Comments on: Why Don’t All Planes Leave Smoke Trails?

By: robert

robert — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:46:55 +0000

i get sick every time thos planes pass by back and forth specialy when the sky is clear and windy why the hell dont do that somewhere else??/

By: robert

robert — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 02:15:05 +0000

then why do people get severe colds every time these lines form over our neighborhood

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:42:47 +0000

that bottom picture is pretty old. he jet engine on it looks like it may be from a Boeing 707 or something.

By: Gordon Daily

Gordon Daily — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:44:54 +0000

I was surprised that David didn’t explain the word contrail is a portmanteau of the two words “condensation trail”. That in itself tells most of the story of what it is. It certainly ISN’T a “chemical trail”!

By: Sarah in CA

Sarah in CA — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:48:03 +0000

I have a science-type question.. how do your eyes adjust or compensate for tinted glasses like sun glasses or polarized glasses that are yellow or green?

I have yellow-tinted ones and I really noticed it when I first got them but, of course, stopped noticing it after a few weeks.

By: mattkendrick.com

mattkendrick.com — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:06:32 +0000

@jodie that’s just too cute.

By: jodie

jodie — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:00:19 +0000

one of my friends recently found out, in her mid twenties, that those are indeed smoke trails. She had previously thought that they were making lines in the sky for the other planes to follow.

I laughed so hard boxed wine came out my nose

By: briiii

briiii — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:42:26 +0000

i’ve seen way too many of these appear to make X’s over crowds of people to believe that its ‘natural’.

I counted 30+ planes with trails in the span of a couple hours during London’s Live 8. Next day, same park: no planes.

Chemtrails (run a google search on that)
I’m a skeptic, but this I’ve seen myself.

file this under: “conspiracy theories that actually came true”- like mccarthy, mk ultra, tonkin, northwoods, and iran-contra.

By: Allen

Allen — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:29:07 +0000

God…, Chemtrails? Really?

This is Mental_Floss right?

@Nicole

Visualize the contrail above the cloud and then you would get that kind of shadow on it, since the trail is between the sun and the cloud. It’s hard to tell in that picture since depth is almost nonexistant.

By: Jonny

Jonny — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:18:00 +0000

@Nicole

I think the contrail is between the clouds and the sun.

If the shadow was caused by sunlight reflected up to the bottom of the cloud, the shadow would be above the contrail (draw a mental V from the sun down to the ground and back up to the contrail).