Project Cumulus & the Tragedy in Devon linked to Weather Manipulation

Don't worry, things like this only happened in the past

Whenever I go online, I see people posting pictures of plane trails in the sky and asking why we see so many of them. Some argue they are con (densation) trails whilst others say they are chem (ical) trails. Whilst there are very convincing arguments on both sides it is impossible to ascertain the truth. However, we can look at what has happened in the past to give a theory more credibility.

In a previous post, I looked at previous, documented and declassified examples of governments, via the military, spraying their own citizens. All in our best interest of course, until it isn’t.

Today I will look at a tragic story that happened in a North Devon village called Lynmouth in the 1950s.

Lynmouth is a beautiful village on the edge of Exmoor in England.

The river West Lyn and East Lyn flow down from the village of Lynton above and discharge into the sea. If you ever visit the villages and don’t fancy the steep walk up the hill between the two, you can ride in comfort on a water-operated funicular that has been in operation since 1890.

In the early 1950s, the UK government, together with an international team of scientists, decided to start meddling in weather manipulation. Project Cumulus was initiated and was operational between 1949 and 1952. Its purpose was to experiment with various cloud seeding techniques and therefore control when and where it rains.

Between 4 August and 15 August 1952 flights were flown conducting further weather manipulation experiments. However, Project Cumulus abruptly stopped on 15 August 1952. Coincidentally, on the same day a tragedy in Lynmouth unfolded.

Within a number of hours, the biggest flooding event for 300 years hit Lynmouth, destroying hundreds of buildings, bridges, cars and sadly killing 35 people. A further 420 villagers were made homeless. Bodies washed out to sea were never found. One girl who was interviewed at the time lost six family members and spoke about her mother identifying her grandmother’s body. “Mum identified her by this huge wart on her back because she hadn’t got no head, or arms, or legs when they found her.”

90 million tons of water, together with thousands of tons of rock hit the village, destroying everything in its path. Overall that month, North Devon, where the village is situated experience 250 times more rainfall than was normal for August.

Soon afterwards, the remaining villagers called for an investigation and discussed rumours of planes circling before the deluge.

However, the government and the Ministry of Defence denied any “cloud-seeding” experiments had taken place and the tragedy was labelled as a ‘hand of God’ event. Any talk of weather manipulation was considered a conspiracy theory and even to this day it is labelled as such on Wikipedia.

That was until 2001 when the BBC conducted an investigation into the floods and confirmed that secret experiments were causing heavy rainfall. Many of the classified documents had gone missing but the Document team tracked down RAF logbooks and personal testimony.

One pilot described how, as part of Operation Cumulus, he sprayed salt into the air causing a heavy downpour 50 miles away. Other flights using silver iodide are also likely to have taken place.

"The rain was the heaviest for several years - and all out of a sky which looked summery ... there was no disguising the fact that the seedsman had said he'd make it rain, and he did.

"Toasts were drunk to meteorology and it was not until the BBC news bulletin [about the Lynmouth tragedy] was read later on, that a stony silence fell on the company,"

The Guardian also reported on the findings, although they now categorise the story in their “silly season” section. They quote a RAF navigator who said “we flew straight through the top of the cloud, poured dry ice down into the cloud. We flew down to see if any rain came out of the cloud. And it did about 30 minutes later, and we all cheered.”

The British Geological Survey examined soil sediments in the district of Lynmouth to see if any silver or iodide residues remain. The testing was limited due to restrictions in place because of foot and mouth disease, and it is inconclusive. However, silver residue has been discovered in the catchment waters of the river Lyn.

The BBC investigation was turned into a Radio 4 programme called “The Day They Made it Rain” in which they suggest that the Air Ministry and Treasury were aware that the experiments were causing damage to civilians.

According to declassified minutes, the war office was interested in increasing rain and snow by artificial means for a number of reasons including:

• bogging down enemy movement;

• incrementing the water flow in rivers and streams to hinder or stop enemy crossings;

• clearing fog from airfields; and

• to explode an atomic weapon in a cloud to produce a far wider area of radioactive contamination than in a normal atomic explosion.

But remember, these types of experiments only happened in the past. Your government loves you now and would never do anything like that nowadays.