The First Weaponized Hurricane Caused Widespread Destruction in 1947

March 16, 2017

Terence Newton, Staff Writer
Waking Times

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some speculated the storm had been intensified and steered by a clandestine government weather modification program, ultimately leading to the massive devastation which followed. For most people, a notion as this falls in the category of conspiracy theory, yet, since the 1940’s the government has been experimenting with weather modification with the aim of weaponizing the skies above.

Pioneered by scientists at General Electric (GE), and supported by the military, weather modification began 1940’s, when post WWII research efforts towards the skies. In 1947 a joint program with US Government and GE seeded the first hurricane with dry ice, causing it to sharply change course, turning back toward land and causing significant destruction and at least one confirmed death in Savannah, Georgia and the coast of South Carolina.

This story is not theory, and has been told before, namely in The Brothers Vonnegut – Science and Fiction in the House of Magic, by Ginger Strand.

Weather scientists working for GE had figured out that dispersing particles of dry ice into super-cooled clouds will cause water crystals to form, serving as nuclei for rain drops, thereby causing rain to unnaturally fall. Part of Project Cirrus, the experiment involved GE employees Bernie Vonnegut, brother of the acclaimed American author Kurt Vonnegut, along with Nobel Prize winner Irving Langmuir and his assistant Vincent Schaefer, who were corroborating with top U.S. military brass in an effort to perfect the technique of cloud seeding.

After several successful experiments producing rain, snow and fog in the northeastern United States, the team targeted a small hurricane in October of 1947 which had just passed over the southern tip of Florida heading eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. The team flew two military B-17’s and one B-29 bomber into the storm carrying meteorological equipment, photographers, and airborne dry ice dispensing equipment, reporting, “pronounced modification of the cloud deck seeded.”

According to Strand:

“The seeding plane dropped about eighty pounds of dry ice along a 110-mile-long track parallel to the squall line and another hundred pounds into the top of a large cumulus cloud boiling up from the storm…. as the planes circled to take more photographs, observers saw a new line of rain falling parallel to where they had seeded. It looked like a trench shoveled out of the hurricane’s spiral of clouds.” ~Ginger Strand

Initially uncertain of the results of this experiment, the following day the team again flew into the storm and were surprised to find major turbulence in their path, later realizing just how dramatically effective their initial test was. The seeding had worked, and the storm had made a sharp turn eastward.

Again, as noted by Strand:

“Later, they found out the reason for the rough skies. Immediately after they had seeded it, the hurricane, made a dramatic dogleg turn. Inscribing a huge 7 over the Atlantic Ocean, it turned westward and plowed back to the mainland. It was battering Savannah with eighty-to-one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds when they flew over.” ~Ginger Strand

To Langmuir and his colleagues, this meant the experiment worked, although triggering severe weather in Savannah, Georgia, and while the scientists watched from their bombers, a path of destruction was laid below.

“As the unknowing scientists clutched their armrests in the sky above, a thousand people were taking shelter in Savannah’s city hall. Windows were smashed, boats were tossed ashore, sugarcane fields were flattened, a downtown bank lost its roof, and several parked planes were destroyed. Charleston took a hit too, with waves topping its seawall, parts of the city flooded, and a lumberjack killed by a falling tree. All in all, damage from the storm’s second landfall was estimated at $23 million.”~Ginger Strand

The mission was declared a success for GE and the war department, and while initially, GE had attempted to deflect any blame for affecting the hurricane, a number of lawsuits were filed, aiming to hold GE accountable for the damage on the ground.

“Cirrus was canceled, and lawsuits were threatened. Only the fact that a system in the 1906 season had taken a similar path, as well as evidence showing that the storm had already begun to turn when seeding began, ended the litigation.” [Source]

The Age of Scientific Destruction Began

Weather modification and cloud seeding began shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while the world was wondering if scientific advancement would seed the demise of the planet. With the dual forces of human nature and scientific rationality, so began the era of science trumping life.

The truth is, now we live in an era of much more severe government secrecy, of black budgets, and of utterly insane defense spending, and in this climate, the public has no idea what the military is capable of or what it is really doing. For those who still have doubts that weaponized weather is part of the basket of horrors being employed to control and dominate our world today, a quick trip down the memory hole should serve as a wake up call.

If corporations and the government were capable of redirecting and intensifying a hurricane some 60 years ago, is it that hard to imagine this happening today?

The First Weaponized Hurricane Caused Widespread Destruction in 1947

The Age of Scientific Destruction Began

Read more articles from Terence Newton.

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