Post by DannyRock on Mar 27, 2006 14:53:01 GMT -5
Web-posted Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Guest Column: Unidentified floating objects crisscross area skies
By Jeff Langley
Opinion
In a Jan. 31 letter, Hunter Ingalls said residents should watch the weird-looking jet contrails, "chemtrails," which crisscross and spread across Amarillo-area skies.For about the past two years, I also have watched and wondered about the frequent, odd-looking jet trails over Amarillo that don't dissipate and disappear but instead spread and hang for hours, covering a once-clear blue sky and sun with a thin band of web-like, tangled white "clouds."
I found numerous Internet sites about contrails and chemtrails and hundreds of photos of similar spreading, puffy white lines spewed from aircraft over cities from coast to coast and across the industrialized world.
Some "chemtrailers" have paranoid, crackpot ideas, but the consensus is that governments are spewing reflective metallic particles mixed with polymers into the lower stratosphere to reflect sunlight and "mitigate" global warming - a plan many renowned scientists have proposed for more than a decade.
The U.S. government - in the form of NASA and the Air Force - denies any spraying program. Contrails are just that, they say - water vapor surrounding jet-engine exhaust that freezes and forms white trails when atmospheric temperature and humidity are right.
The science behind scattering metallic particles in the atmosphere, "geoengineering," to prevent anticipated global warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide - dates back to a 1992 National Academies of Science report, "Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation and the Science Base," published in book form in 2000.
A patent to seed the stratosphere with metallic particles was awarded to Hughes Aircraft Co. of Los Angeles. U.S. Patent 5,003,186 - "Stratospheric Welsbach seeding for reduction of global warming" - was awarded in March 1991. The patent called for mixing 10-to-100-micron-size particles of aluminum oxide, thorium oxide or other "Welsbach" metal with jet fuel and dispersing them at about 30,000 feet to reflect radiation and heat back into space. The particles were expected to remain suspended for about a year.
A weird sight and possible link to chemtrails make me wonder even more about the jet trails and clouds over Amarillo.
One afternoon in late October or early November, I saw white strands of "spider webs" snagged on every bush, tree limb, twig, car antenna, pole and utility line, flapping in the constant Amarillo breeze as far as the eye could see.
The fibrous strands appeared in the thousands, just within a couple of blocks of central Amarillo. The flapping fiber strands appeared to be about one-quarter inch to 1 inch wide and a few inches to several feet long.
I had never seen so many spider webs or so much web material, but I didn't closely examine the webs, take pictures, collect samples or even give them much thought. For one thing, I don't like spiders and spider webs, and for another, a co-worker had an explanation.
"That's them spiders, migrating spiders. They do it every year," he said.
Later, I learned that my daughter and daughter-in-law saw the webs stuck all over things in another part of town and that a friend saw them snagged everywhere in yet a different part of the city.
I didn't see any web strands by the next day. They apparently just disappeared.
I made no connection between webs and chemtrails until I did my amateur research. Chemtrailers say the webs are from the aerosol spray mixture that eventually falls from the sky. Called "goo," "angel hair," "chemwebs" or "cobwebs," the fibrous strands reportedly melt when handled and quickly dissolve or evaporate.
A December 2002 Associated Press story said webs fell across Galveston.
"Galveston residents are still trying to figure out what caused the skies over their coastal city to literally be filled Friday with floating strands of wads that looked like spider webs. The webs were visible in the air for five hours, and poles were left wrapped with the sticky strands and fuzzy wads," the story said.
Such numerous webs also are attributed to "ballooning spiders." Spiders, usually the babies, migrate by shooting out web strands that catch the wind and disperse them.
Considering that explanation, I checked into ballooning spiders.
The most impressive photograph I found on the Internet was taken on a farm in Canada, where ballooning spiders had created a mass of spider webs that covered barbed wire from the top strand to the ground for many yards.
The awesome Canadian blob of spider webs, however, looked nothing like the thousands of white fibrous strands flapping from utility lines and protuberances in Amarillo that past fall day.
I don't know. Could be spider webs. Could be frozen water vapor.
I'll just keep my eye on the sky and ensure handy access to a weather thermometer, swimming trunks, suntan oil with UV blockers, sunglasses, a filter mask and rubber gloves.
Jeff Langley of Amarillo is a former Globe-News reader representative and columnist. He can be contacted at jefflangley@peoplepc.com.
www.amarillo.com/stories/030106/opi_4090779.shtml
