The Claims of Francis Mangels- a Factual Examination

[Steve Funk]

from the 6/25/12 "What we know," document:

• Shastice park (in Mt.ShastaCity) stream water has 1540 ug/l of aluminum. Other streams have more, certainly bad for aquatic insects if permanent.

The problem is, there are no streams in Shastice Park. It is near my house and I go there often. Shastice Park has athletic fields, community garden and skating areas, but no stream. There is another park in town which does have a stream, and there is a quasi-park at Sisson Meadows owned by the Siskiyou Land Conservancy that has a couple of streams. Perhaps the sample came from one of these other locations, but who knows. This is an example of Francis' carelessness with details.

 

[Mick West]

Perhaps when it rains, you get some minor muddy "streams" running down a path or something like that. Note the 2/28/11 version says:

• Shastice park (in Mt. Shasta City) stream water has 1540 ug/l of aluminum. This is probably debilitating to trout, certainly bad for aquatic insects if permanent.

Certainly no trout in Shastice Park. Maybe he realized that.

The key thing with all of his groundwater tests is that he's not accounting for soil at all. He seemingly does not understand that the aluminum in muddy water is coming from the mud.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

I just eaxmined Mangels claim that he has lab reports showing large differences in aluminum content between soil in his backyard and soil (presumably not exposed to purported 'spraying) under his house. This was brought out first by Steve, and my calculations confirmed his. However, to examine the plausibility of Mangels claim, I found that to apply that same amount of aluminum oxide across just Siskiyou county would require 1/2 of the world's total aluminum oxide production!!

https://www.metabunk.org/posts/10853

 

[Steve Funk]

Perhaps when it rains, you get some minor muddy "streams" running down a path or something like that.

There is nothing remotely resembling a stream in Shastice Park. It is all grass and parking lot. He must be thinking of some other location.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

Hey, the Chemtrails Project is asking for suggestions on interview questions for an interview with Francis Mangels.

Facebook Feedback Needed: Francis Mangels (retired USDA biologist) Interview Questions.....

Hey Guys! This weekend I will be shooting an interview with Francis, which we will be playing at the Consciousness Beyond Chemtrails Conference. It will be a fully edited piece, a "mini-doc".

For one segment, I would like to ask him questions from Facebook. So if you have any questions for him, please let me know here. Anything regarding heavy metals in the rainwater, soil, effects on gardening - anything you can think of in that subject matter.

Thanks!!

https://www.facebook.com/chemtrailsproject

 

[Jay Reynolds]

The Claim:

This is what happened to the California tomato crop, same thing. pH went so high you could still get tomatoes, but you couldn't get a crop that was financially big enough to harvest."

Reality:

United States Department of Agriculture
National Agricultural Statistics Service
2012 California
Processing Tomato Report
Cooperating with the California Department of Food and Agriculture
California Field Office · P.O. Box 1258 · Sacramento, CA 95812 · (916) 498-5161 · (916) 498-5186 Fax · www.nass.usda.gov/ca
Released: August 31, 2012
2012 PROCESSING TOMATO PRODUCTION
Contracted production for California processing tomatoes is forecast at 12.9 million tons, averaging 50.0 tons per acre. The current forecast is 8.03
percent above the 2011 crop. Winter months were very dry causing water concerns to California processing tomato growers. Spring proved to be
wet as rains improved the water situation shortterm.

 

[lotek]

So did anything come of this? Is he still making claims? i guess that radio challenge never took off. the obvious errors in methodology here are... obvious. Anything come from the falsification of credentials?

i dont want to muddy the public appeal of this thread, but has no one noticed that no one in siskiyou is having any problems at all growing their marijuana plants outdoors? a plant that is very ph and nutrient lock sensitive..... just sayin...

 

[Jay Reynolds]

So did anything come of this? Is he still making claims? i guess that radio challenge never took off. the obvious errors in methodology here are... obvious. Anything come from the falsification of credentials?

i dont want to muddy the public appeal of this thread, but has no one noticed that no one in siskiyou is having any problems at all growing their marijuana plants outdoors? a plant that is very ph and nutrient lock sensitive..... just sayin...

I've seen that there is a current show on TV called "Weed Country" which glorifies large crops seeming to have no problems growing in that area.
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/weed-country/about-the-show/about-the-show.htm

Mangels was asked by the radio show's host if he would debate me. Mangels claimed that he was in the process of "moving out of state". That turned out to not be true. I did confront Mangels recently on a Global Skywatch conference call. I was disconnected.

 

[lotek]

lol classy.

yea im aware they have zero problem growing weed there, both in their yards and in the very forests he talks about having sampled... and the plants are damn picky and wont flower proper/yield the desired quality if the ph is high. given the cash behind this and the desire of many people to keep organic in their production, one could gather some data on soil and growing conditions from them on non-commercial grower forums such as www.marijuanapassion.org. they are surprisingly open. ive never heard any problems with al/br/sr/high ph from them.

not that im ontop of that stuff or anything. like i said tho, theres lots of cash behind it so youd bet they would be all over if if their crops couldnt live. id even expect a higher likelyhood of them to buy into the hoax too lol.

 

[David Fraser]

lol classy.

yea im aware they have zero problem growing weed there, both in their yards and in the very forests he talks about having sampled... and the plants are damn picky and wont flower proper/yield the desired quality if the ph is high. given the cash behind this and the desire of many people to keep organic in their production, one could gather some data on soil and growing conditions from them on non-commercial grower forums such as www.marijuanapassion.org. they are surprisingly open. ive never heard any problems with al/br/sr/high ph from them.

not that im ontop of that stuff or anything. like i said tho, theres lots of cash behind it so youd bet they would be all over if if their crops couldnt live. id even expect a higher likelyhood of them to buy into the hoax too lol.

Thanks mate, that post has made me laugh out loud. I will have to remember it in my next FB debate "Hey mate how is your skunk crop?" type of thing. Although, according to police records, most UK production is indoors.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

Just updating the California tomato harvest forecast, the one where Francis said:

This is what happened to the California tomato crop, same thing. pH went so high you could still get tomatoes, but you couldn't get a crop that was financially big enough to harvest."

Looks like the harvest is on target, maybe not a record crop, but not below average

The challenge this year has been "curly top" virus, which is spread by leafhoppers and stunts plants.
Early predictions showed contracts for 12-13 million tons, about average for the past few years.

Last year's crop in the Sacramento Valley has been looked at more closely. The Sacramento is directly downstream from the area where Dane Wigington and Francis Mangels say that tomatoes won't grow because soil PH has been raised so high. In this report on organically grown tomatoes, we see astounding yields in one variety of over 60 tons/ acre, organically grown.

http://ceyolo.ucanr.edu/newsletters/Tomato_Info_Newsletters45357.pdf

My own tomato crop was average, I'm eating almost the last after having platefuls/day for the past month and 1/2. We had a very hard June/July with temps right up there close to 100, and many tomato flowers just don't set fruit well during those temps. That was followed by extraordinary rains mid-August which actually broke records.

Our sweet Peppers are coming on strong, looks like continued production till frost again this year. I've been relying on store-bought seedlings for several years and actually think what I'm getting are substandard compared to what I've grown myself, but that takes time, effort, and sustained attention during the spring.

 

[cloudspotter]

Can I just add that I may not make it through the next year given the gallons of wine I'm producing from the various abundant crops around this year. We picked 4kg of blackberries in under an hour last night and barely had to move. There are stupid amounts of rowans about and the crab apple trees can barely support the weight of the fruit.

 

[David Fraser]

Can I just add that I may not make it through the next year given the gallons of wine I'm producing from the various abundant crops around this year. We picked 4kg of blackberries in under an hour last night and barely had to move. There are stupid amounts of rowans about and the crab apple trees can barely support the weight of the fruit.

Totally off topic. I was walking to Sainburys the other day and we walk along an old railway viaduct that has been paved. It is thick with brambles and I picked a bag full along the way. Anywho got to Sainsburys and some woman is about to pay 2 quid for a small punnet so I offer her some of mine. I found myself been escorted out the shop.

 

[blargo]

Can I just add that I may not make it through the next year given the gallons of wine I'm producing from the various abundant crops around this year. We picked 4kg of blackberries in under an hour last night and barely had to move. There are stupid amounts of rowans about and the crab apple trees can barely support the weight of the fruit.

We had almost no fruit this year in the Denver area due to the weekly Aprils snow storms. I do have some apples but no peaches, cherries, and plumbs. I have had a bumper crop for peppers and beans. My tomato's have been producing since July and right now the Roma's are all coming ripe and in good quantity. Very good year for non-fruit crops here. Denver is in between the heat of the west and the coolness of the east this year. We have had a good summer for rain and our drought last year has been eased.

I ride my bicycle almost daily and I have been observing the sky here. There have been very few days of sustained contrails here this summer.

 

[solrey]

We harvested around 20 pounds of tomatoes and a 15 pound head of cabbage yesterday before heavy rains came. Our luffa plants are healthy and the gourds are huge and dense. I picked several gallons of blueberries over the past two months, and we have mass quantities of blackberries which are basically weeds here. We have many pounds of grapes that will be picked in the coming weeks. Anybody want some apples, we have sooooo many on 3 trees despite it being a good year for Apple Ermine and Leaf-roller larvae, thanks to Bt and Spinosad. We have plenty of almonds on our young almond tree. Our baby fig tree is thriving in spite of a late freeze destroying all of the first leaves. Pears and cherries didn't fare so well this year but that was the result of early blossoms followed by not so great weather for pollinators, lots of flowers but only a fraction of them set fruit. The soil pH in our raised beds is around 6.7-ish. We're about 300 miles north of the Shasta area straight up I-5. Whatever issues they're having with gardening is a reflection on their own skills, or lack thereof.

 

[David Fraser]

Reading the comments by Mangels, Wigington and that UV bloke one envisions California to have an apocalyptic landscape. Does anyone ever point this out to them?

 

[Leifer]

It's a shame they often brag about their credentials so often, as if nobody needs to look any further into the matters they describe.
They flaunt themselves as whistleblowers.....and in a way, claiming nearly all their former colleagues are liars for the gov't.
It's an unfortunate message to be sending, especially to the younger generation.
Thankfully, their audience is not that large.

 

[Steve Funk]

Francis has some black shade cloth he described as a UV barrier over part of his garden. I have never seen any shade cloth advertised as a selective UV barrier. This brand: http://www.shadeclothstore.com/depts/shadeclothapplications.html, says it will remove a proportional amount of UV. A 60% shade cloth would remove 60% of the UV. I didn't get a picture but I think it was over beans or tomatoes, both of which like full sun and probably wouldn't do as well under shade cloth. Most of his beans and squash were uncovered and seemed to be doing reasonably well.

 

[blargo]

Francis has some black shade cloth he described as a UV barrier over part of his garden. I have never seen any shade cloth advertised as a selective UV barrier. This brand: http://www.shadeclothstore.com/depts/shadeclothapplications.html, says it will remove a proportional amount of UV. A 60% shade cloth would remove 60% of the UV. I didn't get a picture but I think it was over beans or tomatoes, both of which like full sun and probably wouldn't do as well under shade cloth. Most of his beans and squash were uncovered and seemed to be doing reasonably well.

There are some total UV covers, don't have the link handy that some professional gardeners use to fake out their crops, but they are made to fit over a greenhouse. Just like other shade covers you could cut it. I use a 20% shade/row covers in my winter greenhouse to grow veggies. Their UV claims are pure bunk, otherwise lots of things would have burned, not just veggies nut people, sunscreens would not have worked like normal, more burns on people that were out in the sun. I worked out in my garden all summer and I got the normal farmers tan...

 

[David Fraser]

Francis has some black shade cloth he described as a UV barrier over part of his garden. I have never seen any shade cloth advertised as a selective UV barrier. This brand: http://www.shadeclothstore.com/depts/shadeclothapplications.html, says it will remove a proportional amount of UV. A 60% shade cloth would remove 60% of the UV. I didn't get a picture but I think it was over beans or tomatoes, both of which like full sun and probably wouldn't do as well under shade cloth. Most of his beans and squash were uncovered and seemed to be doing reasonably well.

But even removing 60% UVB still means the levels getting to his plants are hundreds more times higher than stood next to the Sun.

 

[Steve Funk]

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/698958853/greenhouse_uv_plastic.html?s=p A lot of covers specify UV resistant, but that means that the UV will not cause them to break down prematurely, not necessarily that they will selectively filter out the UV rays. I would like to see the link if there are any that do make this claim.

 

[blargo]

Here is one that I have seen before: http://www.foreverflowering.net/light-deprivation/black-out-fabrics

 

[Jay Reynolds]

Their UV claims are pure bunk, otherwise lots of things would have burned, not just veggies nut people, sunscreens would not have worked like normal, more burns on people that were out in the sun. I worked out in my garden all summer and I got the normal farmers tan...

As far back as last summer Mangels had the shade cloth out in his garden. I recall you can see it in the video he produced for the Consciousness Beyond Chemtrails conference.



Wigington is claiming that UVB levels are ten times higher than normal. If true, a person having a one hour exposure would be receiving a ten hour exposure a person out in the sun for five hours would receive 50 hours exposure, and so on. Plenty of people get five hours on some days, if they actually received 50 hours of exposure on that day, they would be seriously burned. Dane Wigington often remarks that chemtrail belief doesn't require education, just common sense. In fact he recently stated that people without education were better able to become "aware" of chemtrails because they relied on common sense, not paper. His claims about UV , however, don't demonstrate the use of common sense but rather confirmation bias and a rejection of common sense.

The prime tomato growing area of the USA is in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys just south of Mt. Shasta. Irrigation water for that area flows out of Lake Shasta just below Dane Wigington's house.

Last season's organically grown tomatoes in Sacramento County yielded up to 60 tons/acre. Average California production of tomatoes remains around 12-13 million pounds annually. Average soil pH in these areas is 7.1, and has hardly changed since 1945.

The professionals are simply not having the problems growing tomatoes which are being claimed by those who believe in chemtrails, despite having soil pH slightly above optimum.

Either:
a) the chemtrails believers are having garden problems which the pros have overcome
b) the chemtrails believers are needlessly blaming their garden problems on ice crystals they see persisting six miles up in the sky
c) belief in chemtrails causes problems growing tomatoes

 

[David Fraser]

I came across an article on the Truth Denied the other day. It addresses some claims that Francis Mangels makes in the video above, namely the interview. They seem concerned that he answers a question at around 27:25, namely the following

Question: "(John Whyte): Question from July from southern California, he wants to know what effects from geoengineering are having on the primary roots system in crop, trees, etc.

Answer: (Francis Mangels): "Nothing yet. But hold on for that. If it gets really high we'll see roots stunting from heavier aluminum, barium and strontium tends to replace calcium. We'll probably see some deficiency disease, eventually, it could be global warming, that weaken the plants predisposes, for instance the western coast department deal with that, it could be global warming. But is there anything that poison the root of the plant now? not yet. The big thing is pH change, its debilitating the planet a little bit now, but in a word, no, no poison. pH changes are probably more dangerous, and global warming probably more dangerous at this time"

http://www.thetruthdenied.com/news/2013/01/10/the-spraying-do-not-kill-plants-yet-a-rebuttal/

I won't go into the rebuttal but has Mangels or Wigington ever been challenged on this. Admittedly this is Aug 2012 but it seems totally incongruous with the the chemtrail hypothesis.

 

[Jay Reynolds]

The 2014 California tomato harvest is in, and it turned out to be a record year including Northern California where Dane Wigington and Francis Mangels say tomatoes cannot be grown anymore and bark is being burned off oak trees.

Obviously, tomatoes are far more tender than oak trees, so for yet another year those claims are shown to be completeely bogus.

Drought-defying tomato harvest breaks California record
BY DALE KASLER

DKASLER@SACBEE.COM



Excerpts:

"Defying the state's devastating water shortage, California farmers produced a record tomato crop. The harvest came in at an estimated 14 million tons of processing tomatoes. Those are the type used to make sauce, salsa and other products, and represent about 96 percent of all the tomatoes grown in California.

In a year when most commodities saw declines in production, the tomato crop was 16 percent larger than last year. It surpassed the old record of 13.3 million tons harvested in 2009, according to the California Tomato Growers Association."


"While statistics aren't yet available on fresh tomatoes, like the kinds sold in supermarkets, it appears they enjoyed a strong harvest as well, at least in Northern California. Jim Boyce, owner of Produce Express wholesalers in Sacramento, said he saw an approximately 25 percent surge in supplies from growers within a 100-mile radius."

 

[Andrew Hanlon]

Hi Everyone. Just watched some of "what are they spraying". Francis Mangles seems to [not know what he is talking about]. I studied soil science a bit. From what I remember and what I've just looked up, the most glaring [falsehood] is that aluminium increases soil pH.

So firstly, I'm pretty sure that in fact it does the opposite. It's found in every soil in the world. It bonds to soil colloids because in it's elemental form (Al3+) and when soil acidity increases, it becomes available because the bits that it sticks to on the soil colloids get taken up by protons, so it can no longer stick to the silica in the soil and becomes available.

So the more alkali a soil is, the less measurable Aluminium there is. So basically, he's saying that the soil is more alkali because of Aluminium - it would have the opposite effect. And what's more, if the soil WAS more alkali there would be less aluminium, because the aluminium would stick to the silica better.

What he's saying seems to be impossible - I'm not 100% sure, because no one ever talks about adding Aluminium oxide to soil, but aluminium sulphate is added to make soils more acidic quite regularly.

The other thing is considering how much aluminium there is in soil already, how much would you have to add to change pH from whatever it was he said (4.8?) to 6.5 - that's nearly 100 times as alkali right? If all the aluminium production on earth was used purely to spread on the US, it would be 0.5g per year per square meter. Doesn't sound like enough to change pH to me...


[mod edits for politeness, formatting]

 

[solrey]

Hi Everyone. Just watched some of "what are they spraying". Francis Mangles seems to [not know what he is talking about]. I studied soil science a bit. From what I remember and what I've just looked up, the most glaring [falsehood] is that aluminium increases soil pH.

So firstly, I'm pretty sure that in fact it does the opposite. It's found in every soil in the world. It bonds to soil colloids because in it's elemental form (Al3+) and when soil acidity increases, it becomes available because the bits that it sticks to on the soil colloids get taken up by protons, so it can no longer stick to the silica in the soil and becomes available.

So the more alkali a soil is, the less measurable Aluminium there is. So basically, he's saying that the soil is more alkali because of Aluminium - it would have the opposite effect. And what's more, if the soil WAS more alkali there would be less aluminium, because the aluminium would stick to the silica better.

What he's saying seems to be impossible - I'm not 100% sure, because no one ever talks about adding Aluminium oxide to soil, but aluminium sulphate is added to make soils more acidic quite regularly.

The other thing is considering how much aluminium there is in soil already, how much would you have to add to change pH from whatever it was he said (4.8?) to 6.5 - that's nearly 100 times as alkali right? If all the aluminium production on earth was used purely to spread on the US, it would be 0.5g per year per square meter. Doesn't sound like enough to change pH to me...


[mod edits for politeness, formatting]

Just wanted to clarify that aluminum sulfate lowers soil pH due to the sulfate, not the aluminum. Personally I would only use aluminum sulfate on acid loving ornamentals that can handle aluminum like hydrangeas where a little available aluminum makes blue flowers.

 

[Andrew Hanlon]

"Just wanted to clarify that aluminum sulfate lowers soil pH due to the sulfate, not the aluminum. Personally I would only use aluminum sulfate on acid loving ornamentals that can handle aluminum like hydrangeas where a little available aluminum makes blue flowers" Yes I'm sure that's true. But I'm not entirely sure that aluminium oxide as I'm assuming it would be by the time it reached the soil, would cause it to be more alkali. Aluminium oxide is neutral and doesn't react with water. If it was pure aluminium then as I remember it Al3+ bonds strongly with soil colloids - more strongly than other cations. So an addition of aluminium would cause the silica to jettison cations into the surrounding water to be replaced by aluminium. I believe that would be a net decrease in overall pH. If anyone knows better, please put me right on this. Like I say I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Steve Funk]

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-shasta-snow-and-water-aluminum-tests.137/page-3
Back on that thread in post #84, I took a ph reading on aluminum oxide. It came out basic. I'm not sure what the chemical explanation is, or whether all aluminum oxide formulations would be the same. David Fraser, whom I think has a chemistry background, discussed this in post #83.
I definitely agree with your point about the quantity needed to affect significant ph changes