Chemtrails and UFOs

A Fortean View

Colin Bennett

Published in UFO Magazine June, 2007

Some years ago, when chemtrails had hardly been noticed or commented upon, I was watching three such trails develop in the sky when I saw three quite distinct white spheres come out of the trails and after lazing about for a few seconds, they re-entered the body of the misty “contrail” and disappeared. They were about half the size of the little-finger thumb-nail at arm’s length, and varied their formation as I watched, though all kept to the same speed of maneuver.

I suppose now this would be called an observation of three UFOs. I had a much more spectacular UFO experience (involving an element of lost time) after this chemtrails incident. I appreciated a comment from a friend that these two experiences put me at least on a par above most well-known “researchers” almost none of whom have seen a single UFO, though a few talk confidently as if they had seen hundreds of such things! Most are cold fish who have no idea of the sheer thrill involved in observing something whose behaviour is patently absurd, behaviour which I can now personally swear that in my opinion was not of this world. Such things (mercifully rare for our health of mind) are not within the paradigms upon which our planetary cultures are constructed.

Some years after these experiences, these so-called "chemtrails" are now seen almost everywhere in the skies of the world. They are an incredible phenomenon of our time, if only because like UFO sightings, the broad span of social, political, and intellectual life of major nations largely ignores such things utterly. Apart from the entertainment spectrum, most artists, playwrights, novelists, poets, ignore such anomalistic things as UFOs and chemtrails, even though they offer strange exotic images, symbols, metaphors, intrigue, possibly mysterious technology, and much more besides!

The skies of the world, full previously of traditional pantomime clouds, now have a sky scored by lines of whitish-grey streaks. This change in the global view is also totally ignored also by major news, media, and communication outlets. This is strange again given that these large-scale chemtrail effects are often quite spectacular and beautiful when lit by the evening sun. The trails spread out at different rates, they come from different angles, and the aircraft that create them can be seen streaking across the sky, often several at once, and at extremely high speeds.

The word "chemtrails" is used here for lack of a better word, but it is unlikely that what we see spreading out across the sky are chemicals of some conventional kind. Such gross tonnage of chemicals would surely have the most immediate and obvious effect on both our minds and environment. We have no knowledge of where such tonnage is manufactured, processed, and presumably purchased, stored and installed in aircraft.  Furthermore, this weight of chemicals becomes almost invisible and undetectable when it falls to earth after giving a most spectacular display in the skies which can be seen on clear days through every second kitchen window in the world.

  Attachment 2

Some three years ago, the Combat Diaries Intelligence Team of the New Fortean Times of which I am the Editor, www.combat-diaries.co.uk carried out an investigation of chemtrails over Britain. With the help of specialists (three men and one woman ex Royal Air Force), we conducted a 24-hour period of observation by web, telephone, and amateur radio of the skies over America and Central Europe, taking into account time differences. The results were quite disturbing. It was obvious that simultaneous operation by large numbers of quite visible aircraft were being mounted over continental areas on both sides of the Atlantic. Through contacts, we managed also to get reports on this selected same day from the civilian staff of merchant and cruise ships crossing the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. They reported that sky trails were visible whilst sailing in both these oceans.

Thus we concluded that chemtrails represent a continuous operation of incredible magnitude. The aircraft involved show remarkably similar characteristics and performance, though their exact profile we have yet to find in any book of aircraft recognition. Though there were a few four-jet types involved, (resembling 747 and the older 707, very few of which are still flying) for the most part, the aircraft involved with chemtrails resemble in shape and size the Boeing 757 (the type that was said to have crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11).

Though we used extremely high-powered telescopes and binoculars, no markings or insignia could be seen on these aircraft. This is remarkable in itself, because technically it is illegal. Measured by range theodolite and ex-service hand-held rangefinders, these strange aircraft were flying at approximately the same speed (being 1200 -1400 mph), and the height was always about 20,000-30,000 feet; this is somewhat high and fast for an outmoded passenger aircraft type, meant for inland short/medium range commuter flights at a top speed of 450 mph!

These things are wonders in themselves, but it is the sheer number of these pseudo 757-type aircraft that is beyond belief. On this chosen sample day, our reporters in France, Germany and Holland, Spain, Italy and Israel alone reported at noon the sky trails of no less than 234 almost identical aircraft at between 20,000 and 40,000 feet. Since this hourly rate continued during the day it represented some 2340 sorties over ten hours. Worldwide, multiplying the quite reasonable factor of 10, we have 23,400 sorties per day by planes of a non-military non-supersonic configuration, traveling at speeds equivalent to the highest speed of an F16 or Typhoon Euro-fighter.

By comparison, NATO figures for annual full-scale exercises amount to something like 300 (jet supersonic) combat sorties at full stretch for the same time period, involving some no more than 150 aircraft. Again, the absence of reported noise is strange. Even a single Tornado on afterburner over central London would shake the population up considerably.

Since our observers at a dozen or so military and civilian airfields reported no such activity by any such aircraft, we have here a modern mystery in our skies visible to all on a clear day. National airspace regulations don't appear to be a problem at all with any country as far as these infringements are concerned. The official military and civilian air agencies as usual with UFO sightings, hear nothing, see nothing, and say nothing.

This vast number of aircraft appear to have no detectable bases, they have no apparent air-refueling needs, they do not carry military drop tanks. Their routes appear to stretch across the sky from all compass points, often crossing one another to form a lattice pattern. They appear also to have no detectible manufacturers, support bases, or refueling facilities. And they don't appear to land or take off! Again, since no air force in the world (not even the United States Air Force) have any large supersonic transport aircraft, the presence of many hundreds of large supersonic transport aircraft is rather strange!

The cost such of such visible operations on a worldwide basis by the approximately the same type of powerful aircraft must be stupendous. These aircraft have no legally required communications, no passenger lists, and no crashes as far as we know. The maintenance, fuelling, and repair facilities of such a great number of high-performance aircraft can only be imagined. The training schemes and accommodation of the personnel appear not to exist! Since no such numbers of this aircraft type are on manufacturer's lists, we have here a true mystery of our time.

Where are they from, and what are they doing on their seemingly purposeless routes across the sky?

Investigations are Continuing

We are trying, by various means to monitor their VHF, and believe or not, there are amateur enthusiasts who register almost every flight in and out of British skies just as train-spotters gathered engine-numbers long ago! Not even these intrepid watchers could locate a single transmission from chemtrail aircraft, even though they knew all the legally required call signs of every other aircraft in the sky. Lack of any measurable frequency signature again is amazing because of the sheer number of aircraft that are entering and leaving (and indeed sometimes maneuvering) inside national airspace at will, with no recognition signals, and no visible identification. Since they are supersonic, they are over the visible horizon in seconds (the comparatively lazy motion of a 450 mph 747 Jumbo may be compared to them). Where these strangely silent aircraft all break into Mach 1 without disturbing a sparrow is another mystery.

We have discovered something else that multiplies these astonishments. Using (passive) night-scope infrared amplifiers, we found that the operations did not cease after nightfall!

This means that roughly speaking we can possibly multiply the scale of operations by a factor of two, bringing us into absurd realms as regards cost, maintenance, and purpose.

The Not-Seeing

Our collective "not-seeing" is unusual if only because chemtrails are much more visible and more frequent than UFO visitations. We are forced to consider the idea that levels of conscious acceptance and recognition within a culture have often nothing to do with how much "evidence" is available or not available. All anomalistic structures of which the UFO phenomenon is but one, have this common peculiarity. Somehow, like a bioelectric switch, as a society we turn certain selected ranges of anomalies "off" as far as psycho-social cognition is concerned. This is a most common effect. Like the UFO again, the phenomenon may be large or small, fantastic or mundane, it makes no difference. We cannot see the kitchen matchbox in front of us, say, because we are have been diverted into thinking about something else. This is the real reason for the community in general being little interested in Ufology. We don't have enough RAM to hold all our files open at the same time!

From a Fortean point of view, the phenomenon of chemtrails might enable us to construct a new and healthier definition of what we mean by "skepticism." We might see skepticism not a revealing of mundane truth, so much as an automated control mechanism by means of which maintain a scale of wonder-management rather than straight absolute differentiation of fact from fiction. We do not see what we cannot understand, and what we cannot understand we do no want to see. This was Charles Fort's original view of the functions of both skepticism and belief. His view puts "doubt" in a new dynamic context rather than it being seen as a depressing semi-automated denial of all that is wondrous and magical in the world.

Descartes and Euclid

Our personal framework of limited freewill exists within the larger framework of the culture we born into. Compared with the span of human life, this framework changes very slowly. Change all the personnel of CNN or the BBC and replace them and absolutely nothing would appear to change as regards the general function of these two systems-animals. The Culture is a larger animal and does not “live” within finite human terms.

For practical affairs at least the Western world lives largely within the reference system created by Euclid of Alexandria (325 to 265 BC) and René Descartes (March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650). Einstein and his followers were later to show that this system was not entirely valid for all states and conditions. But the hard-nosed pork-belly trading world, with its push-me-pull-you practical transactions still regards the macrocosmic world of Euclid and Descartes as being the only world which is “real.”

In a similar way, those filing clerks who for some reason are drawn to Ufology as flies to jampots, see the UFO case history as quite a separate thing from culture, personality and society. In doing so they do not see that definitions in concepts and language are cultural functions which thread through the “objective” case history to create subtexts to the concrete experience.  If we deny such wider-range implications, the components of the anomaly will not be recognized or properly interpreted.

Since it is language, a case history cannot but help but express itself as a text and all that means as regards analysis of texts.

This is much more useful way of interpretation than spending months trying to find the name of Betty and Barney’s dog!

All cultures generate a wide range of anomalies (of which the UFO and chemtrail are but two) as driving engines to move forward in time. They are subversive in that they generate wonder and endless speculation, which in turn help define what human beings are morally and practically.

We must therefore see the anomalous experience as consisting of components of which the mechanical element is but one component. Without this holistic view of media, personal, political, social, and folk-lore elements, neither the chemtrail or the UFO will be seen as liminal manifestations, consisting of multiple of grey-scaling of image, symbol, and metaphor.

Without this holistic view, we will not understand much bigger things, from 911, to the recent terrible events at Vancouver Tech. Such things are rooted in culture and society as much as they are rooted in the unsatisfactory push-and-pull “explanations” of psychopathological behaviour, inexplicably melted steel, or the equally strange behavior of rounds from assassination and murder weapons.

Colin Bennett

April 2007