A report ordered by the agriculture ministry has found that tracks observed in skies over Cyprus are due to normal vapour trails from aircraft, and not to chemtrails – but critics aren’t convinced.
The report, ordered by Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis back in February, determined that contrails (short for condensation trails) are responsible for the phenomenon observed where white trails crisscross the sky, sometimes lingering there for hours.
Contrails are clouds formed when water vapour condenses and freezes around small particles (aerosols) that exist in aircraft exhaust. Some of that water va-pour comes from the air around the plane; and, some is added by the exhaust of the aircraft. The exhaust of an aircraft contains both gas (vapour) and solid par-ticles.
“In conclusion, no solid evidence was found that would link condensation trails observed in the atmosphere to any other causes and/or phenomena other that those cited above,” the government report stated.
In February, following noises from the Green party and the Union of Cypriot Farmers (EKA), Kouyialis had appointed a committee to investigate. The committee was chaired by Theodoulos Mesimeris, senior officer at the Depart-ment of Environment, and included officers from various departments, includ-ing civil aviation, water development, forestry, the state lab and the Met office.
The Greens had claimed that spraying is likely intended to alter atmospheric/climatic conditions, also known as geo-engineering.
According to Greens leader Giorgos Perdikis, the aerial spraying is linked to surveillance/espionage and the radar system located in the Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs). The belief is that microscopic particulates scattered in the air enhance radar signals.
Panicos Hambas, head of the EKA farmers union, claims the spraying – which he attributed to chemtrails – was having an adverse effect on crops. He asserts that the spraying of metal particulates by aircraft flying out of the SBAs is in-tended to reinforce radar scans by the Echelon system.
The term chemtrail is derived from “chemical trail” and refers to aerial trails al-legedly caused by the systematic high-altitude release of chemical substances, re-sulting in the appearance of supposedly uncharacteristic criss-cross sky tracks.
Chemtrail spraying does not refer to usual forms of aerial spraying like crop dusting, cloud seeding or aerial fire-fighting, which are publically-acknowledged practices.
The same quarters have since dismissed the government report as a whitewash.
Speaking to Politis radio, Hambas claimed the investigation was mostly carried out “in the office” and not with hands-on measurements. He pointed out also that the investigation covered far too small a time period (February to July), whereas a proper probe should have spanned a year to cover all the seasons.
Hambas accused the minister of rushing through the report, which he called a sham.
Likewise Savvas Philippou of the Greens argued that no air quality samples were taken at the time of suspicious flights by SBA aircraft, and moreover that all the samples were taken from ground-based sensors.
An expert, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the Cyprus Mail that even if the government had the aviation means to conduct high-altitude samples, it would be a pointless exercise as the supposed particulates allegedly emitted by aircraft tend to scatter quickly. What’s more, it would take extremely high con-centrations of the supposed particulates or chemicals to be traced by aerial sen-sors.
Hitting back at the criticism of the government report, Mesimeris – who led the investigation – spoke of conspiracy theories.
“We are ignoring the important issues, such as the serious problems we face in relation to the deteriorating quality of our atmosphere, as a result of climate change and trans-boundary pollution, and we are instead chasing ghosts and engaging in populism, all the time causing concern to citizens,” Mesimeris said, evidently alluding to the Greens.
Speaking to Politis, Mesimeris mused: “How do you prove whether donkeys fly or that aliens exist?
“Let’s say you have a report about aliens. You summon the person who made the report and ask them to show you the aliens. They then produce a photo they took. Well, in order to prove 100 per cent that aliens exist, I’d have to probe the entire universe.”
