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Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (Tintin au pays des Soviets) is the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle as anti-communist satire for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from January 1929 to May 1930 before being published in a collected volume by Éditions du Petit Vingtième in 1930. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are sent to the Soviet Union to report on Stalin's government. Knowing of his intentions, however, the secret police of the OGPU are sent to hunt him down.

Bolstered by publicity stunts, Land of the Soviets was a commercial success in Belgium, and also witnessed serialisation in France and Switzerland. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in the Congo, and the series became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Damage to the original plates prevented republication of the book for several decades, while Hergé later expressed embarrassment at the crudeness of the work. As he began to redraw his earlier Adventures in second, colour versions from 1942 onward, he decided against doing so for Land of the Soviets; it was the only completed Tintin story that Hergé did not reproduce in colour. Growing demand among fans of the series resulted in the production of unauthorised copies of the book in the 1960s, with the first officially sanctioned republication appearing in 1969, after which it was translated into several other languages, including English. Critical reception of the work has been largely negative, and several commentators on The Adventures of Tintin have described Land of the Soviets as one of Hergé's weakest works.

Synopsis
Tintin, a reporter for Le Petit Vingtième, is sent with his dog Snowy on an assignment to the Soviet Union, departing from Brussels. En route to Moscow, an agent of the OGPU—the Soviet secret police—sabotages the train and declares the reporter to be a "dirty little bourgeois". The Berlin Police indirectly blame Tintin for the bombing but he escapes to the border of the Soviet Union. Following closely, the OGPU agent finds Tintin and brings him before the local Commissar's office, instructing the Commissar to make the reporter "disappear ... accidentally". Escaping again, Tintin finds "how the Soviets fool the poor idiots who still believe in a Red Paradise" by burning bundles of straw and clanging metal in order to trick visiting English Marxists into believing that non-operational Soviet factories are productive.

Tintin witnesses a local election, where the Bolsheviks threaten the voters to ensure their own victory; when they try to arrest him, he dresses as a ghost to scare them away. Tintin attempts to make his way out of the Soviet Union, but the Bolsheviks pursue and arrest him, then threaten him with torture. Escaping his captors, Tintin reaches Moscow, remarking that the Bolsheviks have turned it into "a stinking slum". He and Snowy observe a government official handing out bread to homeless Marxists but denying it to their opponents; Snowy steals a loaf and gives it to a starving boy. Spying on a secret Bolshevik meeting, Tintin learns that all the Soviet grain is being exported abroad for propaganda purposes, leaving the people starving, and that the government plans to "organise an expedition against the kulaks, the rich peasants, and force them at gunpoint to give us their corn".

Tintin infiltrates the Red Army and warns some of the kulaks to hide their grain, but the army catches him and sentences him to death by firing squad. By planting blanks in the soldiers' rifles, Tintin fakes his death and is able to make his way into the snowy wilderness, where he discovers an underground Bolshevik hideaway in a haunted house. A Bolshevik then captures him and informs him, "You're in the hideout where Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin have collected together wealth stolen from the people!" With Snowy's help, Tintin escapes, commandeers a plane, and flies into the night. The plane crashes, but Tintin fashions a new propeller from a tree using a penknife, and continues to Berlin. The OGPU agents appear and lock Tintin in a dungeon, but he escapes with the aid of Snowy, who has dressed himself in a tiger costume. The last OGPU agent attempts to kidnap Tintin, but this attempt is foiled, leaving the agent threatening, "We'll blow up all the capitals of Europe with dynamite!" Tintin returns to Brussels amidst a huge popular reception.

Background
Georges Remi—best known under the pen name Hergé—had been employed as an illustrator at Le Vingtième Siècle ("The Twentieth Century"), a staunchly Roman Catholic and conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information" and disseminated a far-right and fascist viewpoint; Wallez was an admirer of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini and kept a signed picture of him on his desktop, while Léon Degrelle, who later became the leader of the fascist Rexists, worked as a foreign correspondent for the paper. According to Harry Thompson, such political ideas were common in Belgium at the time, and Hergé's milieu was permeated with conservative ideas revolving around "patriotism, Catholicism, strict morality, discipline, and naivety". Anti-communist sentiment was strong, and a Soviet exhibition held in Brussels in January 1928 was vandalised amid demonstrations by the fascist National Youth Movement (Jeunesses nationales) in which Degrelle took part.

Wallez appointed Hergé editor of a children's supplement for the Thursday issues of Le Vingtième Siècle, titled Le Petit Vingtième ("The Little Twentieth"). Propagating Wallez's socio-political views to its young readership, it contained explicitly pro-fascist and anti-Semitic sentiment. In addition to editing the supplement, Hergé illustrated L'extraordinaire aventure de Flup, Nénesse, Poussette et Cochonnet ("The Extraordinary Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet"), a comic strip authored by a member of the newspaper's sport staff, which told the adventures of two boys, one of their little sisters, and her inflatable rubber pig. Hergé became dissatisfied with mere illustration work, and wanted to write and draw his own cartoon strip.

Hergé already had experience creating comic strips. From July 1926 he had written a strip about a boy scout patrol leader titled Les Aventures de Totor C.P. des Hannetons ("The Adventures of Totor, Scout Leader of the Cockchafers") for the Scouting newspaper Le Boy Scout Belge ("The Belgian Boy Scout"). The character of Totor was a strong influence on Tintin; Hergé described the latter as being like Totor's younger brother. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier stated that graphically, Totor and Tintin were "virtually identical" except for the scout uniform, also noting many similarities between their respective adventures, particularly in the illustration style, the fast pace of the story, and the use of humour. Hergé also had experience creating anti-communist propaganda, having produced a number of satirical sketches for Le Sifflet in October 1928 titled "70 per cent of Communist chefs are odd ducks".

Influences
Hergé wanted to set Tintin's first adventure in the United States in order to involve Native Americans—a people who had fascinated him since boyhood—in the story. Wallez rejected this idea, which later saw realisation as the series' third instalment, Tintin in America (1932). Instead, Wallez wanted Hergé to send Tintin to the Soviet Union, founded in 1922 by the Marxist–Leninist Bolshevik Party after seizing power from the Russian Empire during the 1917 October Revolution. The Bolsheviks greatly changed the country's feudal society by nationalising industry and replacing a capitalist economy with a socialist one. By the early 1920s, the Soviet Union's first leader, Vladimir Lenin, had died and been succeeded by Joseph Stalin. Being both Roman Catholic and politically right-wing, Wallez was opposed to the atheist, anti-sectarian, anti-theocratic and left-wing Soviet policies, and wanted Tintin's first adventure to reflect this, to persuade its young readers with anti-Marxist and anti-communist ideas. Later commenting on why he produced a work of propaganda, Hergé said that he had been "inspired by the atmosphere of the paper", which taught him that being a Catholic meant being anti-Marxist, and since childhood he had been horrified by the Bolshevik shooting of the Romanov family in July 1918.

Hergé did not have the time to visit the Soviet Union or to analyse any available published information about it. Instead, he obtained an overview from a single book, Moscou sans Voiles: Neuf ans de travail au pays des Soviets ("Moscow Unveiled: Nine Years' Work in the Land of the Soviets") by Joseph Douillet (1878–1954), a former Belgian consul to Rostov-on-Don who had spent nine years in Russia following the 1917 revolution. Published in both Belgium and France in 1928, Moscou sans voiles sold well to a public eager to believe Douillet's anti-Bolshevik claims, many of which were of doubtful accuracy. As Michael Farr noted, "Hergé freely, though selectively, lifted whole scenes from Douillet's account", including "the chilling election episode", which was "almost identical" to Douillet's description in Moscou sans voiles. Hergé's lack of knowledge about the Soviet Union led to many factual errors; the story contains references to bananas, Shell petrol and Huntley & Palmers biscuits, none of which existed in the Soviet Union at the time. He also made errors in Russian names, typically adding the Polish ending "-ski" to them, rather than the Russian equivalent "-vitch".

In creating Land of the Soviets, Hergé was influenced by innovations within the comic strip medium. He claimed a strong influence from French cartoonist Alain Saint-Ogan, producer of the Zig et Puce series. The two met the following year, becoming lifelong friends. He was also influenced by the contemporary American comics that reporter Léon Degrelle had sent back to Belgium from Mexico, where he was stationed to report on the Cristero War. These American comics included George McManus's Bringing Up Father, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Rudolph Dirks's Katzenjammer Kids. Farr believed that contemporary cinema influenced Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, indicating similarities between scenes in the book with the police chases of the Keystone Cops films, the train chase in Buster Keaton's The General and with the expressionist images found in the works of directors such as Fritz Lang. Farr summarised this influence by commenting: "As a pioneer of the strip cartoon, Hergé was not afraid to draw on one modern medium to develop another".

Publication
Prior to serialisation, an announcement ran in the 4 January 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième, proclaiming: "e are always eager to satisfy our readers and keep them up to date on foreign affairs. We have therefore sent Tintin, one of our top reporters, to Soviet Russia". The illusion of Tintin as a real reporter for the paper, and not a fictional character, was emphasised by the claim that the comic strip was not a series of drawings, but composed of photographs taken of Tintin's adventure. Biographer Benoît Peeters thought this a private joke between staff at Le Petit Vingtième; alluding to the fact that Hergé had originally been employed as a photojournalist, a job that he never fulfilled. Literary critic Tom McCarthy later compared this approach to that of 18th-century European literature, which often presented fictional narratives as non-fiction.

The first instalment of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared in the 10 January 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième, and ran weekly until 8 May 1930. Hergé did not plot out the storyline in advance; he improvised new situations on a weekly basis, leaving Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier to observe that both "Story-wise and graphically, Hergé was learning his craft before our eyes." Hergé admitted that the work was rushed, saying: "The Petit Vingtième came out on Wednesday evening, and I often didn't have a clue on Wednesday morning how I was going to get Tintin out of the predicament I had put him in the previous week". Michael Farr considered this evident, remarking that many drawings were "crude, rudimentary, rushed", lacking the "polish and refinement" that Hergé would later develop. Contrastingly, he thought that certain plates were of the "highest quality" and exhibited Hergé's "outstanding ability as a draughtsman".

The story was an immediate success among its young readers. As Harry Thompson remarked, the plotline would have been popular with the average Belgian parent, exploiting their anti-communist sentiment and feeding their fears regarding the Russians. The series' popularity led Wallez to organise publicity stunts to boost interest. The first of these was the April Fools' Day publication of a faked letter purporting to be from the OGPU (Soviet secret police) confirming Tintin's existence, and warning that if the paper did not cease publication of "these attacks against the Soviets and the revolutionary proletariat of Russia, you will meet death very shortly".

The second was a staged publicity event, suggested by the reporter Charles Lesne, which took place on Thursday 8 May 1930. During the stunt, the 15-year-old Lucien Pepermans, a friend of Hergé's who had Tintin's features, arrived at Brussels' Gare du Nord railway station aboard the incoming Liège express from Moscow, dressed in Russian garb as Tintin and accompanied by a white dog; in later life Hergé erroneously claimed that he had accompanied Pepermans, whereas it had been Julien De Proft. A crowd of fans greeted Pepermans and De Proft and pulled the Tintin impersonator into their midst. Proceeding by limousine to the offices of Le Vingtième Siècle, they were greeted by further crowds, largely of Catholic Boy Scouts; Pepermans gave a speech on the building's balcony, before gifts were distributed to fans.

From 26 October 1930, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was syndicated to French Catholic magazine Cœurs Vaillants ("Brave Hearts"), recently founded by the Abbé Gaston Courtois. Courtois had travelled to Brussels to meet Wallez and Hergé, but upon publication thought that his readers would not understand the speech bubble system, adding explanatory sentences below each image. This angered Hergé, who unsuccessfully "intervened passionately" to stop the additions. The publication was highly significant for initiating Hergé's international career. The story was also reprinted in its original form in L'écho illustré, a Swiss weekly magazine, from 1932 onward. Recognising the continued commercial viability of the story, Wallez published it in book form in September 1930 through the Brussels-based Éditions du Petit Vingtième at a print run of 10,000, each sold at twenty francs. The first 500 copies were numbered and signed by Hergé using Tintin's signature, with Snowy's paw print drawn on by Wallez's secretary, Germaine Kieckens, who later became Hergé's first wife. For reasons unknown, the original book version omitted the page originally published in the 26 December 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième; since the story's republication in Archives Hergé, it has appeared in modern editions as page 97A.

In April 2012 an original copy of the first album was sold for a record price of €37,820 by specialised auctioneers Banque Dessinée of Elsene, with another copy being sold for €9,515. In October the same year a copy was sold at the same auction house for €17,690.

Later publications
By 1936 there was already a demand for reprints of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, with Lesne sending a letter to Hergé enquiring if this was possible. The cartoonist was reluctant, stating that the original plates for the story were now in a poor condition and that as a result he would have to redraw the entire story were it to be re-published. Several years later, amid the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, a German-run publishing company asked Hergé for permission to republish Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, with the intent of using it as anti-Soviet propaganda, but again Hergé declined the offer.

From 1942 onwards, Hergé began redrawing and colouring his earlier Tintin adventures for Casterman, but chose not to do so for Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, considering its story too crude. Embarrassed by it, he labeled it a "transgression of [his] youth". Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier believed that another factor in his decision might have been the story's virulently anti-Marxist theme, which would have been unpopular amidst growing West European sympathies for Marxism following the Second World War. In an article discussing Hergé's work which was published in the magazine Jeune Afrique ("Young Africa") in 1962, it was noted that despite the fact that fans of his work visited the Bibliothèque Nationale to read the copy of Land of the Soviets that was held there, it "will never (and with good cause) be republished". In 1961, Hergé wrote a letter to Casterman suggesting that the original version of the story be republished in a volume containing a publisher's warning about its content. Louis-Robert Casterman replied with a letter in which he stated that while the subject had been discussed within the company: "There are more hesitant or decidedly negative opinions than there are enthusiastic ones. Whatever the case, you can rest assured that the matter is being actively considered".

As The Adventures of Tintin became more popular in Western Europe, and some of the rarer books became collectors' items, the original printed edition of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets became highly valued and unauthorized editions began to be produced. As a result, Studios Hergé published 500 numbered copies to mark the series' 40th birthday in 1969. This encouraged further demand, leading to the production of further "mediocre-quality" unlicensed editions, which were sold at "very high prices". To stem this illegal trade, Hergé agreed to a 1973 republication as part of the Archives Hergé collection, where it appeared in a collected volume alongside Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America. With unofficial copies continuing to be sold, Casterman produced a facsimile edition of the original in 1981. Over the next decade, it was translated into nine languages, with an English-language edition translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner published by Sundancer in 1989. This edition was republished in 1999 for the 70th anniversary of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

Sociologist John Theobald noted that by the 1980s, the book's plot had become "socially and politically acceptable" in the western world as part of the Reaganite intensification of the Cold War and increased hostility towards Marxism and socialism. This cultural climate allowed it to appear "on hypermarket shelves as suitable children's literature for the new millennium". That same theme prevented its publication in Communist Party-governed China, where it was the only completed adventure not translated by Wang Bingdong and officially published in the early 21st century.

In 2017, two French colour versions were created by Casterman and Moulinsart.

Critical reception

In his study of the cultural and literary legacy of Brussels, André De Vries remarked that Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was "crude by Hergé's later standards, in every sense of the word". Simon Kuper of the Financial Times criticised both Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo as the "worst" of the Adventures, being "poorly drawn" and "largely plot-free". Sociologist John Theobald of the Southampton Institute argued that Hergé had no interest in providing factual information about the Soviet Union, but only wanted to inculcate his readers against Marxism, hence depicting the Bolsheviks rigging elections, killing opponents and stealing the grain from the people. According to literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès of Stanford University, Hergé cast the Bolsheviks as "absolute evil" but was unable to understand how they had risen to power, or what their political views were. This meant that Tintin did not know this either, thereby observing the Soviet "world of misery" and fighting Bolsheviks without being able to foment an effective counter-revolution. Literary critic Tom McCarthy described the plot as "fairly straightforward" and criticised the depiction of Bolsheviks as "pantomime cut-outs".

Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters was critical of the opening pages to the story, believing that the illustrations in it were among Hergé's worst and stating: "One couldn't have imagined a less remarkable debut for a work destined for such greatness". He believed that Tintin was an existentialist "Sartre-esque character" who existed only through his actions, operating simply as a narrative vehicle throughout the book. Where Hergé showed his talent, Peeters thought, was in conveying movement, and in utilising language in a "constantly imaginative" way. He considered the story's "absurdity" to be its best feature, rejecting plausible scenarios in favour of the "joyously bizarre", such as Tintin being frozen solid and then thawing, or Snowy dressing in a tiger skin to scare away a real tiger. Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline described the comic writer's image of the Soviet Union as being "a Dantesque vision of poverty, famine, terror, and repression".

Marking the release of Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn film in 2011, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) commissioned a documentary devoted to Tintin in the Land of the Soviets in which journalist Frank Gardner—who considered Tintin to be his boyhood hero—visited Russia, investigating and defending the accuracy of Hergé's account of Soviet human rights abuses. First airing on Sunday 30 October on BBC Two, the documentary was produced by Graham Strong, with Luned Tonderai as producer and Tim Green as executive producer. David Butcher reviewed the documentary for the Radio Times, opining that Gardner's trip was dull compared to the comic's adventure, but praising a few "great moments", such as the scene in which Gardner tested an open-topped 1929 Amilcar, just as Tintin did in the adventure.

title: Tintin in the Land of the Soviets


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Louis VI

Louis VI may refer to:

 * Louis VI of France, "the Fat" (1081–1137)
 * Louis VI the Roman (1328–1365), Duke of Bavaria and Elector of Brandenburg
 * Louis VI, Elector Palatine (ruled 1576–1583)
 * Louis VI of Hesse-Darmstadt (ruled 1661–1678)
 * Louis VI, Prince of Condé (1756–1830).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Louis VI


text:
Carey Means

Carey Means (born December 4, 1966) is an American voice and stage actor best known for playing Frylock on the Adult Swim show Aqua Teen Hunger Force,   and Thundercleese on The Brak Show. He has also performed in several theatrical musicals and plays, including South Pacific, Two Trains Running, A Soldier's Play, and Waiting for Godot. He provided the voice of Jonah Bishop on the Nickelodeon series Welcome to the Wayne.

Personal life
Means is a graduate of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri with a degree for B.S. Fine Arts/Vocal Music.

He is trained in many dialects, Australian, British, German, Italian, Celtic, Jamaican, Hispanic, South African, South Mississippian, New York, Asian, French, and West Indian Ocean.

He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Leah Means.

On March 31, 2022, Means' wife announced that he had been hospitalized with congestive heart failure.

Theater work

 * South Pacific: Henry/Sailor
 * Two Trains Running: Memphis
 * A Soldier's Play: Sgt. Waters
 * Jubilee: Chorus
 * Talk Radio: Sid/Callers
 * Ceremonies in Old Dark Men: Blue
 * Waiting for Godot: Pozzo

title: Carey Means


text:
Louis VII (disambiguation)

Louis VII may refer to:

 * Louis VII of France "the Younger" (1120–1180)
 * Louis VII, Duke of Bavaria "the Bearded" (1365–1447)
 * Louis VII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1658–1678)
 * Louis VII of Gramont, duc de Gramont (1689–1745)

title: Louis VII (disambiguation)


text:
Louis VIII (disambiguation)

Louis VIII (1187–1226; (r. 1223 – 1226)) was King of France.

Louis VIII may also refer to:
 * Louis VIII, Duke of Bavaria (1403–1445; (r. 1443 – 1445))
 * Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1691–1768; (r. 1739 – 1768))

title: Louis VIII (disambiguation)


text:
Louis X

Louis X may refer to:

 * Louis X of France, "the Quarreller" (1289–1316).
 * Louis X, Duke of Bavaria (1495–1545)
 * Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse, also known as Louis X, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1753–1830).
 * Louis Farrakhan (formerly Louis X), head of the Nation of Islam

title: Louis X


text:
Mission District, San Francisco

The Mission District (Spanish: Distrito de la Misión), commonly known as the Mission (Spanish: La Misión), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is derived from Mission San Francisco de Asís, built in 1776 by the Spanish. The Mission is historically one of the most notable centers of the city's Chicano/Mexican-American community.

Location and climate
The Mission District is located in east-central San Francisco. It is bordered to the east by U.S. Route 101, which forms the boundary between the eastern portion of the district, known as "Inner Mission", and its eastern neighbor, Potrero Hill. Sanchez Street separates the neighborhood from Eureka Valley (containing the sub-district known as "the Castro") to the north west and Noe Valley to the south west. The part of the neighborhood from Valencia Street to Sanchez Street, north of 20th Street, is known as the "Mission Dolores" neighborhood. South of 20th Street towards 22nd Street, and between Valencia and Dolores Streets is a distinct neighborhood known as Liberty Hill. Cesar Chavez Street (formerly Army Street) is the southern border; across Cesar Chavez Street is the Bernal Heights neighborhood. North of the Mission District is the South of Market neighborhood, bordered roughly by Duboce Avenue and the elevated highway of the Central Freeway which runs above 13th Street.

The principal thoroughfare of the Mission District is Mission Street. South of the Mission District, along Mission Street, are the Excelsior and Crocker-Amazon neighborhoods, sometimes referred to as the "Outer Mission" (not to be confused with the actual Outer Mission neighborhood). The Mission District is part of San Francisco's supervisorial districts 6, 9 and 10.

The Mission is often warmer and sunnier than other parts of San Francisco. The microclimates of San Francisco create a system by which each neighborhood can have different weather at any given time, although this phenomenon tends to be less pronounced during the winter months. The Mission's geographical location insulates it from the fog and wind from the west. This climatic phenomenon becomes apparent to visitors who walk downhill from 24th Street in the west from Noe Valley (where clouds from Twin Peaks in the west tend to accumulate on foggy days) towards Mission Street in the east, partly because Noe Valley is on higher ground whereas the Inner Mission is at a lower elevation.

The Mission includes four recognized sub-districts. The northeastern quadrant, adjacent to Potrero Hill is known as a center for high tech startup businesses including some chic bars and restaurants. The northwest quadrant along Dolores Street is famous for Victorian mansions and the popular Dolores Park at 18th Street. Two main commercial zones, known as the Valencia corridor (Valencia St, from about 15th to 22nd) and the 24th Street corridor known as Calle 24 in the south central part of the Mission District are both very popular destinations for their restaurants, bars, galleries and street life.

Native peoples and Spanish colonization
Prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries, the area which now includes the Mission District was inhabited by the Ohlone people who populated much of the San Francisco bay area. The Yelamu Indians inhabited the region for over 2,000 years. Spanish missionaries arrived in the area during the late 18th century. They found these people living in two villages on Mission Creek. It was here that a Spanish priest named Father Francisco Palóu founded Mission San Francisco de Asis on June 29, 1776. The Mission was moved from the shore of Laguna Dolores to its current location in 1783. Franciscan friars are reported to have used Ohlone slave labor to complete the Mission in 1791. This period marked the beginning of the end of the Yelamu culture. The Indian population at Mission Dolores dropped from 400 to 50 between 1833 and 1841.

San Francisco's southern expansion
Ranchos owned by Spanish-Mexican families such as the Valenciano, Guerrero, Dolores, Bernal, Noé and De Haro continued in the area, separated from the town of Yerba Buena, later renamed San Francisco (centered around Portsmouth Square) by a two-mile wooden plank road (later paved and renamed Mission Street).

The lands around the nearly abandoned mission church became a focal point of raffish attractions including bull and bear fighting, horse racing, baseball and dueling. A famous beer parlor resort known as The Willows was located along Mission Creek just south of 18th Street between Mission Street and San Carlos Street. From 1865 to 1891, a large conservatory and zoo known as Woodward's Gardens covered two city blocks bounded by Mission Street, Valencia Street, 13th Street, and 15th Street. In the decades after the Gold Rush, the town of San Francisco quickly expanded, and the Mission lands were developed and subdivided into housing plots for working-class immigrants, largely German, Irish, and Italian, and also for industrial uses.

As the city grew in the decades following the Gold Rush, the Mission District became home to the first professional baseball stadium in California, opened in 1868 and known as Recreation Grounds seating 17,000 people which was located at Folsom and 25th Streets; a portion of the grounds remain as present day Garfield Square. Also, in the 20th century, the Mission District was home to two other baseball stadiums, Recreation Park located at 14th and Valencia and Seals Stadium located at 16th and Bryant with both these stadiums being used by the baseball team named after the Mission District known as the Mission Reds and the San Francisco Seals.

Irish immigrants moved into the Mission in the late 19th century. The Irish made their mark not only by working for the city government but by helping build the Catholic Schools in the Mission District.

Earthquake and population shifts
During California's early statehood period, in the 19th and 20th century, large numbers of Irish and German immigrant workers moved into the area. Around 1900, the Mission District was still one of San Francisco's least densely populated areas, with most of the inhabitants being white families from the working class and lower middle class who lived in single-family houses and two-family flats. Development and settlement intensified after the 1906 earthquake, as many displaced businesses and residents moved into the area, making Mission Street a major commercial thoroughfare.

In 1901, the city of San Francisco changed laws and forbade burials in the city, which helped form the nearby city of Colma. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a single working water hydrant (the so-called 'Golden Fire Hydrant') saved the Mission District from being burned down by massive fires sparked by the earthquake. In the 1910s, the roads into Colma were not well maintained and it was a common practice to use the street cars to move bodies. Valencia Street became a location of many mortuaries and funeral homes during this time due to the quick access to Colma by street car.

In 1926, the Polish community of San Francisco converted a church on 22nd Street and Shotwell Street and opened its doors as the Polish Club of San Francisco; it is referred to today as the "Dom Polski", or Polish Home. The Irish American community made its mark on the area during this time, with notable residents such as etymologist Peter Tamony calling the Mission home.

During the 1940 to 1960s, a large number of Mexican immigrants moved into the area—displaced from an earlier "Mexican Barrio" located on Rincon Hill in order to create the western landing of the Bay Bridge—initiating white flight, giving the Mission a heavily Chicano/Latino character for which it continues to be known today. Starting in the 1960s, Central American immigration has contributed to a Central American presence that outnumbers Mexicans since the 1960s.

1970s–1990s
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Chicano/Latino population in the western part of the Mission (including the Valencia Corridor) declined somewhat and more middle-class young people moved in, including gay and lesbian people (alongside the existing LGBTQ Latino population). One Political movement during the early 70s emerged in the community as 7 young Latino men known as Los Siete de la Raza from the mission district were being charged for the 1969 murder of a San Francisco Police officer. The community got together as these young men were standing up to what was being said about them and were determined to be heard. The people around the Mission District knew these 7 young individuals as change-makers, they were actively trying to get more people from the Mission District to go to college, they also worked with organizations that helped make the community better for latino people which included a free bilingual services through Centro de Salud, which ultimately led other local hospitals to do the same. They were also involved in a free breakfast program, a community newspaper, and its main program, the "Los Siete" Defense Committee.

From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, the Valencia Street corridor included one of the most concentrated and visible lesbian neighborhoods in the United States. The Women's Building, Osento Bathhouse, Old Wives Tales bookstore, Artemis Cafe, Amelia's and The Lexington Club were part of that community.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Valencia Street corridor had a lively punk nightlife featuring the bands The Offs, The Avengers, the Dead Kennedys, Flipper, and several clubs including The Offensive, The Deaf Club, Valencia Tool & Die and The Farm. The former fire station on 16th Street, called the Compound, sported what was commonly referred to as "the punk mall", an establishment that catered to punk style and culture. On South Van Ness, Target Video and Damage magazine were located in a three-story warehouse. The former Hamms brewery was converted to a punk living/rehearsal building, popularly known as The Vats. The neighborhood was dubbed "the New Bohemia" by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1995.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the neighborhood received a higher influx of immigrants and refugees from Central America, South America, the Middle East and even the Philippines and former Yugoslavia, fleeing civil wars and political instability at the time. These immigrants brought in many Central American banks and companies which would set up branches, offices, and regional headquarters on Mission Street.

1990s–present
From the late 1990s through the 2010s, and especially during the dot-com boom, young urban professionals moved into the area. It is widely believed that their movement initiated gentrification, raising rent and housing prices. A number of Latino American middle-class families as well as artists moved to the Outer Mission area, or out of the city entirely to the suburbs of East Bay and South Bay area. Despite rising rent and housing prices, many Mexican and Central American immigrants continue to reside in the Mission, although the neighborhood's high rents and home prices have led to the Latino population dropping by 20% over the decade until 2011. However, in 2008 the Mission still had a reputation of being artist-friendly.

In 2000, the Mission District's Latino population was at 60 percent. By 2015 it had dropped to 48%; a city-funded research study that year predicted a decline to 31 percent by 2025. However, the Mission remains the cultural nexus and epicenter of San Francisco's Mexican/Chicano, and to a lesser extent, the Bay Area's Nicaraguan, Salvadoran and Guatemalan community. While Mexican, Salvadoran, and other Latin American businesses are pervasive throughout the neighborhood, residences are not evenly distributed. Of the neighborhood's Chicano/Latino residents, most live on the eastern and southern sides. The western and northern sides of the neighborhood are more affluent and white. As of 2017, the northern part of the Mission, together with the nearby Tenderloin, is home to a Mayan-speaking community, consisting of immigrants who have been arriving since the 1990s from Mexico's Yucatán region. Their presence is reflected in the Mayan-language name of In Chan Kaajal Park, opened in 2017 north of 17th Street between Folsom and Shotwell Street.

Landmarks and features

Mission Dolores, the eponymous former mission located the far western border of the neighborhood on Dolores Street, continues to operate as a museum and as a California Historical Landmark, while the newer basilica built and opened next to it in 1918 continues to have an active congregation.

Dolores Park (Mission Dolores Park) is the largest park in the neighborhood, and one of the most popular parks in the city. Dolores Park is near Mission Dolores. Across from Dolores Park is Mission High School, built in 1927 in the Mediterranean Revival style.

The San Francisco Armory is a castle-like building located at 14th and Mission that was built as an armory for the U.S. Army and California National Guard. It served as the Headquarters of the 250th Coast Artillery from 1923 through 1944, and the 49th Infantry, also known as the 49ers, in the Cold War.

Food
The Mission district is also famous and influential for its restaurants. Dozens of taquerías are located throughout the neighborhood, showcasing a localized styling of Mexican food. San Francisco is the original home of the Mission burrito. There is also a high concentration of Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Nicaraguan restaurants there as well as a large number of street food vendors. In the last couple decades a number of Mission restaurants have gained national attention, most notably the five restaurants who have received Michelin stars for 2017: Commonwealth, Lazy Bear, Aster, Californios, and Al's Place. A large number of other restaurants are also popular, including: Mission Chinese Food, Western Donut, Bar Tartine, La Taqueria, Papalote, Foreign Cinema on Mission Street, and Delfina on 18th.

Art scene
Numerous Latino artistic and cultural institutions are based in the Mission. These organizations were founded during the social and cultural renaissance of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Latino community artists and activists of the time organized to create community-based arts organizations that were reflective of the Latino aesthetic and cultural traditions. The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, established by Latino artists and activists, is an art space that was founded in 1976 in a space that was formerly a furniture store. The local bilingual newspaper El Tecolote was founded in 1970. The Mission's Galería de la Raza, founded by local artists active in el Movimiento (the Chicano civil rights movement), is a nationally recognized arts organization, also founded during this time of cultural and social renaissance in the Mission, in 1971. Late May, the city's annual Carnaval festival and parade marches down Mission Street. Inspired by the festival in Rio de Janeiro, it is held in late May instead of the traditional late February to take advantage of better weather. The first Carnaval in San Francisco happened in 1978, with less than 100 people dancing in a parade that went around Precita Park. Alejandro Murguía (born 1949) is an American poet, short story writer, editor and filmmaker who was named San Francisco Poet Laureate in 2012. He is known for his writings about the Mission District where he has been a long-time resident.

Due to the existing cultural attractions, formerly less expensive housing and commercial space, and the high density of restaurants and drinking establishments, the Mission is a magnet for young people. An independent arts community also arose and, since the 1990s, the area has been home to the Mission School art movement. Many studios, galleries, performance spaces, and public art projects are located in the Mission, including 1890 Bryant St Studios, Southern Exposure, Art Explosion Studios, City Art Collective Gallery, Artists' Television Access, Savernack Street, and the oldest, alternative, not-for-profit art space in the city of San Francisco, Intersection for the Arts. There are more than 500 Mission artists listed on Mission Artists United site put together by Mission artists. The Roxie Theater, the oldest continuously operating movie theater in San Francisco, is host to repertory and independent films as well as local film festivals. Poets, musicians, emcees, and other artists sometimes gather on the southwest corner of the 16th and Mission intersection to perform. Dance Mission Theater is a nonprofit performance venue and dance school in the neighborhood as well.

Murals
Throughout the Mission walls and fences are decorated with murals initiated by the Chicano Art Mural Movement of the 1970s and inspired by the traditional Mexican paintings. Some of the more significant mural installations are located on Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley. Many of these murals have been painted or supported by the Precita Eyes muralist organization.

Music scene
The Mission is rich in musical groups and performances. Mariachi bands play in restaurants throughout the district, especially in the restaurants congregated around Valencia and Mission in the northeast portion of the district. Carlos Santana spent his teenage years in the Mission, graduating from Mission High School in 1965. He often returned to the neighborhood, including for a live concert with his band Santana that was recorded in 1969, and for the KQED documentary "The Mission" filmed in 1994.

The locally inspired song "Mission in the Rain" by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia appeared on Garcia's solo album Reflections, and was played by the Grateful Dead five times in concert in 1976.

Classical music is heard in the concert hall of the Community Music Center on Capp Street.

The area is also home to Afrolicious, and Dub Mission, a formerly weekly reggae/dub party started in 1996, and over the years has brought many reggae and dub musicians to perform there.

The Mission District also has a Hip-Hop/Rap music scene. Other prominent musicians and musical personalities include alternative rock bands and musicians Luscious Jackson, Faith No More, The Looters, Primus, Chuck Prophet & The Mission Express, Beck, and Jawbreaker.

Visual artists
Some well-known artists associated with the Mission District include: • Benjamin Bratt (born 1963), actor, film producer

• Peter Bratt (born 1962), film director, producer

• Craig Baldwin (born 1952), experimental filmmaker

• Chuy Campusano (1944–1997), Chicano muralist

• Rolando Castellón (born 1937), painter, author, art historian, and curator.

• Laurie Toby Edison (born 1942), photographer

• Rupert García (born 1941), artist and professor

• Ricardo Gouveia (born 1966), also known as "Rigo 23", painter, sculptor, and muralist

• David Ireland (1930–2009), sculptor, installation artist, co-founder of Capp Street Project

• Chris Johanson (born 1968), painter, muralist and street artist

• Margaret Kilgallen (1967–2001), painter, printmaker, and graffiti artist

• Lil Tuffy, poster art, serigraph printmaker and designer

• Carlos Loarca (born 1939), painter, muralist

• Yolanda López (1942–2021), painter, printmaker, educator, and film producer.

• Ralph Maradiaga (1934–1985), artist, curator, photographer, printmaker, teacher, and filmmaker

• Barry McGee (born 1966), also known as "Twist", painter and graffiti artist

• Ruby Neri (born 1970), painter, sculptor, and graffiti artist

• Sirron Norris, illustrator, and muralist

• Dan Plasma, graffiti artist, muralist

• Rex Ray (1956–2015), graphic designer and collage artist

• Peter Rodríguez (1926–2016), artist, curator, and museum director; founder of the Mexican Museum

• Spain Rodriguez (1940–2002), underground cartoonist.

• Michael V. Rios, painter, designer, and muralist

• Pico Sanchez, painter, printmaker

• Adam Savage (born 1967), television personality, model maker, designer, fabricator

• Dori Seda (1951–1988), cartoonist, painter

• Xavier Viramontes (born 1947), printmaker

• Scott Williams (born 1956) stencil artist, muralist

• Megan Wilson, conceptual, installation, and muralist

• René Yañez (1942–2018), painter, assemblage artist, performance artist, curator and community activist.

Arts organizations
• Acción Latina

• Art Explosion Studios

• Artists' Television Access (ATA)

• Brava Theater

• City Art Collective Gallery

• Creativity Explored

• Eth-Noh-Tec, Kinetic Story Theater Eth-Noh-Tec (storytelling kinetic theater)

• Gray Area

• Kadist

• Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

• Project Artaud

• Root Division, from 2002 until 2015

• Ruth's Table

• San Francisco Community Music Center

• Savernack Street

• Southern Exposure

• Theatre of Yugen at NOHspace

• The Lab

• The Marsh

• 1890 Bryant St Studios

• 500 Capp Street

Festivals, parades and fairs
• Carnaval – The major event of the year occurring each Memorial Day weekend is the Mission's Carnaval celebration.

• 24th Street Fair – In March of each year a street fair is held along the 24th Street corridor.

• San Francisco Food Fair – Annually, for several years recently, food trucks and vendor booths have sold food to tens of thousands of people along Folsom Street adjacent to La Cochina on the third weekend in September.

• Cesar Chavez Holiday Parade – The second weekend of April is marked by a parade and celebration along 24th Street in honor of Cesar Chavez.

• Transgender and Dyke Marches – On the Fridays and Saturdays of the fourth weekend of June there are major celebrations of the transgender and dyke communities located at Dolores Park, followed by a march in the evenings along 18th Streets and Valencia Streets.

• Sunday Streets – Twice each year, typically in May and October, Valencia, Harrison and 24th Streets are closed to automobile traffic and opened to pedestrians and bicyclists on Sunday as part of the Sunday Streets program.

• Day of the Dead – Each year on November 2, a memorial procession and celebration of the dead ( Dia de los Muertos ) occurs on Harrison and 24th Street with a gathering of memorials in Garfield Square.

• First Friday – Monthly on the evening of the first Friday, a food and art crawl including a procession of low rider car clubs and samba dancers occurs along 24th Street from Potrero to Mission Streets.

• Open Studios – On the first weekend of October, the ArtSpan organization arranges a district-wide exhibit of Mission District artists studios.

• Hunky Jesus Contest – Until 2014, annually on Easter Sunday the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held an Easter Sunday celebration including a Hunky Jesus Contest in Dolores Park. In 2014, Hunky Jesus moved to Golden Gate Park due to construction at Dolores Park.

• Rock Make Street Festival – Annually for four years the Rock Make organization sponsors a music and arts festival in September on Treat and 18th Streets in the Mission.

• LitCrawl – Annually on the third Saturday of October as part of the LitQuake, a literature festival, hundreds of book and poetry readings are held at bars and bookstores throughout the Mission.

• Party on Block 18 – Bi-annual summer benefit for The Woman's Building and other local non-profits. The day-long street party is located on 18th Street between Dolores and Guerrero Streets.

• Clarion Alley Block Party – Eleven years annually, a block party on the Clarion mural alley, fourth weekend in October.

• Remembering 1906 – Annually for 108 years there has been a gathering and ceremonial gold repainting ceremony of the fire hydrant located at Church and 20th Streets in honor of the only working fire hydrant that allowed the cessation of the fire following the 1906 earthquake.

Media
The Mission District is covered by three free bilingual newspapers. El Tecolote is biweekly and has online articles. Mission Local is predominantly an online news site but does publish a semiannual printed paper. And El Reportero is a weekly newspaper that also has an online site.

Transit
The neighborhood is served by the BART rail system with stations on Mission Street at 16th Street and 24th Street, by Muni bus numbers 9, 9R, 12, 14, 14R, 22, 27, 33, 48, 49, 67, and along the western edge by the J Church Muni Metro line, which runs down Church Street and San Jose Avenue.

Gentrification
The Mission District in the San Francisco Bay Area is a historic transit hub for the Chicano and the Latino community, especially on the 16th Street BART Plaza. An atmosphere like a public market with live music and food trucks, it is also a commuting point for public transportation, which primarily serves low-income working-class people. The majority of the residents that live in Mission District are of minorities and low-income families and uses this useful and open hub for gatherings and doing local businesses like food trucks. However, because of the Dot-Com Boom that occurred in the 1990s and the rise of technology and social media, major technology companies like Google and Facebook have moved up their offices to places like Silicon Valley, south of the bay, that have now become the hot spot for tech companies. The Mission has felt the downstream effects of this demographic shift acutely. The intense surge in demand for housing and low supply of available housing has placed upward pressure on rents in transit hubs like the Mission, leading to gentrification and the displacement of families and small businesses. However, many residents protested and engaged in activism. They created a group called the "Plaza 16 Coalition" in response to the gentrification and the new zoning law, the "Eastern Neighborhoods Plan". They advocate for affordable housing, opposing market-rate developments and the luxury developments.

Education
San Francisco Unified School District operates public schools. Schools in the Mission District include:
 * John O'Connell High School
 * Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School
 * Bryant Elementary School
 * César Chávez Elementary School
 * Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School
 * Marshall Elementary School
 * George R. Moscone Elementary School - it had 350 students.
 * Zaida T. Rodriguez Early Education School
 * Hilltop Special Service Center (special school for grades 7–12)

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco operates the St. Peter's Catholic School, which opened in 1878. Previously its students were Irish or Italian American, but by 2014 95% of the student body was Latino and about two thirds were categorized as economically disadvantaged. Enrollment was once around 600 but by 2014 was around 300 due to gentrification. Its yearly per-student cost was $5,800 while yearly tuition, the lowest in the archdiocese, was $3,800.

title: Mission District, San Francisco


text:
Chemtrail conspiracy theory

The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the erroneous belief that long-lasting condensation trails left in the sky by high-flying aircraft are actually "chemtrails" consisting of chemical or biological agents, sprayed for nefarious purposes undisclosed to the general public. Believers in this conspiracy theory say that while normal contrails dissipate relatively quickly, contrails that linger must contain additional substances. Those who subscribe to the theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be solar radiation management, weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, biological or chemical warfare, or testing of biological or chemical agents on a population, and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

The claim has been dismissed by the scientific community. There is no evidence that purported chemtrails differ from normal water-based contrails routinely left by high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions. Proponents have tried to prove that chemical spraying occurs, but their analyses have been flawed or based on misconceptions. Because of the conspiracy theory's persistence and questions about government involvement, scientists and government agencies around the world have repeatedly explained that the supposed chemtrails are in fact normal contrails.

The term chemtrail is a portmanteau of the words chemical and trail, just as contrail blends condensation and trail.

History

Chemtrail conspiracy theories began to circulate after the United States Air Force (USAF) published a 1996 report about weather modification. In the late 1990s, the USAF was accused of "spraying the U.S. population with mysterious substances" from aircraft "generating unusual contrail patterns." The theories were posted on Internet forums by people including Richard Finke and William Thomas and were among many conspiracy theories popularized by late-night radio host Art Bell, starting in 1999. As the chemtrail conspiracy theory spread, federal officials were flooded with angry calls and letters.

A multi-agency response attempting to dispel the rumors was published in 2000 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Many chemtrail believers interpreted agency fact sheets as further evidence of the existence of a government cover-up. The EPA refreshed its posting in 2015.

In the early 2000s, the USAF released an undated fact sheet that stated the conspiracy theories were a hoax fueled in part by citations to a 1996 strategy paper drafted within their Air University titled Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025. The paper was presented in response to a military directive to outline a future strategic weather modification system for the purpose of maintaining the United States' military dominance in the year 2025, and identified as "fictional representations of future situations/scenarios." The USAF further clarified in 2005 that the paper "does not reflect current military policy, practice, or capability" and that it is "not conducting any weather modification experiments or programs and has no plans to do so in the future." Additionally, the USAF states that the chemtrail' hoax has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications."

The conspiracy theories are seldom covered by the mainstream media, and when they are, they are usually cast as an example of anti-government paranoia. For example, in 2013, when it was made public that the CIA, NASA, and NOAA intended to provide funds to the National Academy of Sciences to conduct research into methods to counteract global warming with geoengineering, an article in the International Business Times anticipated that "the idea of any government agency looking at ways to control, or manipulate, the weather will be met with scrutiny and fears of a malign conspiracies" [sic], and mentioned chemtrail conspiracy theories as an example.

Description
Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory find support for their theories in their interpretations of sky phenomena, videos posted to the Internet, and reports about government programs; they also have certain beliefs about the goals of the alleged conspiracy and the effects of its alleged efforts and generally take certain actions based on those beliefs.

Interpretation of evidence
Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by their long duration, asserting that the chemtrails are those trails left by aircraft that persist for as much as a half-day or transform into cirrus-like clouds. The proponents claim that after 1995, contrails had a different chemical composition and lasted a lot longer in the sky; proponents fail to acknowledge evidence of long-lasting contrails shown in World War II–era photographs.

Proponents characterize contrails as streams that persist for hours and that, with their criss-cross, grid-like, or parallel stripe patterns, eventually blend to form large clouds. Proponents view the presence of visible color spectra in the streams, unusual concentrations of sky tracks in a single area, or lingering tracks left by unmarked or military airplanes flying atypical altitudes or locations as markers of chemtrails.

Photographs of barrels installed in the passenger space of an aircraft for flight test purposes have been claimed to show aerosol dispersion systems. The barrels' actual purpose is to simulate the weight of passengers or cargo. The barrels are filled with water, and the water can be pumped from barrel to barrel to test different centers of gravity while the aircraft is in flight.

Former CIA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden, interviewed on The Joe Rogan Experience, said he had searched through all the secret information of the U.S. government for evidence about (aliens and) chemtrails. According to a CNN report about the webcast, he said: "In case you were wondering: ... Chemtrails are not a thing" and "I had ridiculous access to the networks of the NSA, the CIA, the military, all these groups. I couldn't find anything".

Jim Marrs has cited a 2007 Louisiana television station report as evidence for chemtrails. In the report, the air underneath a crosshatch of supposed chemtrails was measured and apparently found to contain unsafe levels of barium: at 6.8 parts per million, three times the nationally recommended limit. But a subsequent analysis of the footage showed that the equipment had been misused and the reading exaggerated by a factor of 100—the true level of barium measured was both usual and safe.

In 2014, a video that went viral showed a commercial passenger airplane landing on a foggy night, which was described as emitting chemtrails. Discovery News pointed out that passengers sitting behind the wings would clearly see anything being sprayed, which would defeat any intent to be secretive, and that the purported chemical emission was normal air disruption caused by the wings, visible due to the fog.

In October 2014, Englishman Chris Bovey filmed a video of a plane jettisoning fuel on a flight from Buenos Aires to London, which had to dump fuel to lighten its load for an emergency landing in São Paulo. The clip went viral on Facebook, with over three million views and more than 52,000 shares, cited as evidence of chemtrails. He later disclosed that the video post was done as a prank.

In some accounts, the chemicals are described as barium and aluminum salts, polymer fibers, thorium, or silicon carbide.

Chemtrail believers interpret the existence of cloud seeding programs and research into climate engineering as evidence of the conspiracy.

Beliefs
Various versions of the chemtrail conspiracy theory have been propagated via the Internet and radio programs. There are websites dedicated to the conspiracy theory, and it is particularly favored by far-right groups because it fits well with a deep suspicion of the government.

A 2014 review of 20 chemtrail websites found that believers appeal to science in some of their arguments but do not believe what academic or government-employed scientists say; scientists and federal agencies have consistently denied that chemtrails exist, explaining the sky tracks are simply persistent contrails. The review also found that believers generally hold that chemtrails are evidence of a global conspiracy; they allege various goals which include profit (for example, manipulating futures prices, or making people sick to benefit drug companies), population control, or weapons testing (use of weather as a weapon, or testing bioweapons). One of these ideas is that clouds are being seeded with electrically conductive materials as part of a massive electromagnetic superweapons program based around the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Believers say chemtrails are toxic; the 2014 review found that they generally hold that every person is under attack and often express fear, anxiety, sadness, and anger about this. A 2011 study of people from the US, Canada, and the UK found that 2.6% of the sample believed entirely in the conspiracy theory, and 14% believed it partially. An analysis of responses given to the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study showed that 9% of the 36,000 respondents believed it was "completely true" that "the government has a secret program that uses airplanes to put harmful chemicals into the air" while a further 19% believed this was "somewhat true".

Chemtrail conspiracy theorists often describe their experience as being akin to a religious conversion experience. When they "wake up" and become "aware" of chemtrails, the experience motivates them to advocacy of various forms. For example, they often attend events and conferences on geoengineering, and have sent threats to academics working in geoengineering.

Some chemtrail believers adopt the notions of Wilhelm Reich, who devised a "cloudbuster" device from pipework. Reich claimed this device would influence weather and remove harmful energy from the atmosphere. Some chemtrail believers have built cloudbusters filled with crystals and metal filings, which are pointed at the sky in an attempt to clear it of chemtrails.

Chemtrail believers sometimes gather samples and have them tested, rather than rely on reports from government or academic laboratories, but their experiments are usually flawed; for example, collecting samples in jars with metal lids contaminates the sample and is not done in scientific testing.

Incidents
In 2001, in response to requests from constituents, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced (but did not author) H.R. 2977 (107th), the Space Preservation Act of 2001, which would have permanently prohibited basing weapons in space, listing chemtrails as one of a number of "exotic weapons" that would be banned. Proponents have interpreted this explicit reference to chemtrails as official government acknowledgment of their existence. Skeptics note that the bill in question also mentions "extraterrestrial weapons" and "environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons". The bill received an unfavorable evaluation from the United States Department of Defense and died in committee, with no mention of chemtrails appearing in the text of any of Kucinich's three subsequent failed attempts to enact a Space Preservation Act.

In 2003, in a response to a petition by concerned Canadian citizens that "chemicals used in aerial sprayings are adversely affecting the health of Canadians", the Government House Leader responded: "There is no substantiated evidence, scientific or otherwise, to support the allegation that there is high altitude spraying conducted in Canadian airspace. The term 'chemtrails' is a popularised expression, and there is no scientific evidence to support their existence." The House leader added, "it is our belief that the petitioners are seeing regular airplane condensation trails or contrails."

In 2005 in the United Kingdom, Elliot Morley, a Minister of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was asked by David Drew, the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Stroud, "what research [the] Department has undertaken into the polluting effects of chemtrails for aircraft", and responded that "the Department is not researching into chemtrails from aircraft as they are not scientifically recognised phenomena", and that work was being conducted to understand "how contrails are formed and what effects they have on the atmosphere."

During the 2011–2017 California drought, some local politicians in Shasta County reacted credulously to conspiracy theories suggesting that weather-modifying chemtrails had caused the unusual weather conditions.

Contrails

Contrails, or condensation trails, are "streaks of condensed water vapor created in the air by an airplane or rocket at high altitudes". Fossil fuel combustion (as in piston and jet engines) produces carbon dioxide and water vapor. At high altitudes, the air is very cold. Hot humid air from the engine exhaust mixes with the colder surrounding air, causing the water vapor to condense into droplets or ice crystals that form visible clouds. The rate at which contrails dissipate is entirely dependent on weather conditions. If the atmosphere is near saturation, the contrail may exist for some time. Conversely, if the atmosphere is dry, the contrail will dissipate quickly.

It is well established by atmospheric scientists that contrails can persist for hours, and that it is normal for them to spread out into cirrus sheets. The different-sized ice crystals in contrails descend at different rates, which spreads the contrail vertically. Then the differential in wind speeds between altitudes (wind shear) results in the horizontal spreading of the contrail. This mechanism is similar to the formation of cirrus uncinus clouds. Contrails between 25000 and 40000 ft can often merge into an "almost solid" interlaced sheet. Contrails can have a lateral spread of several kilometers, and given sufficient air traffic, it is possible for contrails to create an entirely overcast sky that increases the ice budget of individual contrails and persists for hours.

Experts on atmospheric phenomena say that the characteristics attributed to chemtrails are simply features of contrails responding to diverse conditions in terms of sunlight, temperature, horizontal and vertical wind shear, and humidity levels present at the aircraft's altitude. In the US, the gridlike nature of the National Airspace System's flight lanes tends to cause crosshatched contrails, and in general it is hard to discern from the ground whether overlapping contrails are at similar altitudes or not. The jointly published fact sheet produced by NASA, the EPA, the FAA, and NOAA in 2000 in response to alarms over chemtrails details the science of contrail formation, and outlines both the known and potential impacts of contrails have on temperature and climate. The USAF produced a fact sheet that described these contrail phenomena as observed and analyzed since at least 1953. It also rebutted chemtrail theories more directly by identifying the theories as a hoax and disproving the existence of chemtrails.

Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has said that logic does not dissuade most chemtrail proponents: "If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy, he said.

Analysis of the use of commercial aircraft tracks for climate engineering has shown them to be generally unsuitable.

Astronomer Bob Berman has characterized the chemtrail conspiracy theory as a classic example of failure to apply Occam's razor, writing in 2009 that instead of adopting the long-established "simple solution" that the trails consist of frozen water vapour, "the conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their own children."

A 2016 survey of 77 atmospheric scientists concluded that "76 out of 77 (98.7%) of scientists that took part in this study said they had not encountered evidence of a [secret large-scale atmospheric program] (SLAP), and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, such as typical contrail formation and poor data sampling instructions presented on SLAP websites."

title: Chemtrail conspiracy theory