"The
city of Portland is completely blanketed
with
the chemclouds -- it is solid,"
wrote a woman who only identified herself as Deborah.
|
by
Jim Redden
Denise
Gordon watches the sky.
Denise
is an esthetician, a skin care therapist who gives facials
and other skin treatments to clients throughout the Portland
metropolitan area. She spends a lot of time behind the wheel
of her car, driving from appointment to appointment. Three
summers ago, Denise saw four airplanes laying down a grid
pattern of contrails in the bright, clear sky. As the day
went on, she noticed that the contrails stayed in the air
and spread out, eventually covering much of the sky with
a thin, brownish haze. When she looked at the sun, it appeared
to be surrounded by a colorful corona.
"The
sun looked like it was shining through an oil slick, or
a slick rainbow," she remembers.
The
same thing happened a few days later. And then a few days
after that. Denise didn't think much about it, though, until
she was returning from an appointment late one night and
happened to be listening to "Sightings," a UFO-oriented
talk show on KTOK AM (1080) hosted by Jeff Rense, a former
investigative reporter. The guest that night was a man named
Will Thomas. Denise was shocked when Thomas started describing
the exact same thing she'd been seeing in the sky. Thomas
called the grid-pattern lines "chemtrails," and
he claimed they were a top secret government experiment
to vaccinate the American people against anthrax and other
biological weapons.
Then
Thomas shocked Denise again. He said the chemtrails were
making people across the country sick with flu-like symptoms
that lasted for weeks or months. Although Denise had not
been sick herself, many of her clients were complaining
about the exact same symptoms which Thomas was describing.
"Most
of them were saying things like, 'I just can't shake this
cold' or 'My allergies are getting worse,'" she says.
"And a lot of them were telling me all their friends
were sick, too."
Denise
has tried talking to her clients about the chemtrails, but
they all look at her like she's nuts. "They think I've
just been listening to too much wacko radio," she says.
But
in fact, chemtrails have become an international controversy
since Denise first noticed the strange lines in the sky
three summers ago. Dozens of Internet websites about the
issue have been launched, most featuring photos from all
over the world showing the same strange patterns in the
sky. Many of the sites carry reports by self-proclaimed
"chemtrail experts" offering different (and frequently
conflicting) explanations for their origins. Some, like
Thomas, believe they carry some form of vaccine. Others
say the spraying is a New World Order plot to intentionally
make people too sick to fight the coming One World Government.
Still others say the thin haze is designed to fight global
warming by reabsorbing or reflecting heat from the earth
in the infrared spectrum. Whatever the case, people all
over the globe are flooding these sites with first-hand
reports of their own personal experiences.
And
some of the most dedicated sky watchers live in the Portland
area. Dozens of them e-mailed Rense on June 4, complaining
that the metropolitan area was being choked by chemtrails.
All the reports said essentially the same thing—the
day started out clear and sunny, but ended up hazy and overcast
after several planes laid down a steady stream of chemtrails
throughout the morning.
"I
want to report MASSIVE contrail spraying in Portland OR,"
wrote Derek R. Sims. "It looked like a huge spine with
all the nerve endings shooting out, up and down the trail.
I have been sneezing uncontrollably, [but] I have no allergies,
and am not sick."
"The
city of Portland is completely blanketed with the chemclouds—it
is solid," wrote a woman who only identified herself
as Deborah. "When I got home there were three new trails
above my house. I'm telling you, Jeff, we are socked in
with chemclouds."
"FYI
and listeners, chemtrails are back," wrote Cindy Carpenter.
"I came down with the worst headache I have had in
years, and still have it."
"I,
too, live in the Portland area and saw all of this going
on,” wrote Eric Lynched. "I mentioned to my wife
that by noon we would not be able to see the blue sky. As
sure as can be, the sky was covered with a layer of thin,
white spray. We also noticed a rainbow-like ring around
the sun."
But
not everyone is content to merely gripe. Portlander Sardar
Khalsa contributes to the Sierra Times, an on-line
environmental magazine. He's working on a story about the
spraying to run in the near future.
"People
had been telling me about these chemtrails, but I didn't
believe they existed until I saw them for myself about six
months ago," he says. "They are definitely not
normal contrails. They don't come out of the engines or
off the wing tips, but are being sprayed from under the
planes."
Khalsa's
research has convinced him the spraying is being done by
U.S. Air Force planes. Although the military denies anything
is going on, he says he's figured out where the planes are
coming from.
"The
West Coast has been divided into northern and southern regions,"
Khala says. "The north includes Portland, and the planes
either come from McCord Air Force base near Seattle or the
base in Klamath Falls. Edwards Air Force base in California
provides the planes for the southern region."
Khalsa
doesn't claim to know what the planes are spraying, though.
He's heard from people who say that it sometimes "snows
cobwebs" after the planes fly overhead. He's read that
pesticides and even human blood cells have been detected
in the material. But he hasn't come to any conclusions yet.
"I
can't tell you what it is, and I can't tell you why it is,"
Khalsa says. "But I can tell you I've seen many days
which start out clear and end up looking like Los Angeles
in the haze."
Khalsa
and several of the other sky watchers say they've called
the local news reporters and begged them to do stories on
the chemtrails, to no avail.
"I've
left messages when the spraying's going on, and nobody's
even called me back," he says.
But
KGW-TV weatherman Jack Coppell actually acknowledged the
sky looked unusual on June 4. "Many people have been
calling us and asking us about this," he said as the
station broadcast a picture of that day's solar corona.
"This phenomenon is known as a Solar Halo, and is normally
caused by ice crystals provided by high cirrus clouds. Since
there are no high cirrus clouds, this is highly unusual."
The
lack of corporate news coverage has many sky watchers convinced
the government is censoring all news on the chemtrails.
"Like
millions of other Americans, all I can do is keep my fingers
crossed that our government's intent behind this is not
entirely malicious," Michael Goodspeed wrote in a June
4 e-mail to the Sightings website.
"I
just never dreamed ol’ Uncle Sam and all her boys in
D.C. could do this to us. See how life just doesn't mean
anything anymore," wrote Cindy Carpenter.
Paul
Gilmour agrees. A local computer consultant, he hasn't made
up his mind whether the chemtrails are an attempt to vaccinate
the population, control the population or fight global warming.
But he says that something has to be done about the chemtrails,
or he's leaving.
"I'll
tell you this—I've got a two-year-old son and if this
doesn't stop, I'm going to move," says Gilmour. "He's
already getting respiratory problems."
The
only trouble is, Gilmour doesn't know where to go. With
sightings, reports and pictures posted from every state,
he wonders where he can go.
Information on
the chemtrail controversy can be found at the following
websites:
|
