An image on Facebook of a screenshot says: “The Spanish Meteorological Agency has confessed that Spain is being sprayed with lead dioxide, silver iodide and diatomite.” Other images accompanying some posts claim Spain is being sprayed by “chemtrails”.
This is false. There is no evidence that the Spanish authorities have said this, and there’s no truth to the ‘chemtrails’ conspiracy theory, that the white lines of vapour trailing behind planes are actually evidence of a plot to spread poison or control the weather. In reality, these lines, or contrails, form when the warm moist exhaust fumes from an aircraft mixes with the cold air, producing ice crystal clouds.
This particular claim has been circulating since at least 2018. The Spanish fact checker Maldita covered it then, looking at claims spreading on WhatsApp that “4 workers from the meteorology institute have confessed under a report to the European Union that the whole of Spain is being sprayed with (lead dioxide)” in order to control the weather.
Maldita concluded it was false.
One of the Facebook posts making the claim includes a number of links, including a link to a parliamentary question on the European Parliament website from a Spanish MEP in 2015 which says: “Four employees of Spain’s Meteorological Agency have confessed that Spain is being sprayed nationwide by aircraft that are spreading lead dioxide, silver iodide and diatomite through the atmosphere…What is the Commission’s view of this situation?”
The answer given by the European Commission was: “The Commission has investigated the matter with the Spanish authorities and found no evidence of the allegations of a military geoengineering scheme for changing climate in Spain.
“The Commission would further refer the Honourable Member to its reply to Written Question E‐000922/2014 in which the Commission emphasised that it does not consider geoengineering [defined by the Met Office as deliberate large-scale manipulation of climate] as appropriate for the remedy of environmental problems since environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at the source.”
And a spokesperson from Spain’s state meteorological agency told Spanish fact checker Newtral that no meteorologist from their agency had confirmed the ‘chemtrail’ conspiracy theory.
Was the Spanish government the first Western country to mention chemtrails on its website?
Another link in the Facebook post claims “That…Spain was the first Western government to officially include the word ‘chemtrail’ in its Official Gazette.”
It goes on to say: “The Spanish Ministry of Health authorized the NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) units of the Armed Forces and also the [Military Emergency Unit] to use biocides from the air. A month after the state of alarm was imposed, the Executive justified in the [State Official Gazette of Spain, where all legislation, legal notices and other official texts are published] that this technique is one of the “most effective” against the coronavirus”.
This article seems to be a Google-translated version of a now-deleted article on the Spanish website Alerta Digital, which has previously published false claims about Covid-19 that Maldita has fact checked.
But the claim that Spain was the first government to mention chemtrails on its ‘official gazette’ is wrong, according to Newtral.
Although the State Official Gazette website shows that it did authorise certains parts of the military to use specific biocides for aerial disinfection to fight the spread of Covid-19 as an emergency measure via “nebulization, thermonebulization and micronebulization techniques” during the pandemic, it doesn’t specifically refer to chemtrails.
And Spain’s Military Emergency Unit confirmed to Newtral that this wouldn’t be by planes or drones, but rather via a nebuliser, which is where a mist of disinfectant is sprayed over a large area, often using a cannon.
Image courtesy of WonHo Sung