contrails are actually chemicals or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public. Versions of the chemtrail conspiracy theory circulating on the internet and radio talk shows theorize that the activity is directed by government officials. As a result, federal agencies have received thousands of complaints from people who have demanded an explanation.The existence of chemtrails has been repeatedly denied by government agencies and scientists around the world.

...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Contrails are made of water vapor.

Unless, of course, you're crazy.

[glinda]

6. Contrails are normal streams of vapor let out from jets that dissipate quickly but Chemtrails

are different in that they linger longer as well as when they begin to dissipate, they appear to streak downward and will stay in the sky for a much longer time, which vapor normally would not do. They also create them in patterns. The patterns are cris-cross in manner and they make many of them in different areas. A common sight of tis type of Chem-trail is when they spray fields. Which I have seen since I live in farm country.
We have been seeing tons of them where we are in mid-MN. I called the Country/Regional airport controller and he said he hadn't seen them. He was going to go outside and look. I asked who could tell me who was "spraying" or causing either contrails or chem-trails and he told me that they do Military exercises from two or three States here and that the only person who could tell me anything was "TEXAS"! TEXAS controls our airspace in the middle of MN.
He said I could write a letter to our Government. LOL!
I will tell you that I am not laughing at this. There is no reason to fly up to 30 times and making grids in the sky unless you are spraying something. The vapor does not dissipate. It drops and spreads. THis is not water vapor.
I do not think this boy was an idiot. Either way, it is killing our planet.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Contrails persist because at high altitudes

the water vapor freezes into ice crystals. The reason they seem to crisscross in certain areas is that there are designated airways where many airplanes' paths seem to cross in the sky; it's NOT THE SAME AIRPLANE that's making the contrails. Chemtrails are a hoax. There is no such thing.

[glinda]

8. Have seen the same plane in our area doing multiple patterns. I do not agree about

the activity of con/chem or other being non harmful. That is my point really.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. No reputable scientist supports the existence of chemtrails.

It's another one of those Internet conspiracies with absolutely no scientific support. Was the airplane you saw flying at a high altitude? If so, it was either a commercial jet in a holding pattern or a military aircraft performing maneuvers. You may be in a military operations area (MOA) where military aircraft routinely perform practice maneuvers. If the airplane was at low altitude it might have been a student pilot practicing -- but at low altitude you don't normally get persisting contrails because the air isn't cold enough.

So exactly what did you see?

[glinda]

10. Low altitude. Same plane/jet. Lingering trails for up to four hours. There are some

scientists that are on the other side of this also. Am not going any further on what if anything is in the trails. Just saying that it is impossible to find out since Texas controls the airspace both militarily and other. It is out of the hands of entities in this part of the State to find out.
I am also familiar with what "spraying" farmlands and other areas looks like.
Personally, I have the deepest sense that if it could be determined what was going on and the environmental damage that it is causing, people would be upset. Instead it is pushed so far out of this area that one is unable to find out.
No. It is NOT regular air traffic.
Sometimes the whole skies far as far as the eye can see is nothing but cris- cross patterns of all kinds.
I want to move.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Texas does NOT control the airspace!

There is a National Airspace System, administered by the FAA, which controls where planes fly, to determine the most efficient routes and keep the planes out of each others' way. This consists mainly of east-west and north-south routes that form -- yes -- a grid. If you see a lot of contrails in a grid, that's because the National Airspace System determined those routes. Commercial jets are creating water-vapor trails at high altitudes in a rough grid pattern because of the assigned routes they fly.

If you saw a plane flying at low altitude passing back and forth, it was one of the following:

A student pilot practicing maneuvers.
A Civil Air Patrol aircraft looking for a lost airplane or practicing looking for lost airplanes.
A DEA or other law enforcement airplane looking for marijuana fields or meth labs.
A pipeline patrol airplane inspecting pipelines.
An aerial photographer.
A crop-duster.
A pilot just out flying around for the hell of it.

I'm a pilot and a flight instructor. I've been a pilot for 20 years. I know what airplanes do, how they work and where they go.

So far, I haven't seen a shred of proof of the existence of "chemtrails." It's just more Internet hooey. Show me the proof.

[glinda]

12. I was told by the air controller of the County that Texas controlled the airspace here. They

did not even have the full awareness of what was going on by whom or when and that the airspace which also included bases in I think he said, ND and Duluth...well the information was not privy to them but came out of Texas. I can only repeat what I was told by the lead person.

I do know this....


A student pilot practicing maneuvers.

-NOPE.


A Civil Air Patrol aircraft looking for a lost airplane or practicing looking for lost airplanes.


-NOPE. Too frequent. We would hear about it also.



A DEA or other law enforcement airplane looking for marijuana fields or meth labs.

-DOUBTFUL. JET or high end plane. Not a small one. An expensive one. I can see it.


A pipeline patrol airplane inspecting pipelines.

-Nope. not there....


An aerial photographer.

-Too fast. I have known people who do that for a living and generally it is not a jet sort of plane diving all over...


A crop-duster.

-I know what they are. And if it was a high end sort of one (which it is not), I know what they do. I have lived 25 years in the Country all over the State.

A pilot just out flying around for the hell of it.

-Not in flight paths and the Lead airspace fellow would have known about it. He had absolutely NO listing or record of whan they were up there.

This happens about two times a month or so.

All II know is what I was informed of and also what I observe. Am not saying they are spraying Kool-Aid or Rice Crispies. Just saying what I know and have gleaned from studying and what I was also told.

[Brickbat]

5. He shoulda been in school.