(WATCH) Weather Control

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For over a century, man has chased the ability to control the weather. From early rainmakers to secret military programs and geo-engineering startups, it’s real, documented, and impacting tens of millions of Americans right now. History reveals the inexact and potentially dangerous nature of the beast. Yet in most of America, there’s almost no regulation. Anyone — even theoretically a hostile foreign actor — can alter your weather without your consent. Or even try to change the climate, for profit. In today’s cover story, we investigate weather control.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Look up on many days and you’ll see blue sky striped with white jet trails that linger for hours, spreading into a hazy veil that dims the sun. To millions of Americans it’s just not natural.

Leah Wilson: The issue with the skies and people noticing that there’s something different, ‘This didn’t used to be this way.’ It’s still a huge mystery to a lot of us. But we know something has changed, right?

Leah Wilson heads Stand for Health Freedom, a nonprofit pushing for transparency.

Wilson: Because what do we even call it today? Do we call it weather modification? Do we call it contrails? Do we call it geo-engineering? Do we call it shielding from the sun? It’s just— there’s a lot of questions to be answered,

A flashpoint came last July. After years of drought, Central Texas got 13 inches of rain. The Guadalupe River rose 31 feet in 90 minutes killing dozens.

Just days before, and 130 miles away, Rainmaker Technology Corporation says it seeded two small clouds with silver iodide to make it rain.

Geo-engineering watchdog Dane Wigington claims that steered or supercharged the Texas disaster.

Dane Wigington (July 9, 2025): There was nothing natural about this event. How bad does it have to get before people look up, wake up, stand up and start to talk about what’s all-out weather chemical and biological warfare taking place in our skies? Again, Texas is a horrible event, and there are so many more like it happening all over the globe.

Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko argued his operations could not possibly have produced that rain.

Augustus Doricko (Fox News, July 9, 2025): Unequivocally, our cloud seeding operations on July 2nd did not impact the flooding that occurred later. The very best operations can produce tens of millions of gallons of precipitation over hundreds of square miles—that is de minimis relative to the remnants of the tropical storm that came in and dumped trillions of gallons of precipitation.

Yet skepticism persists about man’s undaunted effort to master the weather.

America’s first big weather-modification scandal dates back to 1916. San Diego hired famed “rainmaker” Charles Hatfield to break a drought. He released his secret chemical brew from towers and it began to rain — and didn’t stop for two solid weeks.

Documentary (from PastUnpacked): Bridges were swept away, entire neighborhoods were cut off, trains were derailed, and crops were destroyed. On January 27, the lower Otay Dam gave out under the pressure. A 40 foot wall of water tore through the valley. It demolished everything in its path.

San Diego was cut off from the rest of the world for weeks. To this day, it’s the most rain ever documented there and San Diego’s worst ever natural disaster.

Over the decades, the U.S. government has been involved in weather engineering— both publicly and secretly.

In 1947 the military and GE launched “Project Cirrus” to try to weaken hurricanes with frozen carbon dioxide, dry ice. But in one case, a hurricane strengthened, change paths, and devastated Savannah, Georgia.

Yet man’s thirst to manipulate Mother Nature only grew.

President John F. Kennedy (Sept. 25, 1961): We shall propose further cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control.

Mary Holland is with Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that advocates on public health issues including weather control.

Mary Holland: I mean, President Johnson back in the sixties said very openly at a public address, “He who controls the weather controls the world.”

Johnson, Vice President at the time, was speaking at Southwest Texas State University about the promise of weather satellites.

President Lyndon Johnson (May 27, 962): That will permit man to determine the world’s cloud layer. And ultimately to control the weather. And he who controls the weather will control the world.

After that, the government’s Project Stormfury seeded hurricanes in the 60s and 70s with mixed results.

Documentary (BBC): Scientists working on the project were convinced that they could reduce hurricane devastation using a process called cloud seeding, by spraying the thunder clouds inside the hurricane with a chemical called silver iodide.

The U.S. also secretly weaponized weather control. The classified “Operation Popeye” dispersed silver iodide as smoke from flares on airplane wings over Vietnam during the war, to extend monsoons and turn enemy supply routes into mud. When exposed— after many denials— there was global outrage followed by a UN treaty banning hostile use of weather modification.

Today, there’s cloud seeding in nine states. But the government delineates many other techniques to make rain or snow, suppress hail, build clouds, eliminate fog, or reduce evaporation: With fire or heat. Applying powders, sprays, or dyes to water surfaces. Emitting radioactive particles or ions from towers or aircraft. Using shock waves, sonic booms, or explosives. And steering lightning with powerful lasers. And perhaps the most debated category: Solar Radiation Management: to dim the sun and cool the planet. Methods include Stratospheric Aerosol Injection – injecting sulfur or other reflective particles into the stratosphere, and Marine Cloud Brightening – dispersing seawater spray to make low clouds whiter.

Believe it or not, it’s all barely regulated. A 1972 federal weather modification law runs on an honor system—just paperwork, no verification. In most states, no permits, no audits, no limits. Most anyone can control weather for profit, altering other people’s rainfall or snow, without ever asking permission.

Leah Wilson: No one’s denying that the technology exists and that it’s even being used. But it’s who is using it and for what purposes? And can you stop a storm that you start? And then the dimming of the sun. I mean, there’s a huge effort to protect the Earth from the effects of the sun and to think that maybe we know better with how to make our planet a more sustainable place to live. And I mean, I don’t agree with that. And maybe your neighbor does or doesn’t. However, is this something that we should trust other men with? To influence the landscape that we get to raise our kids in?

Make Sunsets video: Hi, my name is Andrew Song. I’m co-founder of Make Sunsets. We launch reflective clouds into the stratosphere to cool Earth. Eventual mission of Make Sunsets is to reverse global warming.

“Make Sunsets” sparked outrage by selling “cooling credits,” releasing sulfur dioxide-filled balloons into the stratosphere in the U.S. and Mexico to dim the sun. As a result, Mexico banned geo-engineering nationwide, and the EPA promised to investigate.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin (EPA, July 10, 2025): Concerned Americans have urgent and important questions about geo-engineering and contrails.

In July, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency has begun confronting weather-modification controversies.

Zeldin (EPA): Instead of simply dismissing these questions and concerns as “baseless conspiracies,” we’re meeting them head on. In fact, EPA shares many of the same concerns when it comes to potential threats to human health and the environment, especially from solar geo-engineering activities.

As for contrails: the EPA has said it’s not aware of any used for weather control. At least 13 states have bills pending to restrict contrail use, anyway, or other tactics. Weather control bans recently passed in Tennessee, Montana, and the Sunshine State: Florida.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo: We see things in the sky and it’s like “what is that, is that geo-engineering?”

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo.

Ladapo: We are actually working right now with some scientists to do some testing in Florida of the air, of the water, of the soil, to try and get a sense of the levels of some of the compounds that have been implicated in geo-engineering, just to be able to have some starting point for thinking about the, a problem and scoping the problem.

After the 1916 flood, San Diego refused to pay Hatfield saying his rainmaking went too far. A court ultimately called it a wash, ruling the disaster was an Act of God, not Hatfield’s doing.

A century later, man is still working to perfect an inexact science, claiming credit for successes— but brushing off any disasters as nature’s fault.

Sharyl (on-camera): The EPA says the Trump administration is currently figuring out whether Congress needs to act, or whether a different federal agency should take the lead on weather modification regulations.