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By Frank Landymore Published Sep 18, 2026 4:33 PM EDT Add Futurism (opens in a new tab) More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/Shutterstock/Futurism Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email address Sign Up Thank you! Just so you know where your leaders’ priorities are at, US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the government will investigate “chemtrails” — a conspiracy theory held by people who would have you believe that the airplanes of the world are secretly seeding our skies with chemicals to change the weather, or maybe biological agents to keep the masses under control. Kennedy made this avowal while giving a keynote speech at none other than the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy nonprofit that he helped create (a newsworthy item in itself). Living up to the occasion, his speech was replete with crank ramblings and unproven health claims, but one aside stood out from all the others. “We’re also looking at chemtrails at the impact of emissions,” RFK wheezed, to a round of applause. He finishes his sentence. “Emissions from, um, aircraft, and those potential impacts on health.” RFK Jr: "We are also looking at chemtrails" pic.twitter.com/9vjjdnXXjO — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2026 It’s a fully mask-off moment for the Kennedy scion, if he had any more masks left to remove. His appearance at the CHD shows a level of brazenness in his anti-vaccine beliefs that he hasn’t been quite as overt about since taking up his role as Trump’s health secretary. Chemtrails are the cherry on top of all the madness. The term is from a long-held conspiracy theory that the trails that airplanes drag across the sky actually contain nefarious chemicals that’re used for everything from population control to, most commonly, weather modification (delusional beliefs vary). That RFK is now treating the idea of chemtrails seriously shows how far off the conspiracy deep end he’s gone — at least anti-vaxxers pretend their beliefs have basis in science — or perhaps how emboldened he feels to show his true colors. He previously vowed to look into chemtrails last year; about a month later, the Environmental Protection Agency formally debunked the conspiracy theory . The reality is planes’ visual residue are contrails, which are streaks of condensation created by jet engines from the interaction between the aircraft’s hot exhaust — which is mostly just carbon dioxide and water vapor — and the cold atmosphere. It’s the same reason that you see your breath on a cold day. There’s nothing to investigate, and even if there was, it would make no sense for a figure like RFK to do it, since the conspiracy theory is that the government is perpetrating it and covering it up. Meanwhile, in the real world, RFK’s stewardship of the US’s health agencies has overseen the nation’s worst measles outbreak in over three decades, which was almost certainly caused, at least in part, by the anti-vaccine rhetoric that he and other right wing figures have pushed. Pennsylvania, the epicenter of the outbreak, has recorded over 3,300 cases, with a scandal brewing on how the RFK-led Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is refusing to count some measles deaths reported by Pennsylvania health officials. Yet Kennedy is still concerned with all this chemtrails nonsense — his head, in an almost literal sense, in the clouds. More on the environment: Data Centers Are Causing a Huge Surge in Incredibly Toxic Chemicals Polluting the World Add Futurism as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting. Frank Landymore Contributing Writer I’m a tech and science correspondent for Futurism, where I’m particularly interested in astrophysics, the business and ethics of artificial intelligence and automation, and the environment. 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