A slew of conspiracies about government-controlled weather patterns have cropped up following the devastation caused by recent hurricanes, leading one content creator to clear the air.
Alex Fright (@alex_explains) helped dispel two of those theories — both of which pertained to airplanes — in a video posted to TikTok.
@alex_explains You dont want to be on the second one 😂 #chemtrails #contrails #planes #aerospaceengineering #physics #stem ♬ original sound - Alex_explains!
He began by referencing one of his previous clips in which he broke down what contrails are but then played devil's advocate by questioning other ominous-looking substances that planes are producing.
"They're definitely poisonous mind-control chemtrails," he said in character as a conspiracy theorist while including an overlaid image of a plane seemingly expelling a plume of smoke throughout its entire body and a video of a mysterious fluid getting ejected from the wing.
Fright identified the first picture as nothing more than condensation and gave a quick lesson on aerodynamics.
"As the wing produces lift, there's a low-pressure region on top of it. Low pressure leads to low temperature, so when the warmer incoming air meets it, it condenses, especially in landing, when there's even lower pressure due to the high angle of attack and deployments of the slats and flaps," he said.
Fright compared the visible water vapor to the little puff of smoke you see when opening a can of soda, noting that compressed carbon dioxide rapidly decompresses, compressing the moisture in the air.
He then addressed the liquid that airplanes occasionally release from their wing tips, explaining that the aircraft's weight is greater at takeoff than landing because of its fuel expenditure and that its landing gears are designed for landing at that lower weight.
However, a plane will rapidly jettison fuel in the event of an emergency landing to reach a safe weight limit and prevent a catastrophe at landing.
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While it's not some sort of cover-up for a larger government scheme, several commenters noted that polluting the atmosphere with jet fuel isn't exactly a win.
"Yes, but dumping kerosene brings provable health complications," one person commented. "At least it isn't a mind-controlling chemical."
"Yes, agreed, I didn't say dumping fuel was good!" Fright responded.
"Well technically both are chemicals. so there's that … not just what you'd expect," another person pointed out.
Others continued to contest that chemtrails are part of a ploy to manipulate the weather for some greater purpose, often citing cloud seeding as the culprit.
It's a discussion that several experts have dismissed and debunked; though the geoengineering practice is real, human-driven pollution is what has caused storms and other extreme weather events to be as devastating as they were.
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