All images © 2018-2024 by George Bailey
“Jet engine exhaust contains carbon dioxide, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, unburned fuel, soot and metal particles, as well as water vapor. The soot provides condensation sites for the water vapor.” Scientific American, Jenn Stroud Rossmann
I’m not ready to jump on the chemtrail bandwagon ever since the increase of contrails caught the attention of many. Science has debunked the idea of chemicals being sprayed in a supposed attempt to modify climate change or for more nefarious reasons. Nevertheless, there are plenty of believers in chemical spraying and people who claim to have suffered the health side effects from it.
But something seems very wrong in the sky. The clouds don’t look the same. I am the third generation to live on this property that my grandfather bought in 1929. The former orange groves are now open fields with a broad view of the sky. It made for some great star viewing unhindered by obstacles, power lines, trees, buildings, etc. That is, until the contrails (condensation trails) started streaking up the night sky as well. Something I don’t ever recall seeing at night years ago and something I only noticed recently, in the last few years.
Air travel took a hit during the Covid years but has since bounced back. It’s at an all time high for commercial passenger aviation and the trend is expected to grow into 2030. I can believe it since I see aircraft of all types everyday. So it is reasonable to assume the expansion of air travel can result in the increasing streakiness of the sky.
There are patterns. Too many contrails and a murky overcast covers up the blue. Sometimes the overcast gives way to strange cloud formations as shown below. Perhaps a meteorologist could suss out these cloud images and better explain the atmospheric conditions that form them. In the meantime, it’s not unusual to look up and see a surreal sky that looks like it belongs on another planet.
The Contrail Patterns
One morning in May of 2022 as I was driving home a batch of contrails caught my eye. Instead of the usual criss-crossing it was a massive bundle of trails. Apparently they were all assigned to one flight corridor heading from north to south over the eastern side of Florida. It’s unknown what is going on here but all were given instructions to follow this flight path. Warned? And about what? I have never seen this before or since.
The classic pattern. Can be seen just about every morning.
One of the stranger patterns with a multiple engine trail traveling in a northerly direction. Normally not with a second look. However, in a few minutes the contrail instead of dissipating or hanging in place for a long period, instead changed into this shape.
The rainbow contrail. Must have been loaded with plenty of ice crystals this August morning.
Remnants of contrails. Atmospheric conditions apparently turned them into shards.
The drop down. The contrail that seems to sink in altitude and broaden into a huge band hanging over your house as this one did. Interesting how it maintains its shape as it spends a long time floating down. Does it expand? Or else is the original width still intact on its way down?
The Clouds
Often the contrails either create an overcast gruel or cause the appearance of odd cloud formations. Sometimes the overcast morphs into strange, other worldly cloud shapes I call the strands. See below.
In this instance, the streaked sky developed into overcast. Hours later a bright uniform covering appeared with holes in it. The image on top is taken with a wide angle zoom for full coverage with the lower image taken with a 200mm telephoto lens a few minutes later.
Looks like this was painted with a big brush. Painted by an airplane and upper altitude winds. Notice how the cloud on the right comes to a sharp end. The remnants of trails
The Strands
I don’t know what else to call them other than they resembles strands of fibrous material to me. These are the clouds I referred to above as other worldly as if they are located on some other planet. Once again, these clouds appear after lots of contrail activity.
The Clouds Of Our Youth
The clouds are different now. People on social media have commented on how different the skies look. The Scientific American article quoted above, and linked below, describe the junk being emitted and spread daily and nightly in our skies as a toxic brew of chemicals. A byproduct of man made machines and worldwide travel. You can see a clear blue sky but you have to live outside of the air traffic patterns. Or just be lucky where you are.
For the believers in chemtrails, perhaps they are real after all, just not made of the things you believed them to be.
Sources
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-jets-leave-a-white/