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| - A satirical video is being widely shared online with claims it shows a real case of a pilot in Germany launching a legal appeal against being fired for refusing to “spray chemicals” during flights.
The clip, which has been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, is being falsely presented as proof by some online that “chemtrails”—a conspiracy theory that the white lines of vapour left by aircraft are evidence of a plot to spread poison or control the weather—are real.
The video is in the style of a news broadcast interview with a man named as “Christoph W” talking about his dismissal from the airline Lufthansa, and his appeal in the courts in Germany.
He claims to have had his contract terminated because of his refusal to activate a “chemtrail switch” to spray chemicals during a flight between Frankfurt and Barcelona when the aircraft reached cruising altitude.
But the video, released in September, was actually created by a German satire outlet, and it’s not a real employment case.
Der Postillon, which publishes joke articles about both international and local news in written and video format, also published an online version about the same fictional employment case in October 2023.
The video and the written article claim that Lufthansa had to pay “hundreds of millions to the secret world government” because of the pilot’s actions.
The same man playing the pilot in the clip also appears in a number of other Der Postillon videos playing different roles, including a journalist for the channel and a man unable to understand irony.
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What are ‘chemtrails’?
The white lines of water vapour sometimes seen trailing aircraft are actually contrails, though often online we see them branded as “chemtrails”.
Water vapour produced by aeroplane engines freezes at high altitude, forming long thin lines of cloud which are sometimes visible for some time in the plane’s wake. Jet engines do emit carbon dioxide, some hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, soot particles and carbon monoxide.
The amount of time these contrails remain visible depends on the humidity of the air, staying longer in humid conditions and disappearing quickly if the air is very dry.
We have previously fact checked claims on social media about so-called chemtrails many times before, including false or joke claims that pilots have ‘admitted’ to spraying them.
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