In the first week of September, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, a self-proclaimed independent journalist and founder of Veterans on Patrol, appeared at a meeting of the Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners in Wyoming. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Veterans on Patrol as a right-wing militia.
Meyer, in his late forties, with an unkempt reddish beard, wore a safari-style shirt and a wide-brimmed hat with sunglasses pinned on top. He said he was in the city to support disaster preparedness. But he didn’t talk about climate change.
Instead, he claimed that the people of Wyoming are facing an existential threat from so-called “weather weapons.” A sinister conspiracy of supposedly untested technologies to alter the Earth’s atmosphere. According to Meyer, these also caused Hurricane Helene, which had recently devastated Western North Carolina.
“Weather weapons” and alleged evacuation plans
The “weather weapons,” Meyer warned, came from the US military, which was “playing God” and distributing dangerous chemicals and unknown biological materials into the atmosphere. These so-called “stratospheric aerosol injections,” usually referred to as “chemtrails,” supposedly come from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research unit of the Department of Defense. “Our goal is to establish evacuation routes,” Meyer concluded. “Please take this very seriously. Because [in Asheville] we saw bodies being placed in trailers. Rescue workers pulled limbs from piles of rubble.”
Sitting in the back of the room, Wyoming State Rep. Marlene Brady agreed with Meyer. “I just want to say this is 100 percent accurate,” she said of the existence of chemtrails and weather weapons. “Our plants are dying. Our animals are affected. We are affected.”
When people talk about chemtrails, they are referring to the white streaks you sometimes see in the sky that believers believe are dangerous chemicals. In fact, chemtrails are not real. According to Dr. Andrew Dessler, a professor at Texas A&M University and director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather, “like banning unicorns or Bigfoot.” The clouds behind airplanes are called contrails and consist solely of water condensation that occurs when hot exhaust gas meets cold air.
Conspiracy stories and threats
Meyer’s group spreads conspiracy-laden messages through its Telegram channel Sojourner News Network, accompanied by vague threats against military bases that supposedly house “weather weapons.” One project was called “Operation Morning DEW” – DEW stands for “Direct Energy Weapons”. A website that has since been taken offline spoke of a “brigade” of “over 3,000 military veterans and civilians” planning an unspecified “counteroffensive against the US military” to stop chemical, biological and directed energy weapons.
The targets mentioned included “5G cell phone masts,” “NEXRADS” (Doppler weather radars) and “non-commercial aircraft.” Defense Minister Pete Hegseth was also pictured with the words “Traitor.” Meyer repeatedly accuses Hegseth of “treason” over the Defense Department’s role in DARPA.
Although Meyer lists many alleged threats, his most recent theories focus primarily on chemtrails, which he believes are poisoning people. When I spoke to him in the fall, he described the danger seriously and angrily: “Are you okay with being sprayed like an insect? Are you okay with the military saying we control the weather? That’s not their place. That’s God’s business.”
Meyer has been spreading QAnon-related conspiracies about secret child trafficking rings for years. In 2018, he claimed to have discovered a secret pedophile hideout near a cement factory in Tucson. The story was false but sparked media speculation; the police investigated. Meyer was arrested for trespassing. At the same time, he is said to have vandalized water stations for migrants at the southern border and was also charged for this.
From marginal phenomenon to legislation
These ideas no longer only live in social networks. The belief that heaven is poisoning us has become more widespread and is blamed for everything from mind control to weather disasters. In April, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared at a town hall meeting with Dr. Phil McGraw came up and talked about chemtrails, also blaming DARPA. At least 30 states – including Kentucky, Minnesota, South Dakota, Arizona and Texas – have recently proposed laws to regulate chemtrails.
Most of the time the laws relate to weather modification. This includes solar geoengineering, a theoretical method for reducing solar radiation by spraying particles, which is being researched as climate protection. “Cloud seeding,” where clouds are weighted with silver iodide to encourage rain, has also been blamed. However, according to Dessler, cloud seeding does not cause disasters: “Humans can’t do anything on this scale. That’s nature.”
Nevertheless, the conspiracy persists. After a flood in Texas in July 2025 that killed over 130 people, Naomi Wolf posted videos of alleged chemtrails. Shortly afterwards, government officials made similar statements. EPA chief Lee Zeldin wrote on July 10 that his agency had compiled information on contrails and geoengineering. However, the EPA website makes it clear that the federal government is not aware of any intentionally created contrails to manipulate the weather.
Laws, hearings and historical roots
Wyoming is now also considering an “atmospheric pollution” law. An eight-hour hearing in October centered on a ban on geoengineering. One expert compared cloud seeding to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. Meyer promoted the hearing, claiming chemtrails were linked to Hurricane Helene.
Surveys show the belief is widespread. A 2016 study found that 10 percent thought chemtrails were completely real. A Nature study from 2025 came to around 20 percent. Faith is no longer marginal.
In 2024, Tennessee became the first state to pass a ban on intentional weather manipulation. Florida followed suit with penalties in 2025. Other states are planning high fines. Federal politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ron DeSantis are also fueling the narrative.
Historically, fears of weather manipulation go back to the 1940s, for example to “Project Cirrus” or “Operation Popeye” in the Vietnam War. Chemtrails themselves emerged in the 1990s, fueled by an Air Force paper on weather modification.
Actors, media and social dynamics
A central figure is Dane Wigington of Geoengineering Watch. He appeared at a hearing in California in 2014 that portrayed chemtrails as a danger. RFK Jr. invited him to his podcast in 2023, Tucker Carlson to his show in 2025. Scientists like Timothy Tangherlini see this as a narrative that provides blame and suppresses climate change.
After Hurricane Helene, Meyer appeared in North Carolina, disrupting relief efforts and continuing to spread conspiracies. Other organizations did the actual work on site. Meyer pointed to clouds and said, “They’ve been spraying us all morning.”
In a region with a lack of political support, Meyer filled the vacuum with a simple explanation: If chemtrails disappear, everything will be okay. “If the military stops spraying,” he said, “we will see how quickly nature recovers.” It’s not that simple.