Shoutout to the guy at the gas station who changed my mind on chemtrails

I was filling up my truck at the Shell on Highway 99 near Eugene last Tuesday when an older fella walked up and pointed at the sky, saying those white streaks were just water vapor from jets, not some government spray program. He showed me a weather app on his phone that matched the flight paths to the clouds above us, all within a few minutes of each other. Now I'm wondering, if those trails are harmless, why do they stick around so much longer than normal plane exhaust?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_miller8410d ago

Why do chemtrails disappear faster when you're late for work?

drew5510d ago

Huh, I heard somewhere that most of those trails are just ice crystals that evaporate based on altitude conditions.

the_sam9d ago

Oh man, that's a good point about them sticking around. I actually looked into this a while back, and the main difference is altitude and temperature. Those high-altitude contrails form in air that's way colder than normal plane exhaust, so the ice crystals can hang around for hours if the humidity is right. @drew55 is onto something with the ice crystal thing, but the real kicker is that the same plane flying at a lower altitude on a warmer day will leave a trail that vanishes in seconds. So it's not the chemical makeup, it's just the atmospheric conditions that make them linger or disappear.