Weather Control and Weather Warfare

Understanding cloud physics for weather modification with the stimulation of precipitation is not new. Not including the works of indian rain dancers, magical spells or witches brews, weather manipulation attempts and theories have been around since about 1901. Attempts on artificial stimulation of rain or snow, storm prevention, hurricane modification, prevention of cyclones, and preventing hail storms has been occurring for some time, with some successes but mostly failures.

Most of the success has been in the field of changing precipitation by the way of cloud seeding. This is accomplished by attaching flares containing chemicals to the wings of aircarft, which when ignited by the pilot burn for about 4 to 5 minutes. The flares usually contain silver iodide and these particles are dispersed into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which causes it to rain. This can be helpful in times of drought, like it was in 2007 for Texas, who employed the use of this technique. This can also be accomplished with dry ice (solid carbon dioxide), sea salt, or liquid propane. This does not necessarily have to be commercial aircarft, for even a small Cessna plane could carry out the job. Even cloud seeding by trees could alter precipitation, says an article at American Scientist. Below is a list of weather modifications since the early 1900s.

Weather Modification Successes and Failures:

1) In 1901, hail cannons were used at the International Congress of hail shooting. Some say, this practice is actually older than that, as it had been used by 19th century farmers in an attempt to ward off hail. Claiming to be a shock wave generator, hail cannons have been used as recent as 2006. There is no scientific evidence that this actually worked at any time in history.

2) In late 1915, San Diego city council (California) hired a "moisture accelerator" during the drought and that rainmaker was Charles Hatfield. Hatfield proceeded to make so much rain that there were killer floods, once breaking a dam. The event inspired a movie with Burt Lancaster in 1956, titled "The Rainmaker" and a song titled "Hatfield" by the rock band Widespread Panic. You can see the history on Wikipedia or here on this video about Hatfield, the rainmaker at youtube.

3) Cloud Busting of the 1930's was a theory by Wilhelm Reich to manipulate the altering levels of atmospheric orgone energy in order to create rain. He even developed a device called a cloudbuster to shoot into the sky from land, but there is no scientific proof that this actually worked.

4) While working at GE, Vincent Schaefer performed some tests at the Schenectady Research Lab in New York and by mid year of 1946 he had stumbled upon the answer to cloud seeding. Then on November 13th, 1946 he left Schenectady County airport with dry ice and headed to Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts and was able to create snowfall.

5) Project Cirrus was the 1st large study of cloud physics and the 1st attempt to modify a hurricane. It was a collaboration of the the US Army Signal Corps, the US Air Force, the Office of Naval Research, and General Electric (GE) for their October 13, 1947 project. The crew reported that the cloud had been successfully seeded and the hurricane changed directions, however they could not prove that this was due to their efforts or nature.

6) From Approximately 1942 to 1949 Fog Intense Dispersal Operation known as FIDO was used to clear fog from airfields. The British used vaporized petroleum burners which raised the temperature to dry up the fog. The FIDO project was covered in The War Illustrated July 6, 1945, Volume 9, No 210, pg 140. In August 1945, Popular Science did a piece on "How FIDO Licked the Airfield Fog." Then in Jan 1946, Popular Science did another article on the new tricks of FIDO, which was ELMER, a U.S. version of FIDO. The new and improved FIDO-like ELMER vaporized the fog by atomizing diesel oil under high pressure which shot flames at the fog. Later fog was dispelled by sound and routed by light. Time Magazine covered the story April 11th, 1949 with "FIDO at Work."

7) More Cloud Seeding experiments from 1947 to the mid 1960's were conducted by Australia's CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation). Only the experiments in the Snowy Mountains netted significant rainfall.

8) Project Cumulus between 1949 and 1952 was an operation of the United Kingdom government and jokingly known as Operation Witch Doctor, which experimented with cloud seeding. Some may say it was successful because it did rain, while others say it was a disaster, which may have caused the Lynmouth Flooding in North Devon (UK).

9) The "1962 Flagstaff Cumulus Project" June 9, 1962, which some call the BATON project modified select storms with respects to cloud seeding. This included theoretical and laboratory development as well as field tests in Flagstaff Arizona. The unclassified report was available in pdf to the public for some time on the internet in the "Study and Modification of Convective Storms" Report No. 2, Contract No. DA 36-039 SC-89066, Order No. 265-62, Project Code No. 8900, Dept. of the Army Project 3A99-Z7..005-06.

10) In 1969 the U.S. partnered with the Philippines to help them in their time of drought, and Operation Gromet II was successful with "Rainfall Augmentation in The Philippine Islands".

11) Project Stormfury from 1962 to 1983 was a US project to weaken tropical cyclones. It was not successful on cyclones or hurricanes, but they also studied cumulus clouds and that hypothesis too was invalidated. However some say that Stormfury was mildly succcessful at helping improve meteorologists' ability to forecast future hurricanes intensity and movement. Mostly however it was seen as a "failure microphysically and not statistically feasible", per Wikipedia. In 1958, a similar project was done using soot.

12) University of California's Alexandre Chorin in Berkley California proposed preventing droplet formation by using large amounts of environmentally friendly oils on the sea surface, but in 2002 many scientists said this would not hold water (pun intended). Also a Florida company called Dyn-o-Mat developed a polymer in powder form called Dyn-O-Gel to reduce the strength of hurricanes, and it too was shot down by NOAA.

13) In November 2009, The BBC reported that the earliest snowfall on record in a decade for Beijing was due to the Weather Modification Office seeding rain clouds with silver iodide.

Although changing precipitation to bring rain has been the primary objective, the same process of cloud seeding has been used for suppression of fog and hail at airports. At one point, weather warfare was used by the United States during the Vietnam War to extend the monsoon season over Laos and flood the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. This was "Operation Popeye", a US military cloud seeding project and a somewhat successful military tactic. The cloud seeding did work, and it did rain, but the Vietcong got around our efforts and carried on.

Later the Geneva Convention of May 18th, 1977 put measures in place to ban "weather warfare", however some say that the way it is written is debateable and that it is not just plain black and white, but it leaves alot of grey (gray) area. It is that gray area that one could work to manipulate, just like the weather. The United Nations supposedly also bans the use of weather warfare, and the Convention on Biological Diversity as of 2010 bans some forms of weather modification they term climate engineering or climate intervention. Some people even feel that not only can we make it rain to grow crops in a drought, but we can also withhold rain via weather manipulation through atmospheric geoengineering, which disturbs the hydrological cycle so that genetically modified food, which some people are trying to push could take over and be the norm. Their thought process is that if you control the weather, you also control the food supply therefore you control the people. I am not saying I believe it, but I am not saying that I don't, but hey humans did develop a vaccine for polio and prior to that we thought that would never happen.

Some conspiracy theorists are concerned that Chemtrails, (some call it Contrails) the lines left by planes producing water vapor is using dangerous chemicals and that people are now manipulating the weather for bad, rather than just modifying the weather for the good. Belfort "Case Orange" and HAARP Research Station near Gakona Alaska are also cases in point says conspiracy theorists. I am not saying they are right, but it is a little scary that HAARP would try to understand, simulate, and control ionosphere processes if they weren't going to be a little devious with it.

The HAARP Antennae Array heats up the ionosphere and changes the jet stream, and has now developed its own Aurora Borealis over it that can be seen at night, so just imagine what else it could do, says theorists. They believe the weather is being controlled in order to bring disasters on enemies of the USA. Although the array looks like something from outer space and the whole notion lends itself to some fictional Lex Luthor character who is Superman's arch-nemesis, it's not that far fetched for Castro. Even Fidel Castro, former President of Cuba voiced his concern that the USA's Project Stormfury was an attempt to weatherize hurricanes. Perhaps governments become the scientific genius that suspends the laws of nature for futuristic weaponry and play the Lex Luthor role. The difference here is that weather manipulation is not science fiction and has been done with limited success, so controlling it on a commercial scale is still plausible.

Oddly enough, even though many organizations and government agencies are against weather warfare, there was a 52 page document (now online in pdf) that was presented to the U.S. Air Force titled "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025". Again I'll let you form your own opinion, but in my opinion it is at least possible. We did put a man on the moon didn't we?

Additionally, the United States government put forth a bill proposing creation of an agency to promote weather modification research. This Weather Modification Operations and Research Board was presented by the Senate twice (March 4, 2004 and March 3, 2005) but did not pass and become law. So although weather control is not done with precision yet, there is certainly interest there.

Moreover, the Beijing Weather Modification Office or BWMO (archived page) is a government agency under the Beijing Municipality to implement weather modification in their area. At one time this was listed on the last tab or hyperlink on the right of the web page for the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, but now it's listed in their archives. They too have an interest in controlling the weather, even if only for their area. This can however get big, because if it is successful locally, then it also could be done on an international scale. The screenshot above is from a previously published page that has since been taken down, but stored in archives on the Wayback Machine.

There are several US organizations that support weather modification such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and The United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation; Department of the Interior). Also the United States Weather Bureau's National Hurricane Research Project investigates the scientific validity of hurricane seeding and the United States National Academy of Sciences encourages a national research program about weather modification efficacy and practice with hopes to clear up any questions associated with it. Although the NOAA says that they do not perform research on weather modification, they do however by law under authority of Public Law 205 of the 92nd Congress regulate weather control projects. Moreover, the NOAA site has a link to an article in pdf on "Evidence for Precipitation of Energetic Particles by Ionospheric Heating Transmissions" reprinted from the Journal of Geophysical Research Vol 80, No 31, from 11-1-1975.

Additionally, Monsanto supposedly owns patents in geo-engineering, and although I can't prove that, it does stand to reason that an agri-business giant such as Monsanto knowing that weather effects food quantity might be interested in getting a leg up on that. In addition to Monsanto creating recombinant bovine growth hormone known as rbgh (and rbst) for cows, and genetically modified seeds for farmers, they make lots of other toxic stews for crop dusting, because after all they still at the very core are a chemical company. If you control the food, you control the people. This could be a deliberate attempt by Monsanto to create food wars. This might sound far fetched for some, but Monsanto's press release October 2nd 2013 announced their plan to buy The Climate Corporation (previously known as Weather Bill) for their advancements in digital farm data to directly help farming productivity. You know the cliché, "birds of a feather, flock together." So ask yourself why would a chemical company want to buy a climate company; you can connect the dots, I'm sure. Monsanto doesn't do anything unless it makes them money.

Nucleation, electrification, hydrometeor development, storm dynamics, and cloud physics are still studied, so there is a vested interest in it. It is entirely possible that one day weather modification will become more successful everytime with precision, instead of the occasional CSIRO's Snowy Mountains experiment and that of GE's Schaefer. In the future, everyday could be a Ho Chi Minh trail.

All segments original, copyright retained

Previously my article appeared on Yahoo Voices (now defunct).