Normal Jet Contrails Send A Florida Congressman Into A Chemtrail Conspiracy Tizzy

The alleged chemtrails Rep. Greg Steube said were
over Florida "sky's" over the weekend. These 
are standard issue jet contrails, but I guess
weird conspiracy theories are moree fun. 

 I'm in an abusive mood today, so I'm going to pick on somebody you don't know, but it'll be worth it.

We're talking about Rep. Greg Steube (R-Florida), an esteemed member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. 

We're going after Steube because over the weekend he took a short video of a beautiful blue sky streaked with a few jet contrails.

To most of us, those contrail streaks are bits of frozen water from the exhaust of passing jets. They are just long, streaky clouds. To Steube, the white streaks in the sky were the dreaded chemtrails. (insert ominous music notes here).

Steube, posted on X  three times on Saturday, with photos and a video of the sky.  Steube wrote the following on one of the post; "Was a clear sky this a.m., now this. Didn't Florida ban spraying chemicals in our sky's (sic). We need to ban it nationwide. There is no way that water vapor would stay that long in the sky." 

Um, then how do other clouds stay in the sky for hours or even days?

Most of the contrails in Streube's photos seemed to be heading in the same direction, suggesting an established flight path. So it shouldn't have been surprising to see contrails. The video included a jet leaving behind a fresh contrail, which I guess to Steube was "proof" of the chemtrail attack. 

To illustrate how ridiculous the post was, a community note was added to it, noting chemtrails are just a conspiracy theory, and what Steube saw in the sky was standard issue contrails.  

Chemtrails don't exist, no matter how often some people insist otherwise  A few people who see the enemy everywhere think jet contrails are a secret government plot to spray chemicals into the air for some nefarious purpose. Mind control? Population control? Who knows?

The debunked conspiracy theory dates back to at least the 1990s. But with an ever-widening social media audience, people are still cranking out the idea that harmless ice crystals are out to kill us. 

Most of those posting about chemtrails probably know they don't exist, but spreading weird, scary false stories is great for clicks and views, I suppose. 

Speaking of scary it's more than a little frightening that a U.S. Congressman believes in chemtrails.

As Raw Story tells us:

"Given the important role Steube plays as a sitting member of the influential House committee, that frequently receives highly classified briefings on national security threats, helps shape intelligence laws and policy and oversees intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI, his apparent reference to a decades-long debunked conspiracy theory alarmed some onlookers." 

Note in Steuben's X post that reference to Florida banning spray chemicals in, as Steube, put it, the "sky's."

Florida, and some other mostly Republican states, have passed laws banning or restricting geoengineering and weather modification. The impetus behind these laws is, surprise! chemtrails.

Around the time Florida passed its law, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier talked breathlessly of Florida being under attack from "toxic particulates being sprayed into our atmosphere."

The toxic particles beings sprayed into the atmosphere are thse chemtrail screamers. You'd think an allegedly educated politician would know better.

But apparently not.  

 

The Craziest Hurricane Conspiracy Yet As Erin Spins Off The Coast

Hurricane Erin off the East Coast in September, 2001.
Insert on upper left shows the World Trade Center
burning in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

Every weather event seems to bring a storm of wacko conspiracy theories each weirder and more outlandish than the rest.  

This time it's Hurricane Erin. I think, Get a load out of the one I saw this morning: 

As we know, strong Hurricane Erin was east of the Bahamas today, and is forecast to move northward, well off the U.S. East Coast.

 It will cause problems with coastal flooding and rip currents up and down the East Coast. The Outer Banks of North Carolina are going to get blasted by storm surges and battering waves. 

But thankfully, it won't be a direct hit, 

In September, 2001, there was another Hurricane Erin, which also moved northward well off the U.S. East Coast, passing far offshore of New York City on September 11, 2001.

That, of course was 9/11, the day of the worst terrorist attack in U.S, history, claiming more than 3,000 lives.

The conspiracy theory is that 9/11 was supposedly an inside job, and part of that inside job was 2001's Hurricane Erin.

According to this conspiracy, that version of Hurricane Erin was supposedly heading straight toward New York. But it '"unexpectedly" veered away from the city because the  government steered the hurricane away to allow for the clear skies that accommodated the attack.

I'm unclear from the conspiracy theory as to why our government would want to launch such a fatal attack on itself, but whatevs.

Now, there's another Hurricane Erin and the government is somehow plotting something, Even the name Erin is one code word they're using since both the 2001 and 2025 hurricanes are named Erin. 

Uh, yeah, right. 

It's unclear what nefarious plot is supposedly coming with the latest Hurricane Erin, but I'm sure they'll come up with something creative. 

I won't link to the source of this wild story, ss I don't want to give them any clicks or revenue. 

For those who want an explanation, nobody can change the path of a hurricane.  Nothing any human has invented can overcome the power of even a weak tropical storm, never mind a full blown hurricane. All you can do is predict where a hurricane is going and get people out of the way. 

There was nothing unexpected about 2001's Hurricane Erin. The National Hurricane Center and every other meteorologist worth their salt in 2001 knew days in advance that Hurricane Erin would miss the East Coast and stay well offshore. Which is exactly what happened. 

A cold front that passed through the Northeast, one that produced picturesque thunderstorms over New York City on the evening of September 10, 2001 helped steer the hurricane away. 

Those clear blue skies weren't created by man either. Often, a hurricane will help produce sinking air west of its center. Sinking air means clear skies. That's the weather pattern we had that day. 

If I understand our conspiracy theorists correctly (admittedly hard to do)  the claim is that both Hurricane Erins stayed or will stay offshore is highly suspicious, and can't happen without human intervention,

Actually,a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean that stays offshore isn't weird art all. It happens pretty much every year. If a storm system or cold front is timed right, which is often, a hurricane will respond by heading north, then northeast offshore instead of plowing into the East Coast. 

There's nothing on about the name "Erin" coming up again and again, It's not a code word, 

The World Meteorological Organization picks the names, and tries to use easy to remember monikers to help the public avoid confusion over which storm is which. 

All tropical storm names are recycled every six years. The only exception is when a storm is so powerful and so memorable that it is retired, to be replaced by another name with the same first letter.

There has not been a remarkable or particularly destructive Erin yet, so we had Hurricane or Tropical Storm Erin in 2001, 2007, 2013, 2019 and 2025. 

OTHER WEIRD STORIES

I've seen other conspiracy theories on 2001's Hurricane Erin.

From Facebook, meteorologist T.J. Del Santo posted an innocent and factually correct note and satellite photo of the 2001 Hurricane Erin.  Mixed in with comments containing personal remembrances of that day, we get this tin hat gem:  

"Erin was planned out with 9/11. Geoengineered to steer out to sea and bring in the North wind that kept all the harmful smoke/dust mostly offshore Had there been the traditional south-southeast wind, there would have been many more fatalities from inhalation."

If that wasn't bad enough, somebody responded, "Ridiculous - fatalities were the goal, the point of it all."

Sigh, 

I've also seen stories about how Hurricane Erin was created via AI somehow, that it's HAARP, a conspiracy theory in which the government is waging war on the public by unleashing storms on us.

I'm always amazed that people will gravitate to the most outlandish stories when scary or weird weather hits. But they ignore the one thing that humans are doing to make a lot of these storms scarier or worse or more destructive,

Which is climate change. Climate change is likely one of the reasons Hurricane Erin intensified so quickly last weekend. It's why other hurricanes lately do the same. And it's at least in part why hurricanes Helene and Milton were so awful last year,

But that's boring. Let's instead invent some far out story about the Deep State or George Soros in some evil laboratory, cooking up a storm named Erin to terrorize Americans for reasons that are never made clear. 

There's also an Instagram account who's character says HAARP -  again run by some evil government agency - was pushing Hurricane Erin toward the U.S. but some white knight group called The Collective successfully pulled its path away from the U.S. 

"The Collective" is still apparently trying to battle two more coming storms the government is hatching. 

Back in the real world, two new disturbances have come off the west African coast, as these things always do this time of year. These two disturbance might or might not naturally develop into tropical storms, and nobody is sure where they will end up if they form. 

Also in the real world, HAARP is a low-key scientific study of the ionosphere. It has no ability to control the weather, and the scientists working on HAARP have no apparent desire to alter the directions of storms or anything like that.  

The real world might be more boring than the fantasies conspiracy theorists weave.  But it's more fun being sane, to be honest. 

QAnon Quebec Man Started Some Of Those Awful Wildfires Last Summer For Bizarre Reasons

Conspiracy theorist Brian Parè pleaded guilty to arson
charges. He set some of last June's wildfires in Quebec
to "prove" some sort of nefarious government plan
that he made up. 

 I'm sure you remember choking on wildfire smoke blowing down from Canada last spring and summer. 

I can now blame one particular nut job person for a little bit of that pollution that hazed out Vermont skies last June.

Meet Brian Parè, 38, who prosecutors said on May 31 and June 1  started 14 fires near Chapais, Quebec. about 260 miles northwest of Quebec City.

On those two days, hundreds of fires broke out across much of Quebec. An intense drought was ongoing. 

Most of the fires were sparked by lightning, and those strikes ignited the dry, vast forests of the region. The result was choking smoke blowing southward into New England. 

For reasons only Parè fully understands, he decided to augment the lightning and start his own fires. Two of the fires Parè set force the evacuation of about 500 homes around the town of Chapais.

As seems to be always the case, Parè is a QAnon nutcase. These are the people who were convinced Hillary Clinton and probably Tom Hanks were running a child sex trafficking ring out of the non-existent basement of a Washington DC pizza shop.

Anyway, Parè claimed on Facebook that the fires were deliberately set by the government to trick people into believing in climate change, CBC reported.

It's unclear why Parè started the fires when he believed the government was already doing so. 

Antihate.ca delved into Parè's social media posts and hoo-boy! 

Here's some examples, notes Antihate.ca: 

"'Our government and elite want it to burn," Parè wrote in a June 26 Facebook post, translated from French by Google. 'Not complicated. Since 2020, we are in a conspiracy of the new world order of 2030.'"

I'm not sure what Parè thinks is the new world order, but oh, wll.

Apparently, according to Perè, the Quebec drought that helped create the wildfires was not the work of climate change or random weather patterns. He explained: "It's NASA who controls the weather and our famous elites."

Parè also thinks that chemtrails are a thing, and he's also into a newer wacko idea called the 15-minute city.

To review, high-flying jets often create a narrow band of cirrus clouds behind them. Hot exhaust condenses into the cold air these aircraft fly through, forming the clouds. The wackos think these are "chemtrails," in which the government is seeding us with stuff to control our minds, or sterilize us for some reason or make us afraid, or........something like that, I guess.  

Haze from Quebec wildfires as seen at St. Albans Bay,
Vermont on June 5, 2023. A Quebec conspiracy
theorist set some of the fires, it turns out. 

The 15-minute city is a real concept, but not in the way that conspiracy nuts would have you believe. Fifteen minute city is an idea in which all urban amenities should be available within a 15 minute walk or bike ride. 

The weirdos like Parè think it's somehow a global plot to allow governments to control their population. 

I'm not sure how the convenience of reaching a subway or a bus stop within 15 minutes controls people like me, but I guess I think differently than these special people.   

 Pare has pleaded guilty to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life, according to CBC.  He also tried to claim he set the fires to test whether the forests were dry or not. I guess he didn't think to dig into the soil a bit to see whether he came up with dust or mud, I don't know.

You know, I'm annoyed at Parè for setting those fires. And I've been bullying him pretty brutally here. But in a sense I feel for the guy.  I'm far more enraged at the proponents of these conspiracy theories who prey on the gullible, like Parè. 

Because those proponents aren't trying to help people like Parè. They're just trying to enrich themselves, leaving people like Parè as collateral damage that they don't care a whit about.  

I'm not convinced most of the people who promote all this QAnon conspiracy nonsense actually believe any of it. But there's money to be made by this, so they spread this garbage. 

Which becomes dangerous. What if one of the fires Perè set killed someone? But they don't care. Grifters gotta grift, right?