1. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    There are several photos that crop up on a daily basis on Facebook chemtrail groups with descriptions like "Chemtrail Plane Interior". These are almost all photos of pre-production test aircraft which are fitted with ballast barrels, although there are a few that are interiors of firefighting planes. I'll try to make this post be a comprehensive explanation of all the photos. Let me know if I miss any. And if you see some chemtrail promoters using this photos in error, then please let them know.

    Ballast barrels are just big barrels of water that are used to simulate passengers when testing various configurations of weight and balance on the aircraft during test flights. The barrels are sometimes isolated, and sometimes connected with tubes, so water can be pumped around in flight to simulate passenger movements.

    Note several of the following images are copyright, and are used here under "fair use", as non-profit, educational, and critical usage.

    Many of the photos are very large, so set your browser to the full screen width to see them best.

    Here's a description of one such system, showing the Boeing 777 tests in 1994:
    http://books.google.com/books?id=iJ2FqbrRqyYC&pg=PA76&dq=inside boeing: building the 777 barrels&as_brr=3&ei=R_IpSr74EISmkATV-7T7Bg

    And another in (the caption for the photo next to it says it was a 747 in 1969)
    http://books.google.com/books?id=OEniu9ff-_sC&lpg=PA15&ots=wPQCw1mUFC&dq=747 flight testing ballast&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q&f=false

    Here's a photo of what looks like the same system taken in 2005. A doctored version of this commonly shows up in Chemtrail groups:

    Here's the same plane, showing all the test equipment and computers:

    And some more from 2003:
    http://www.x-plane.com/adventures/the long room.html

    And another of the 777. This one is also heavily used by the chemtrail web sites.

    This photo from airliner.net has been used to promote the chemtrails conspircy theory by claiming Facebook are closing accounts of people who post it:

    Quite possibly the copyright holder has complained to Facebook, however there are numerous other photos they could post, including this Creative Commons licensed one from Wikipedia:
    Note the overhead "mood" lighting is a different color, and the photo is at a slightly different angle allowing you to see where some wiring for test instruments is ported out the windows.

    From the outside you can see the window, looks like some kind of pitot tube:


    And if you pull back a bit more, you can see the plane is actually being exhibited to the public, at the Paris air show:

    The following are from a 747-8F, from Aviation Week

    "Water ballast barrels in the Section 41 nose section for center of gravity testing. We counted 33 in all for the whole aircraft, each of which holding around 1,000-lbs."

    "Between the ballast barrels around 16 racks of test equipment and engineer’s test stations occupy the bulk of the main deck."

    "The reel mechanism for deploying and stowing the trailing static cone sits on the main deck just forward of the aft pressure bulkhead."

    Here's a video of the 747-8 setup:

    Here's a close up of the barrels one the 747-8 taken during a tour. Note there's a placard on the right explaining the water ballast system.

    Another of the 747-8, taken from a different airshow:


    Here's the 747-8 showing all the test equipment:

    Another 787 image, from Wired:
    "Water ballast tanks used to control center of gravity during test flights.These tanks are filled with water and engineers can transfer water between the tanks during flight to shift the weight of simulated cargo or passengers. The center of gravity, or CG as pilots call it, is important to the flight characteristics of any airplane. During flight test, Boeing must ensure the plane is safe and efficient at full forward and full aft CG as well as any combination between the two."

    This A380 upper deck photo (from 2005) is commonly used by chemtrail promoters as "proof" of chemtrails:
    "Upper deck view showing ballast tanks on the A380 [F-WWOW]*. 15th November 2005"
    *(Note: original source incorrectly stated G-WWOW)

    Here's a video of this A380 test setup at a public air show in China:

    The large white cylinder in the foreground is a tow bar. The loop on the left end hooks to a tow truck, and the hooks at the right (the towhead) attach to the front landing gear. There are four handles on it for manual operation.

    This one is the A380 ballast barrels from an article in the Seattle PI.


    A nice HD image of the A380 upper deck:


    More from the A380:


    Another A380-861

    This is a nice one as it shows the ballast tanks behind the seats:

    This one is a bit unusual, it's a test BAe-146-300 from 1989. The ballast here is lead blocks! But there's also a single blue barrel at the back of the plane:

    Here's one from a 777-300ER, also gets some play in "chemtrail" groups. Photo from 2002, Seattle PI
    Caption: Craig Boyden works on water ballast tanks for the 777-300ER that will used for flight testing.
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2014
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  2. TWCobra

    TWCobra Senior Member

    Yes the doctored versions of these photos annoy me intensely. One of these photos has someone from Qantas in a fluoro vest (the 'Tas photo); it was used by a chemtrail activist as positive proof that Qantas was chemtrailing; replete with a doctored HAZMAT notice plastered on the wall.

    Another one was a Dees photoshop of a pilot demonstration in Wall Street last year, with the real placard removed and a "pilots demand an end to chemtrails" caption inserted.

    If the science stands up for itself then there is no need to doctor photos to supposedly "Prove" a point of contention.
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  3. GregMc

    GregMc Senior Member

    The barrels also clearly show up in old promotional films of the testing of the very first 747 in 1969: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrDv4jX_MUs


    I've seen an even older promo film of the testing of the 707 in the 1950s using the barrels. Will have a search for it later and post a link
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2013
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  4. scombrid

    scombrid Senior Member

    Funny none of the passengers on the Qantas flights that Peekay rants about have noticed the tanks.

    Really this is a good test of intellectual honesty. You have people that know that it is passenger filled aircraft that they are accusing of "chemtrailing". Yet they'll still pass around doctored photos of "tanker" planes...
  5. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    Evergreen Supertanker - Also Not Chemtrails

    One plane that also shows up a lot labeled as "Chemtrail Plane Interior" is the Evergreen Aviation 747 firefighting supertanker. This is a single prototype plane that Evergreen Aviation have been trying to sell as a firefighting plane, but so far nobody is buying - probably because of the rather unwieldy nature of using such a large plane - even though it would be very effective if you could actually get it into the right place for it's two minute water dump.

    Here's the interior, showing the tanks used to hold fire retardant, the photo was taken in 2009 or before, and is the one most commonly used by chemtrail promoters. They tend to equate patents with evil intent.

    The pressurized retardant tanks on the 747 Supertanker. The retardant is forced out by compressed air, much like on the MAFF C-130 air tankers.

    And here's the exterior
    Sam White of Evergreen points out the four nozzles that dispense retardant. Photos by Eric Engman


    The Patent on the tanks is number 7413145 described as:

    Here's another couple of shots of the interior, taken in Hahn, Germany, July 7, 2009. This is probably when the above shots were taken, as Sam White appears in both, wearing the same suit, tie, and ID badge. But it's less useful to the chemtrail promoters, as it's more obviously from an air show - and people are not going to be showing a secret chemtrail plane at an air show.


    Here's the supertanker doing its thing. Very unlike a contrail:
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2013
  6. Danny55

    Danny55 Member

    Here is a link to the patent shown on the firefighter's tanks.


    If any chemtrail supporter took the time to look past the first page ,to the drawings associated with the patent, they would see the diagrams show the delivery systems of the firefighter which can disperse around 20,000 gallons of liquid quicker than the time it takes me to pee nowadays.
  7. tryblinking

    tryblinking Member

    It is definitely worthwhile having all of these collected, thoroughly referenced and outed in one place.

    However I do fear that, if the deceitful promoters and sustainers of the hoax can happily alter even the poorest examples here, I doubt they have any remaining conscientious objection to coming here, and taking any or all of these examples for their nefarious uses. In the unlikely event that their plagiarism is uncovered and highlighted, they would obviously just cry troll/shill/disinformer and all the believers would rally to defend the cause.
  8. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    I did it mostly because they keep cropping up, and I wanted a one-stop debunking reference. Any reasonable person would see what they actually were if they look at this post. Of course there's going to be some lost to reason, but we can't really help them.
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  9. hemi

    hemi Active Member

    You'd think having an public open day of one of your chemtrail planes (third to last picture of main series) would undermine the secrecy of your clandestine programme, wouldn't you?
  10. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    Last edited: Nov 20, 2013
  11. SR1419

    SR1419 Senior Member

    ...As for Evergreen...

    Do we know exactly how many Supertankers they have?

    I was under the impression it was only one- but never sure.

    Evergreen keeps getting hoisted up as the CIA-front "chemtrail" airline with their "weather modification" abilities listed as an attribute of the 747ST.

    If they only had one...that would make this silly argument.
  12. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    They only have one, and they still can't get it certified for fire fighting, so they are not going to make any more.

  13. Jay Reynolds

    Jay Reynolds Senior Member

    If a chemtrail believer or someone who know one comes here, they need to understand that the same sort of people who pass around faked or misattributed photos of ordinary things are a sign, a symptom of either gullibility, ignorance, or deliberate deception. These three things are all it has taken to advance a totally false hoax begun in 1997 by an obscure neo-nazi named Larry Wayne Harris to a worldwide movement based on absolutely nothing, wth no redeeming value and many many negative consequences.
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  14. MikeC

    MikeC Closed Account

  15. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    And some planes actually are used to spray chemicals. Crop dusting, Bug Spraying, oil dispersement. This one (C-GBPA) is an old DC-4 bug sprayer used to spray Corexit in the Gulf in 2011:
    http://www.semissourian.com/story/1741033.html (http://archive.today/dnt69)


    Here's the plane from the outside:

    Here's another dispersant sprayer:
    http://www.oilspillsolutions.org/dispersantotherchemicals.htm (http://archive.today/OMOIu)
    "ADDS" on the tank stands for "Airborne Dispersant Delivery System", and is a C130 specific add-on module, a 5,500 gallon tank. It's often refered to as an ADDS-Pack
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2014
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  16. tryblinking

    tryblinking Member

    That's some pretty extensive photoshopping, a whole afternoon for sure looking at that crowd added in the distance. Impressive, and depressing.
  17. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    Similar to the ADDS pack above is the C-130 MAFFS system, which comes in two variants, MAFFS I (five smaller tanks) and MAFFS II (one big tank)



    MAFFS system load, June 24

    PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Air Force Reservists assigned to the 302nd Airlift Wing load a U.S. Forest Service Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System unit onto a C-130 Hercules here during the early morning hours June 24. The 302nd Airlift Wing has been tasked by the National Interagency Fire Center to support wildland aerial firefighting missions in the Rocky Mountain area. (U.S. Air Force photo//Ann Skarban)

    http://kunc.org/post/maffs-c-130-s-activated-fight-western-wildfires (http://archive.is/WbHeW)

    http://wildfiretoday.com/2011/06/17/military-maffs-air-tankers-activated/ (http://archive.is/mRGEZ)

    "The interior of a MAFFS 2, showing the retardant discharge and emergency high pressure air release tubes going through the side paratrooper door. Loadmaster Bill Whitlatch operates a new MAFFS 2 unit aboard a C-130J aircraft with the Channel Islands Air National Guard. Photo by Stephen Osman, Ventura County Star."

    http://www.billwillson.com/maffs-7-memorial/#!prettyPhoto (http://archive.is/a5Gs0)
    "MAFFS7, which crashed killing all on board, July 1, 2012"

    Last edited: Jan 4, 2016
  18. MikeC

    MikeC Closed Account

    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 8, 2015
  19. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    Not quite the same thing, but it's a strange plane interior with pipes, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The "pipes" are conduits for the air conditioning and suchlike, normally hidden in the ceiling.



    I was lucky enough to take the following picture myself yesterday as it flew over Los Angeles

    Last edited: Nov 20, 2013
  20. Unregistered

    Unregistered Guest

    Thanks for 'debunking' the whole chemtrails myth. However, you did not answer one question, what are they spraying up there in the sky? Any answers! I have seen it in Melbourne and now even in huzhou in china. It's disgusting, honestly. At least the people that made the what in the world are they spraying documentary are trying to cover something that gets little attention.
    What are they spraying, chemicals is my best guess. Who is doing it? Well, someone with power and access to the equipment being used. It's great that you were able to debunk the plane myth, but what about having planes refitted into having a similar interior for the spraying of the chemicals. It's a very plausible thing and it would be concealed greatly.
  21. Jay Reynolds

    Jay Reynolds Senior Member

    It's just water.

    Its just water, does water disgust you?

    That movie has been debunked to death:

    be sure to read the ten pages of comments at the bottom of the above link, there are some gems....

    The makers of WITWATS don't want you to know. Ask yourself why they made you wait two years making a movie to tell you the "what" bunk, then another year to tell you the "why" bunk. Why didn't they just cut to the chase and tell you the exact identity of the planes?

    The makers know what the identity of the planes are.
    They studied it.
    G. Edward Griffin formed a team and found that "chemtrails" came from ordinary jets making contrails.

    They think you are too stupid to ever find out that they already know its a hoax, that what they said wasn't true at all.

    They are laughing at you. Want to know how I know this? Because they sent a signal at the end of their movie that is plain as day if you look closely.

    At the end of the latest movie, they don't show you a military jet making "chemtrails", they show you an ordinary Cargolux plane making contrails.


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  22. MikeC

    MikeC Closed Account

    Note that the registration on the original site is wrong - G-WWOW is an R22 Helicopter!! :)

    The actual a/c was F-WWOW
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2013
  23. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    Fixed, thanks!
  24. MikeC

    MikeC Closed Account

    Sorry - it is the original that is in error - you should doso accurately ..... and then point out the error :)
  25. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    I added [] around it to indicate a change. I'll add a note.
  26. sonofgloin

    sonofgloin New Member

    TW, I consider the propaganda of this deceit in the same manner as I do some of the photographic holocaust evidence of gas chambers. The graphic looks like it will fit the bill, but in truth the chamber was never used for gassings. But the Jewish folks were murdered by bullet and gas, and we are being sprayed by planes that our governments deny the existance of.

    My belief in this is not from doctored graphics or youtube vids. I look into the sky and see "contrails" that do not dissipate, but as I watch these lines over the next few hours they spread and become a haze that covers the entire sky. They are real and man made, it is obvious and no one can convince me that the king is wearing a fine set of clothes when he is obviously naked.
  27. Mick West

    Mick West Administrator Staff Member

    Why wouldn't they spread to cover the sky?
  28. Belfrey

    Belfrey Senior Member

    You're probably talking about the München chambers. They apparently were never used, but there's good reason to think that they were built and intended to be used to gas people. There's not any doubt that people were indeed gassed in chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau, however.

    As Mick indicates, these observations are consistent with ordinary persistent contrails. They absolutely are real and man-made, but what makes you think they are "chemtrails"?
  29. sonofgloin

    sonofgloin New Member

    Belfrey, I am a regular star gazer, I started as a kid. I am keen and a member of the Astronomical Society. For the past thirty years I have looked up at the sky almost daily checking out the possibility of cloud cover for the nightly viewing. What I am seeing is not contrail, as I said it does not dissipate, it grows from a strand of jetsom coming from the aircraft and becomes thin and wispy over the following hours as the air current carries it.

    When a band of real cloud merges with it there is an obvious difference in the colour and texture. I am deft at discerning which cloud cover will burn away as the sun reaches its zenith, but this stuff does not react to heat by breaking down to its core elements. It stays albeit thin and hazy. This is evident to me but if not to others so be it given it is an observation with no empirical evidence other than historic personal observation and recall.
  30. MikeC

    MikeC Closed Account

    Why can't that be a contrail?
    Contrails are well known to act as "seed points" from which cirrus cloud expands - even from a single "thread"

    Cirrus cloud can hang around for hours or days without being "breaking down" - and since its core elements are water how would it then break down further anyway??
  31. MikeC

    MikeC Closed Account

    And which no-one else can actually find, with a chemical that apparently has no effects at all, is invisible and undetectable at ground level but which looks exactly like a contrail at "30,000" feet.
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  32. Belfrey

    Belfrey Senior Member

    Sonofgloin, although you may not have been aware of it, persistent contrails (which is what you are observing) are nothing new. I remember seeing them for decades before the 90s. But we don't have to rely on our own personal recollections to determine who is correct, because they are well-documented in both the scientific literature and popular media going back to the 40s. Take a few clicks through the Pre-1995 Persistent Contrail Archive for some examples.
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2013
  33. Jay Reynolds

    Jay Reynolds Senior Member

    SOG, Thanks for posting. I am assuming you are from the UK. During my time looking at the chemtrails controversy, I have communicated with some astronomers. Notably Holger Pedersen of Denmark had a very good website describing the problems that persistent contrails present for astronomers. As the chemtrail hoax progressed he was appalled that his genuine concerns were being overshadowed by a hoax.

    This is an example of the negative effects that a hoax giving out false information can distract from a real concern.

    Your observation matches with that of the International Astronomical Union, which in 1964, 48 years ago adopted Resolution R5:

    So, despte your recollections of 30 years ago, the problem of persistent contrails was recognized long before.

    Your observations have also been noted by a group of astronomers in the UK, who have been researching the subject, but who recognize that what they are seeing are simply ordinary jet water vapor emissions. They have been studying it on a professional level for years.

    Here is a photo made by P. Leigh of Lancaster University on 19/12/2002:


    Unfortunately, this photo by the Contrail Study Group has been misappropriated by a known hoaxer from Canada named William Thomas, who posts it on his website promoting his chemtrail theories.
    The same photo has been stolen and appears at these sites:

    A site advertising a chemtrails propaganda movie:

    Here the photo is falsely claimed to show "Chemtrails over Los Angeles":

    And another, from a site which generates fear to dispensing all sorts of stuff to protect you:

    Can you see how dishonest this thing can be?

    So, if you are truly interested in the astronomical implications of ordinary persistent contrails, here is a site for you there in the UK which should offer you a chance to make better sense of the whole thing, rather than hype from somebody demonstrating how to generate fear in order to sell you something.

    The National Contrail Network, Lancaster University
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  34. sonofgloin

    sonofgloin New Member

    Mick as I mentioned, my observations are personal and I draw on memory for the comparison. Belfrey gave me a link to graphics of historic contrails pre chemtrails and J related my observations to other astromoners and their chase for clear skies.

    This imput is appreciated and definately not wasted, although I am not commited to the thought that geo engineering is not taking place. It has been on the agenda for a century and found a new champion in the global warming hoax and evolving technologies.

    So I will commit to some prolonged observation and make a decision, it will be interesting. I will base my observations against known controls such as the height that contrails appear, 26000 ft and the minimum temp required -40. I know the cloud types and their height range, so what I am looking for is a low cloud control such as Altocumulus or Stratocumulus and Nimbostratus, and any contrail under that coud cover must be suspect because of the pressure and temperature variations at different heights.
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  35. Ross Marsden

    Ross Marsden Senior Member

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  36. sonofgloin

    sonofgloin New Member

    Hey Ross thanks for that. Given I never really considered contrails/chemtrails until earlier this year I expect the military stealth impediment was a huge and ongoing consideration.

    Re the report, the graphs show a variant in the temperature at which contrails form and they have pressure as the other parameter so I am on the right track with my synopsis. So all that is left to do is observe and note the surrounding cloud formation, if any, and I should be able to gauge the height. This coupled with a barometer reading will give me as good as I am going to get regarding my appraisal.
  37. jvnk08

    jvnk08 Active Member

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  38. Jay Reynolds

    Jay Reynolds Senior Member

    It is great that you found your way here before becoming fully vested in the idea of chemtrails. It seems that once you get that inside it is very hard to get out.

    There are some pitfalls using the methods you mention above. If you use weather data, it isn't aways precise enough to relate conditions to a particular area in time or space. The balloons are sent up too infrequently and their resolution is a single point in space and time which moves downwind. Can you see the problem with that.

    Using associated clouds is a good idea but altitude is hard to judge unless you have a way of measurement.

    These are all only ways to infer what you are seeing, but there is a way that you can directly gather evidence.
    Direct evidence is much better than indirect, you see?

    SOG, as am astronomer, you are in a unique position as far as I can see. I assume you have a telescope. You may not be aware that an entire hobby has come about called "contrailspotting". The participants do their best to make high-resolution telescopic photographs of the planes, and some are incredibly successful.

    Replicating their methods yields direct evidence of the airliners identity by livery colors and unique tail numbers. Some of these folks also buy receivers which capture in-flight data transmission from the aircraft itself showing their identity and other parameters of their flight are then available.

    This method removes the mystery and the uncertainty. Unless you take the illogical leap that ordinary passenger airliners are doing geoengineering(and there are plenty of reasons to doubt that) the observer is left with a physical record of the event, an exact identity of the plane is recorded. That can also be a baseline with which to establish your frame of contrail possibility. Even if a plane is seen which is unidentifiable, you can compare its contrail appearance and length of duration with a known event in the same general space and time. Over time, patterns will emerge which will improve your evaluation of the chances when contrails might spoil your other astronomy.

    I suggest these sites to get more info:





    Get back to us on your results. It is a true shame that the leaders of the chemtrail movement haven't taken this course of action. They can't claim they don't know, I wrote to them and told them all about it.

    I think that shows more dishonesty on their part.
    They know how to solve the mystery, but they wont.
    Why in The World Don't They Want To Know Who Is Spraying Them?
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2013
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  39. Pete Tar

    Pete Tar Moderator Staff Member

  40. sonofgloin

    sonofgloin New Member

    J, thanks for your thoughts. So chemtrail watching is like train spotting except you invent the trains.

    Re the telescope, I have been making my own since I was a teen.

    Re the cloud formation heights, as I mentioned I know the types of clouds and the staggered strata at which they exist. So unless the barometer is low low low there is no reason for contrails to form under a certain height or under certain cloud formations.

    The video below is an example of the dilemma I find regarding the contrail/chemtrail truth. I have seen contrails at altitude and contrails at 10,000 ft as exampled here, which is unexplained. This video if genuine shows no clouds in the sky to speak of so we can surmise the barometer reading is higher rather than lower, yet the trail at lower altitude persists and becomes volumes.

    I have seen many things in the night sky, but I don't believe any of them are anything other than natural phenomenon regulated by physics. In fact over the past year I have had many teens looking through my scope at Nibiru, the vaunted doomsday planet. Could not find it and the kids fears of the end of the earth were allayed.

    I will let you guys know of my conclusions after a thorough search.