William Thomas is a Canadian writer who was one of the original promoters of the Chemtrail Theory. His bio can be found here: http://www.consciousnessbeyondchemtrails.com/speakers/william-thomas/ excerpt: I went to the conference and watched his presentation. It mostly consisted of very old information that had been debunked before, and a number of recording of phone conversations that were rather difficult to hear. For some reason the conference organizers did not upload his video, but here's a preview: Afterwards I had a nice chat with Thomas. He was very polite. I pointed out an error in his presentation, where he had said contrails need temperatures of -70F to form, when really they need temperatures of -40F. I went home for lunch and looked up where he had originally made this mistake in his book when converting for Celsius to Fahrenheit, and forgetting to add 32. That afternoon I pointed out that he'd been using the incorrect figure for 12 years. He seemed a little thoughtful about this, even saying something like "If you get that wrong for twelve years, who knows what else might be wrong". He recounted how on the plane to Los Angeles he'd noted the outside temperature was -50F, and had thought that was a temperature at which contrails could not form. We also discussed in some length the "ice budget" argument against contrails, which basically notes that it's impossible for anything other that contrails to create such long visible trails - because the vast majority of the ice in the contrail comes from the atmosphere itself. A "chemtrail" consisting of powder would quickly dissipate. The opposite of what most chemtrail theorist say. He seemed quite interested in it. He asked for my email so he could contact me later. Unfortunately he never did contact me. And his web site continue to promote chemtrails (although it does seem under-maintained) http://www.willthomasonline.net/ In particular he has posted a chemtrails timeline, going up to January 2013: http://www.willthomasonline.net/index_htm_files/CHEMTRAILS TIMELINE TO 2013.pdf The Jan 10 2013 entry reads: Which actually refers to a 2008 test that was debunked two years ago. When I spoke with Mr Thomas, he struck me as very intelligent and reasonable, and it has been with some disappointment that he seems to have not addressed anything we discussed at the conference. As one of the original chemtrail promoters I think he bears particular responsibility for the propagation of the inaccuracies that allow it to continue. So I invite Mr Thomas here to discuss his claims in a polite and science-based environment, here on this forum, in this thread. I don't have any contact information, but will try to contact him via his web-site registration contact. Mr Thomas, what I want to know is if you will correct (or issue corrections for) the provably false statements on your web site, and on the various books and videos you have created or contributed to? Will you come here and allow us to politely point out where we think you are in error, and then engage in a civil discussion to determine the real facts?
Note to other thread participants: This is an open discussion, and this is to be a strictly polite thread. That means JUST facts, and no personal characterizations or observations at all.
If Mr. Thomas comes, I propose that we could forward our questions to Mick and allow him to choose them one at a time for discussion, to avoid overwhelming him and to focus closely on exhausting all reasoning for a singular subject before moving on to another.
I've emailed Mr Thomas at whatever email addresses I could find, most of which bounced. If anyone has what they think is a current address, I'd appreciate it if they could PM or email it to me metabunk@gmail.com
Mr Thomas, a good starting point would be the -70F discrepancy. In your book "Chemtrails Confirmed", the 2010 edition, a copy of which is on your website: http://www.willthomasonline.net/index_htm_files/CHEMTRAILS - CONFIRMED - 2010 by William Thomas.pdf you stated: Page 45: Page 49: Now this is simply a miscalculation, the original text from NASA can still be found here: http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/contrail-edu/faq.html -40C is -40F, not -70F, as you and I discussed a year ago in Los Angeles. Yet your original error has propagated across the internet in the last decade. As a Google search shows: This as led to a widespread belief that contrails should be far less common than they are (as -70F is a rarely reached temperature at cruising altitudes). Just a month ago I heard Dane Wigington repeat the -70F error in a conference call. If he's checking the upper air temperatures above Shasta against this -70F, then it's not surprising that he's become convinced of unusual activity. What I suggest is that you issue a correction on your web site, correct the error in your book, and if you have an email list of book purchasers, then send them a corrected pdf file,or at least a correction notice. I also suggest you specifically contact Dane to let him know. Regardless of the merits of the chemtrail argument, allowing known errors to propagate does nobody any good.
Another Canadian is inviting People to an open debate: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...1.780431.182327910430&type=1&relevant_count=1 The Movie he will show to the audience is - you guessed it - "What in the World are they spraying"
Hmm, I had a quick look back across his facebook group recently and thought he'd backed off on the subject of chemtrails to a greater extent.
Did anyone ever receive a contact back from William Thomas? I can tell you that to my knowledge he has never publicly posted on any message board or forum, ever. Others always did that sort of dirty work, he never had to learn that he told everyone the incorrect temperature for ordinary contrail formation. Now,thirteen years later Dane Wigington is repeating his mistake but is spinning the tale to include an allegation that NOAA changed the data, even though the correct -40 degree figure was published in scientific papers in both German and English many years before NOAA was even created.
About the -40 degrees figure... It is a pretty rough and round figure for the upper bound (warmest) of the contrail-forming temperature range. About the only thing going for it is that it is the SAME figure in both the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales. It is on the NASA site about half way down this page Contrail Education - Science. (The de-emphasis is mine.) 8 km is approximately 26250 feet where the pressure is about 356 hPa. In the Schuman tables (in the bottom of that PDF), -40°C is just about the warmest temperature in the most favourable engine type (high by-pass) in the most favourable moisture conditions (100%, with respect to water) at the lower boundary for the altitude range of modern passenger air traffic, FL250 to FL450. It would have been useful if the author had mentioned that the formation temperature depends of engine type, ambient pressure and ambient RH. Maybe Thomas, Carnicom and others would then have looked into the matter a bit further and not made these mistakes. That NASA resource has a fair number of dead links and one circular link. Maybe I will contact them about it.
During the conference call, William Thomas claimed to be a journalist who was dedicated to offering confirmable documented evidence in his stories. http://globalskywatch.com/live/archive/2013-05-27,Will-Thomas.html#.UaYoCdKR8bA When asked Monday, however, he admitted that all of his first articles which got "chemtrails" into public discourse were wrong to claim that ethylene dibromide EDB was a constituent of jet fuel. Further, he claimed to have had an analysis done of jet fuel. To my knowledge, he has never published such an analysis. Ten years have gone by and many many people still state with (false) certitude that EDB is part of jet fuel and is being "sprayed".
Mick . . . Your requests for clarification and corrections are on target . . . as a person sympathetic to speculation about chemtrails and geoengineering I think accuracy and disclosure are necessary for the proper debate environment to be encouraged . . .
Will Thomas' website seems to have some current stories on it now. Maybe he has current contact info there now. http://www.willthomasonline.net/
On a recent radio show, Dane Wigington repeated the false claim that minimum contrail formation temperature was -70 degrees F. Hisclaim said that at one time NOAA had made such a statement, but that it had been removed and changed to -40 degrees F. http://globalskywatch.com/assets/mp3/gwradio/2013-07-06.mp3 We know this is not true, and indeed the documentary "Memphis Belle" made in 1943 displays and describes contrails being formed at -40 degrees F, aswell as contrails starting and stopping in response to varying atmospheric humidity conditions, even in level flight. Do these people actually believe that one of the most well-known WWII documentaries would have been made stating the proper minimum formation temperature for contrails, then NOAA could have changed the temperature to -70 degrees F, then changed it back again? That beggars belief, and William Thomas could set the record straight if he liked. Whether he does or not, people who fall for Dane Wigington's misinformation and repeat it discredit themselves and their cohorts by doing so. They have both William Thomas and Dane Wigington to blame for it, plus their own lack of discernment.
Hi Ross or Jay Could I just ask how formation temperature may be dependant on engine type? First of all I am in no way an engineer, I find the things incredibly dull that's why I have never learned to drive. Now as I understand it more efficient fuel combustion should increase the amount of water vapour (that's following CnH2n+2 +O2 = CO2 + H2O). So I can see more water vapour getting formed, but is there a change in temperature in the combustion chamber? Sorry if it sounds a stupid question.
It's really the exhaust temperature that is the key factor. Combustion efficiency has not really changed, but the amount of waste heat has. See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/engine-efficiency-high-bypass-and-contrail-frequency-how-much.226/
William Thomas quoted Thomas W. Schlatter, a now retired NOAA scientist, in the 2002 Earth Island Journal article, as saying a temp of -76F was needed for contrail formation. Here is what Schlatter has to say about that:
Aha, so Schlatter was saying -76F was the temp contrails would ALWAYS form, not the temp at which they MIGHT form. But even there he was "probably wrong".
I think the exchange with Mr. Schlatter in Steve's post could do with some reformatting, no? It's an important item. Also, the date of the exchange would be of interest.
Yes, but it seems to have been misinterpreted to where "always" means "only". Good example of selective interpretation on Thomas' part.
