Previously top-secret CIA files, declassified in 2003, allege that the United States planned to control the world by manipulating the weather. The documents, which resurfaced from 1965, discuss launching rockets or planes to release chemicals into the atmosphere to alter climate and storm systems.
The files highlight how weather modification could be used as a weapon of war. They note that federal funding for such projects was set to quadruple in 1967, the same year the US began spraying toxins over Vietnam to cause floods and landslides. The documents do not specify which chemicals were used in the experiments.
A letter from US President Lyndon B Johnson praised the operations. In a 1962 speech at Southwest Texas State University, then-Vice President Johnson said: 'He who controls the weather will control the world.' Johnson oversaw two notable projects: Project Stormfury, which seeded hurricanes with silver iodide to weaken them, and Project Popeye, which artificially extended Vietnam's monsoon season.
Conspiracy theorists have recently shared the 18-page reports after they were quietly placed in the CIA's public archives. US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has alleged that 'chemtrails' contain toxins like aluminum and barium, though scientists largely dismiss this, attributing condensation trails to water vapour freezing at high altitudes.
