Declassified CIA records detailing Cold War-era weather manipulation programs have resurfaced online, fueling fresh conspiracy theories.
CIA documents that were declassified in 2003 are making waves online again.
The 18-page report dates to 1965 and lays out plans to manipulate weather patterns, using rockets or aircraft to release chemicals into the atmosphere to alter storms and regional climate.
The chemicals themselves used in early experiments aren’t named in the memos, but funding for the program was set to quadruple by 1967. 1967 also happens to be the year the US began dispersing substances over Vietnam to trigger flooding and landslides.
Praised by the president
The files include a letter from President Lyndon B. Johnson praising the program. Years earlier, in a 1962 address at Southwest Texas State University, Johnson said, “He who controls the weather will control the world.”
Under his presidency, two major weather programs moved forward: Project Stormfury and Project Popeye. Project Stormfury involved flying directly into hurricanes and seeding clouds with silver iodide, trying to disrupt a storm’s inner structure and weaken it.
By 1967, the approach shifted toward warfare with Project Popeye, deployed during the Vietnam War to extend the monsoon season and disrupt supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
That operation used lead iodide to boost rainfall and cause road-blocking landslides. Lead exposure is linked to fatigue, abdominal pain, kidney problems, neurological damage, and developmental issues in children.
Why the files are resurfacing now
The US government has long maintained that this research was meant to weaken dangerous storms and ease drought, not control the weather for other purposes.
People sharing the files argue that the programs point to something still happening today, pointing specifically at contrails left behind by modern aircraft. These are explained by mainstream scienceas water vapor freezing into ice crystals in cold air.
Critics, however, disagree. They argue the aircraft exhaust contains undisclosed chemicals.
Environmental researcher Dane Wigington and RFK Jr. have both claimed modern jet emissions carry heavy metals like aluminum, barium, strontium, and mercury.
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