---

Saturday, December 12th dawned promising one of those warm, sunny days, unique rather than rare this time of the year here in Galicia. We were coming from 10 consecutive days of rain and the blue of the sky so clear and diaphanous looked like a chimera. Indeed, a few hours after that would prove to be: a chimera! By midday some sort of unhealthy semipermeable haze looking like clabber darkened that intense blueness that Mother Nature had presented us with.

A natural phenomenon? An eclipse? A sudden perturbation driven at high speed by ocean winds? No, none of this, it is called "chemtrails", a phenomenon as subtle and (potentially) dangerous, as unknown to most.

I heard of it for the first time last year, speaking to Flavio, a friend here in Galicia, the westernmost point of the Iberian peninsula. White lines as broad as highways that traverse the skies drawing geometrical figures using fumes of unknown manufacture. And me, looking towards the sky: "Can’t simply be simply condensation caused by airplanes?” No, it is not. But to be honest, I am not the only one to react like that, if is true that from that moment on, since I started observing the phenomenon, all those to whom I pointed this out initially argued that it was probably simply condensation.

The difference, that at a (distracted) glance might seem subtle, it is in fact not so trivial. To be clearer and leave no doubt about what I am referring to, let’s bring our minds back when, children, we looked spellbound into the wake of the air above our heads, up there, far far away. They were short trails, moving (so to speak) along the same plane that was producing them. Those were (and are) contrails, physical reaction of the mix of exhaust and steam aque produced by jets that coming into contact with the atmosphere at temperatures below -40°C and under certain humidity conditions solidify. Temporarily solidify, that is, during 30, 40 seconds to a minute at most, then it dissolves “gas it was and gas will return" wanting to paraphrase the Bible.

Chemtrails, however, apart from presenting a far more compact consistency and being of a much broader width than the first ones, owns a property that we could name "malleable indestructibility”. Such as plastic, but in powder form. A lyophilised plastic, let’s say.

There is no official explanation of the phenomenon. In fact, to be honest, it looks like the phenomenon officially doesn’t exist at all. In more than one occasion, and in different European and non European countries, Parliaments were officially questioned over the issue and such activity proposed to be banned. The responses of governments and military authorities have so far been of two types: A) "No, it isn’t true at all"; B) "They are common condensation trails left by commercial aircraft. Harmless”.

Though, if hypothesis A were true it would be difficult to explain how none of us remember having ever seen so large and strong trails during childhood. A sort of collective amnesia. Selective memory that, incidentally, has made the very same selection in the minds of all. And if hypothesis B were true, then why there are days when the chunk of sky above our heads looks like a talcum powder grid, while on other days there is no trace? If a given airspace is on flight routes of commercial aircraft, and if it is true that such machines are those that produce those big -harmless- trails, then every day at the same time they should reappear in the same position. And why the same aircrafts crisscross the same patch of sky dozens of times, flying in different directions? Is it supposed to be a kind of airplane-limousine carrying a rich and fanciful lady who every ten minutes change her mind and order the pilot to invert the course. Why not? Very realistic assumptions.

All this without making mention of really extreme cases. In Croatia, for example, the first case of chemtrails was detected on the very same day when the country was accepted into NATO... Or, another case, in a small town in Ontario, Canada, where, tired of the passivity of local government, a group of private citizens hired an independent chemical laboratory to analyze a sample of soil in an area particularly susceptible to this phenomenon. The results gave values of heavy metals well above the norm.

But, as said, what strikes me most is that the phenomenon is denied without even discuss it. Not as something scientifically inaccurate or yet to be proved, but as the ravings of conspiracy of four suckers. If you go on Wikipedia, for example, a source I personally believe to be generally above partes, the page "chemtrails" doesn’t exist. It exists in its place one entitled "Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory”. And the same applies to the one in Italian, for what it matters. This, in my opinion contravenes the very spirit of a free encyclopedia. Because, if you search for "Jack the Ripper" the page do exists, with myths and truths of the case, but it exists. It isn’t replaced by one called "The not Very Credible Legend of Jack the Ripper."

Intrigued, I began to wonder why if this theory is so incorrect and hence so easy to disassemble it is so brazenly ignored. A few days ago, talking again with Flavio about chemtrails, he told me that in "El Pais" of that day there was an article on "assisted" climate change, so to speak. In the evening I read its online version, and once finished I asked myself why had he recommended it to me, since there were no chemtrails mentioned at all. And that was exactly the point: even in an article that would have much to do with the phenomenon in question, this isn’t mentioned. I even bothered to go and read what NASA has to say about it NASA. Again, not once the word "chemtrails" is mentioned. Even not to deny it, I mean.

So an absurd, theoretical parallel comes to my mind: one evening I go to a bar and see a friend's girlfriend kissing another man. My conscience tells me to go to my friend and tell him. But then a question comes to mind and paralyzes all my actions: "what if he doesn’t believe me?" Yes, why -with no evidence- would my friend believe me instead of his girl who will probably deny everything? My friend, my friend’s brain to be more accurate, having to choose between two options will choose the one less painful to accept. Not the truthful, the less painful...

And so, a little step per time, a failed Copenhagen conference after another, a selfishness on top of another, this planet is reduced to a heap of rubble. Morally as much as physically. I quote from the beautiful Water for Elephants: "When people will understand that just because they can do something that doesn't mean they should?" Yeah, when? One would think "Oh, who cares" and close eyes and mind in the face of impending disaster. But then your eye suddenly drop on a flower's bloom, on a sunset over the sea, on a smiling baby... on a poem, and then you know that there is still something worthy fighting for and that it will always exist: hope!




ITALIANO
La versione Italiana di questo articolo è su Vagabondo.net
Link: La Speranza

---