1. Desert Rain
The weather is formed and controlled by our own planet’s spin, the sun’s rays, and the moisture flowing in from the seas. The most humans can achieve, when compared to these natural forces, is little at best, and things should probably continue like that. But regardless, as the world’s population has expanded to proportions never previously seen, people have relocated in bigger numbers to locations less conducive for comfort. We are, of course, talking about the desert. Over the last few years more and more people have began occupying locations like the United Arab Emirates in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the driest places on Earth. And it’s no wonder that folks living there would like a downpour now and then.
Thus, a Swiss business took advantage of the circumstance and started erecting 33-foot-high towers that emit negatively charged ions. These purportedly cause the creation of storm clouds. The hypothesis of ionization has been around since the 1890, being initially stated by Nikola Tesla. However, there was no indication of it really causing any rain in the several studies undertaken subsequently. Moreover, the Swiss corporation is hesitant to offer any evidence or information about its technology and how it truly works, keeping it a well guarded secret. There were a few rain showers since the installation was placed in place, but experts at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have indicated that they were part of an unusual weather trend the Middle East was experiencing at the time.
2. The Beijing Weather Modification Office
Today, 52 nations are active in weather manipulation in one way or another, either to improve precipitation or to prevent hail. But none are more engaged in the process than the Chinese. The Weather Modification Office came into existence somewhere in the 1980s and has since grown to about 37,000 personnel strong; the biggest in the world. These individuals work across the whole nation, but especially in its northern and northeastern parts, which are more inclined to droughts. They also attempt to resist hail, or extreme sandstorms.
The Weather office makes use of 4,000 rocket launchers, 7,000 anti-aircraft weapons, and around 30 airplanes to fulfil its aims. But aside focusing on boosting the quantity of precipitation, or limiting the fall of hail, the Bureau also makes sure that national festivals or special events have the weather they deserve. In 1997, the technique was employed on New Year’s Day to make it snow. Another of its high-profile actions occurred during the 2008 Summer Olympics staged in Beijing. During the opening ceremony, about 1,100 rockets were launched into the skies beyond the city, assuring a precipitation free evening by making it rain away from the event. Prior to every October 1, China’s National Day, the government utilises cloud seeding above Beijing in order to make it rain, dispersing pollutants and cleansing the air. Another potential goal for the Beijing Weather Modification Office is to reduce summer temperatures, thereby cutting the yearly usage of power.
3. Black Rain in Belarus
In April 1986, one of the largest man-made catastrophes took occurred in the former Soviet Union, present-day Ukraine. Due to a flawed reactor design and improperly educated staff, one of the reactors at Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, killing many and prompting in the entire evacuation of the adjacent town of Pripyat. However, this was only the beginning and the worst of the calamity was still to come. The radioactive cloud that erupted was threatening several big cities in the Soviet Union including Moscow, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl.
In order to avert such a disaster, the Soviet authorities swiftly despatched planes to fly above the radioactive cloud and spray it with cloud seeding material, in an area of roughly 60 miles around Chernobyl. In the aftermath of the explosion, inhabitants in present-day South Belarus reported thick, black-colored rain pouring in and around the town of Gomel. And shortly before the horrific downpour started, multiple planes had been sighted circling the city and surrounding region, ejecting some colourful substance. Moscow has never confessed to employing cloud seeding in the wake of the Chernobyl accident, although two Soviet pilots subsequently admitted to it.
Alan Flowers, a British scientist and the first Westerner to examine the extent of the levels of radioactivity and fallout around Chernobyl, discovered that Byelorussians were exposed to levels 20 to 30 times higher than normal as a result of the nuclear rain, causing intense radiation poisoning in children. In 2004, he was exiled from the nation for stating that the Soviet Union employed cloud seeding in 1986. He continued, “The local population says there was no warning before these heavy rains and the radioactive fallout arrived.”
4. Operation Popeye – Vietnam War
With the prior experiments above, it’s no surprise that cloud seeding was meant for military objectives at some time or another. Operation Popeye, or Operation Compatriot, was a high secret military operation fought in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The purpose of the operation was to flood the highways between North and South Vietnam during the monsoon season with as much rain as possible, in order to render roadways unavailable. The Ho Chà Minh path was particularly targeted owing to its logistical significance for the Viet Cong. The full operation lasted from 1966 up to 1972 and consisted of nearly 2,600 flights across the areas of Cambodia, Laos, South Vietnam and the previously stated trail. In all, around 47,000 pieces of cloud seeding material was dropped during this period, at a cost of over $21.6 million. If it truly succeeded or not is still a topic of discussion, but it is thought that they were able to lengthen the monsoon season by 30 to 45 days.
Also part of the mission were daily flights over the thick jungles, spraying them with different herbicides in order to offer less materiel and cover for the North Vietnamese. Operation Popeye gained the public attention when a journalist by the name of Jack Anderson reported it in the Washington Post in March, 1971. The US Defense Secretary, Melvin Laird declared under oath in 1972 in front of the US Senate that they never really deployed any weather manipulation methods in Southeast Asia. Only two years later, one of Laird’s private letters was revealed where he confirmed that he did lie in front of the Senate. This ultimately led to the “Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques,” or ENMOD to be signed in 1976 by members of the UN.
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