Rainmaker

From global warming to locally devastating super storms, weather seems to lead the nightly newscasts a lot. But who’s in charge here? Mother Nature or Uncle Sam? Political and environmental activist and author Jerry E. Smith (www.jerryesmith.com) attempts to clear away some of the clouds shrouding the possible manipulation of world weather and environment by our armed forces in his new book Weather Warfare: The Military’s Plan to Draft Mother Nature.

Does the military really have the capability to alter the weather?

Absolutely. If I didn’t think that it was a real on-the-shelf technology, I would never have written the book. It’s not speculation. The book is 400 pages of just what I can prove as real. Weather alteration and environmental alteration is ubiquitous, only we don’t always see it or know about it.

This isn’t just run-of-the-mill cloud seeding we’re talking about?

In terms of using weather as a weapon, no. But probably the best documented example is Project Popeye, which was cloud-seeding as a weapon. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military dropped cloud seeding material over the country attempting to extend the monsoon season over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It worked, affecting neutral Laos and Cambodia, too. Of course, we didn’t give a rat’s ass about Laos and Cambodia. And of course, we used Agent Orange and Agent White to clear jungle. The military realized the jungle itself was an enemy, and they reasoned that if the jungle was gone, the enemy would be deprived of their hiding places. Millions of gallons of defoliants were dropped. More recently, during the Kosovo problem, NATO went in and found the Kosovars were dug in deep in heavily wooded mountainous [terrain]. If NATO went in on foot, they realized they would lose a lot of guys. NATO noticed there was a prevailing upwind, so they deliberately bombed a downwind industrial site, producing a cloud 50 by 150 miles long that smoked the troops out and contaminated millions of acres with toxic waste.

A Russian company has been offering to sell cyclones on demand for almost two decades? Is this possible?

Elat Technologies. I’ve seen it as ELAT or ELATE, depending upon how much Russian the reporter speaks. ELAT was a bureau of the USSR, a government agency. When the USSR broke up, they spun off as a private agency. In the late ‘90s, there were out-of-control forest fires in Malaysia. ELAT went to the Malaysians and told them, “We can create a cyclone to blow out the fires.” It took a while for the Malaysians to be convinced, to cut the check, but eventually they ponyed up. The big wind blew out the forest fires but also flattened villages. In 2005 Business Week reported that ELAT had solved the drought problem in north Mexico using an old Department of Defense technology consisting of ground-based platforms that would ionize or de-ionize the air—I forget which—above them. Mexican reservoirs that were running less than 20 percent capacity within three years had turned it to about 80 or 90 percent of capacity. Of course Texas went into a worse drought situation.

Didn’t the Iraqis supposedly do something to the weather during the beginning of the war?

There are rumors to that effect. The moment the Allies launched the attack, a big wind came up, some of the worst sandstorms ever recorded. It’s possible that Saddam bought himself some running time.

I read in your book about man-made earthquakes—Project Cirrus, where the government attempted to steer a hurricane in the 1940s. Should we be frightened by all of this?

[Laughs.] Absolutely.