SKY PILOTS OF THE APOCALYPSE: WEATHER AS A WEAPON by Scott Corrales Military men have been known to abide by the traditional belief that "all possible weapons have already been invented"-- a view held by the Roman Emperor Vespasian as far back as 69 A.D., when one of his engineers tried to present him with a new military device. Napoleon's refusal to enlist the aid of Robert Fulton--inventor of the steamship--when planning an invasion of Britain probably affected posterity more than any other 19th century decision. In an age of constant innovation and change, strategists have learned to become more flexible and embrace all the possibilities, ranging from nuclear weapons to beam weapons, psychic warfare and every general's dream: control of the weather over enemy territory. As we come closer by days and weeks to the 21st century, the nightmare of meteorological warfare looms on the horizon. No Rain on the Plains of Spain It happened in the least likely setting: the region surrounding the Spanish province of Soria. On September 4, 1995, Felix Lopez, a resident of the town of Almazul, looked up to the sky--filled with dark gray rain clouds--and was surprised to see a small passenger plane taking a daring dive into one of the dark cloud banks. According to the witness, the small aircraft buzzed around the clouds for a couple of hours, causing them to break up and vanish. Later that same afternoon, when rain-bearing clouds gathered again, Lopez heard the sound of the plane's engines. The return of the "rain pirates" prompted L=A2pez to phone the local government, but no action was taken. For over a decade, farmers and growers in this semi-arid area have expressed a belief that small private aircraft have been engaged in concerted "cloudbusting" activities over Soria in an effort to turn Spain into a desert. The provincial government expressed its concern to author Javier Sierra that vigilante groups of angry farmers may try to shoot down innocent air traffic (reminiscent of the rancher frenzy during the "black helicopter" frenzy in the U.S. during the 1970's). "A third of the province is under alarm," commented one spokesman. More disturbing is the fact that civilian air authorities have been unable to find the flight routes or the identity of these "rain pirates". Military radar facilities were enlisted to track the flyers as they engaged in their activities without much success, either. Conspiracy theorists were quick to point out that the troubles began the year of Spain's accession to the European Community in 1985. The "ghost planes" or rain pirates made their appearance shortly after and the country announced that it would have to curtail its grain production so as not to compete with other European grain growers. The crisis grew to such proportions that an organization known as the Moncayo Small Aircraft Association (AVIMON, in Spanish) was formed to publicly denounce the rain pirates. "Whenever a storm was on the way," stated organization leader Ernesto Garc=A1a during an interview with Javier Sierra, "we'd always see low-flying aircraft and the storm would dissipate immediately afterward. We began to feel that something was going on, but of course, to say that an airplane was stealing rain from you by means of some chemical agent was a sure invitation to laughter." The problem was not circumscribed to northern Spain: drought-stricken Andaluc=A1a was reportedly visited by the rain pirates and their untraceable aircraft. The authorities, however, firmly refused to believe in the existence of any "cloudbusting" substances and careful checks of local airports and military bases did not reveal the existence of any unusual aircraft or flight plans. However, one C ndido Navarro allegedly photographed the small aircraft and the strange contrails left in their wake which supposedly contained the cloudbusting reagent. Meteorologist Carlos Gonz lez-Cutre went as far as inquiring if military authorities had drawn up contingency plans against possible farmer aggression in the event that one of their own planes was forced to land in the region, given the high level of tension involved. The Real Wonder Weapons Turning the planet's very own natural processes against an adversary in an armed conflict has always been seriously considered by strategists from different countries, and has been explored in works of fiction: as far back as the mid-18th century, Samuel Johnson could have the mad astronomer in Rasselas (1759) state: "the sun has listened to my dictates, and passed, from tropick to tropick, by my direction; the clouds, at my call have poured their waters..." By 1965, the mantle of artificial rain-maker had fallen on the shoulders of Dr. Richard Blasband, who conducted a series of thirty eight rain-making operations with a success ratio of 18 induced downpours when the chances of rain were only ten per cent, according to the local weather bureau. A report by the Central Intelligence Agency, cited in a 1977 Saturday Review editorial, hinted that world governments were already able to manipulate the weather for miliary purposes. The report probably had in mind the highly successful efforts at tampering with the weather over North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in order to make the Ho Chi Minh trail impassable.. The USSR had also turned an eye toward using the environment as a weapon, but looked down rather than up: In 1993, a high-ranking KGB officer, Oleg Kalugin, told a London newspaper that the former Soviet Union had been actively engaged in geophysical weapon research even as the superpowers held talks to reduce the size of their nuclear deterrents. According to Kalugin, the research focused on the creation of artificial earthquakes and tidal waves designed to devastate the U.S. Pacific coast. This ultimate "war crime" would be accomplished by placing nuclear explosives at choice subterranean locations in the hope that the localized explosion would have a ripple effect capable of causing natural devastation thousands of miles away.These controlled explosions would give the aggressor complete and perfect deniability, since the carnage would be ascribed to tectonic processes. To many, Kalugin's story was mere post-Cold War boasting. But the fact remains that nuclear tests have often resulted in abnormal seismic activity elsewhere in the world. Indeed, Soviet nuclear tests as their Semipalatinsk (in the former Kazakh S.S.R.) facility would often result in earthquakes as far away as Iran. Seismologists dismiss all of this fanciful talk, declaring that even the largest detonation could not have any measurable impact on colossal continental plates. The United States and the former Soviet Union specifically entered into a treaty forbidding research into geophysical warfare in the late 1970's, perhaps because the likelihood of one side or another's success in this field was not very likely. However, serious consideration was given to the deployment of atmospheric weapons, perhaps spurred by successful efforts at derailing hurricanes from their paths. On August 21, 1969, people throughout the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic) were able to see an enormous white cloud which expanded to a prodigious size, forming concentric rings before finally dissipating. Panicked witnesses believed that the "end of the world" was a hand or that the cloud was a portent of hidden significance, but it turned out to be an operation known as Project Stormfury, whose aim was that of pelting hurricanes with silver iodide, lead and dry ice in order to minimize their potency. Such chemical seeding of hurricanes caused their "eyes" to become amorphous and sent them on trajectories toward countries that had never experienced hurricanes before (Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras) with devastating effects. This accidental discovery showed that while hurricanes could not be created, it was possible to manipulate them or even tamper with the conditions behind their creation by affecting global marine currents such as El Nino. The White Paper from Hell Could Project Stormfury's accidental discoveries have evolved into a workable atmospheric weapon? This possibility is borne out by a number of highly unusual situations taking place over the continental United States today. The Environmental News Service is investigating numerous reports of "massive grid-work patterns in the sky" seemingly created by an armada of aircraft engaged in the spraying of a substance that causes illness in the populations below. One of the Service's reports features an interview with a missile engineer formerly employed by the Raytheon company who has been following these events. According to the engineer, the aircraft employed in these events are USAF jets spraying a substances similar to the silver iodide used in "cloud seeding" operations (echoes of Spain's rain pirates and Project Stormfury's hurricane-busters). ENS's informant is adamant that the contrail phenomenon forms part of a military application aimed at developing a meteorological war-fighting capability that would bring unfriendly nations to their knees. This provocative statement is substantiated by a Pentagon-sponsored webpage. A white paper entitled "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the weather in 2025", suggests that cloud seeding technology enables the production and enhancement of storm conditions. This speculative document, authored by a group of military think-tankers dubbed the "Air Force 2025 Support Staff", offers a variety of military possibilities that would terrify anyone but Darth Vader: weather modification tools to create "small-to-medium scale weather phenomena" aimed at improving one's own troops tactical position and "degrade those of the adversary"; Storm triggering/enhancement using airborne cloud seeding; fog generation/dissipation using directed energy techniques, and of course, a variety of beam weapons. The paper's abstract succinctly states: "In 2025, US aerospace forces can "own the weather" by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. Such a capability offers the warfighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible...In the US, weather modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our government will pursue such a policy, depending on its interests, at various levels. These levels could include: unilateral actions, participation in a security framework such as NATO, membership in an international organization such as the UN, or participation in a coalition. Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes weather modification, its use in our national military strategy will naturally follow." Happy Contrails to You In early 1998, callers to the Ted Gunderson Intelligence Report on WWCI, a short-wave station out of the southern U.S., complained about the presence of unusual contrails left behind by passing aircraft. One of the callers, a former airline pilot, believed that toxic experimental chemicals were being mixed in with commercial jet fuel and unknowingly spread by passenger flights. Other callers indicated that their fruit trees would be covered in a slightly viscous substance after these strange aircraft had fumigated the area, usually at night when their activity cannot be so readily perceived. According to Charles Napier, a concerned citizen who keeps tabs on this highly unusual aerial phenomenon on his website