00:05
In the shadows of the storm, whispers speak of hurricanes not born from nature, but conjured by the hands of those in power. As the skies darken unnaturally, one cannot help but wonder if the Tempest's fury is a weapon wielded by the government, controlling the chaos with a sinister precision. The roar of the wind might just be the echo of a secret unleashed.

00:34
where each Tempest could be the silent scream of weather manipulation gone awry. Things are about to get strange.

00:49
Storm Fury! You can read that one. Storm Fury!

01:10
Welcome to Conspiracy Weird, where we talk about conspiracy theories and all things weird. I am your host Molly, and with me today on our anniversary is my husband Joshua. Yo. Sup. Happy anniversary. Happy 13th anniversary, babe. It's longer than 13 years, but... 13th wedding anniversary! Yes, we've been together longer, but...

01:35
16 years together, 13 years married. What number do you want me to keep in my head? 16. Okay, so 16th anniversary of being together. 1613. Anyways. Snack time! We are here to start off the episode with snack time. What are you snacking on, Josh? Goobers! Because you are a goober. I'm a gooper goober. Goober for goobers. Right.

02:04
Yay, I am drinking an energy drink. What are you snacking on? And I have SpaghettiOs straight from the can and ice cream because I am a child. Yep. Yep. Yep. Sorry, I got a little bit in my mouth. So today we want to remind you to join our Patreon because we're going to start putting on many episodes on there called Weird After Dark. Yep.

02:34
Gonna have book clubs. Book clubs. Because Molly likes to read. A lot. And possibly tarot readings. If you want them. Come join. We'll have different tiers of course. First basic tier is gonna have our most basic stuff, including just, if you wanna support the show, we appreciate it, probably just a five dollar tier of, you know, to help us continue this podcast. And more frequently as well.

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and more frequently as well. And then we'll have all the other things. Snippets of other things, other extras from episodes, things that go more in depth when we get to some of these bigger episodes that are going to be just heavier content. And... Put some more stuff on there that's not social media appropriate. Prime scene photos, things of that nature. Yeah. So come join us. On Patreon.

03:33
Yeah so What are we talking about today Molly? How the government controls hurricanes, especially the last couple hurricanes, especially the one that hit Asheville, North Carolina Everybody that's hearing this if you were in that area that you were safe We love you at this point. I hope you're safe. If you weren't safe, you're probably not listening to this episode and we love you We love you. We love the area. It's beautiful. We've been there a few times and we hope it bounces back. We love you guys

04:05
Josh, go on ahead. All right, well. Will I eat my SpaghettiOs? So, while we're gonna be talking about hurricanes, it falls under the natural disaster category. And for those that are maybe super young and happen to stumble upon this podcast and don't know what a natural disaster is, it is a harmful event caused by natural phenomena.

04:33
that can result in the loss of life or destruction of property. It can have a very harmful impact on the community and examples are floods, heat waves, volcanic activity, wildfires, LA going on right now, tornadoes, hurricanes. Some of the worst in history were in 1931, there was a flood in China.

05:02
that had the highest estimated death tolls of 4 million people. In 1887, Yellow River flood, and it had an estimated death toll of 2 million. 1976, Tangshan earthquake, and it was about 655,000 people died. 1970s,

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years are all over the place. Bola cyclone that killed about 500,000 people in just recently in 2010. Well, recently, I was 15 years ago. Oh my god, that was 15 years ago. We were already a year into our dating 15 years ago. Oh my gosh. The earthquake in Haiti on January 12th in 2010 that had an estimated death toll of about 316,000 people.

06:00
Today we are going to talk about hurricanes in specific. So what is a hurricane? It is a tropical system with winds that have reached a constant speed of 74 miles per hour or more. The eye of the storm is usually 20 to 30 miles wide. A hurricane may be over 400 miles wide. You know, 400 miles is basically the length of Florida. Yeah. Like, just take the East Coast aside from the Keys, just top to bottom.

06:30
rough, it's a little longer, but it's about 400 miles. So imagine the size of Florida of a storm barreling through wherever you live. Which has happened to Florida. Which has happened to Florida countless times in our own lifetime, countless times. But we laugh because we made it through, but unfortunately. I'm traumatized anyways. Unfortunately, a lot of people haven't, but. Traumatized.

06:58
The dangers of a storm can include high winds, torrential rains, tornadoes, and storm surges. There are five different categories of hurricanes. And this is a scale. Category 1, 75 to 95 miles per hour, some damage, minor damage to homes, and short term power loss. It's like a small rainstorm for Floridians. Basically, we get those like weekly. Basically. Not weekly. Weekly. It feels like a rainstorm. Yeah.

07:27
Category two is about 96 to 110 miles per hour. There is extensive damage, major roof damage to buildings and near total power loss. Category three is 111 to 129 miles per hour. This is devastating damage. Electricity and water is unavailable for up to several weeks. This has happened to me when I was a teenager. We didn't have power or water for like almost two months.

07:56
When we were younger, the storms that came through, which we'll talk a little bit about later, but Katrina and such, we were- Oh, 405 hurricanes. Yeah, they were ranging between like three to five in strength. Kept going back and forth and back and- yeah, I was traumatized. I think they hit a five at some point. I think so. Yeah, traumatizing to me. Category four is about 130 to 156 miles per hour.

08:22
It's catastrophic damage, severe damage to homes with long lasting power outages and road blockages. Category 5 is 157 or more mile per hour. That is catastrophic damage as well. High percentage of homes destroyed. Area uninhabitable for weeks or months. And I heard that they actually need to be adding a category 6. Hurricane. In the upcoming years. From what I've heard.

08:50
I mean, that's kind of, I don't even know if that's necessary because by time a five is is coming, you better have been buckled down and ready for it. Or out. Or gone. Because if you're not ready to tackle that type of hurricane wherever you are in, hopefully a shelter, then you really should just not be around. But after a category six, it's not, you know, after category five, I mean.

09:20
It's ridiculous. I don't know why they put more categories. So you're it's already so destructive that you should not be around, you know, hashtag global warming. Recently, there have been two major hurricanes. The first one was Hurricane Helene, which was a category four at landfall. It hit on September 30th 2024. This is considered the deadliest mainland hurricane since the

09:50
Uh, has been about, it was 228 people. I think it's actually more now because they're still finding bodies. Oh my gosh. And it's how many months later? Yeah. Since September. I mean, where is this? Currently January, 2025. Happy new year, everybody. But, uh, it's definitely up since from when I wrote this back when a hurricane happened, that's the number at the time. And I wrote this a couple months ago. So.

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there are still hundreds of people missing as well. There were landslides and massive flooding as well. The historical Biltmore estate is still assessing damage after major floods that went through the area. The Biltmore estate put out a statement saying, the entrance to Biltmore, located in Biltmore Village and other low-lying areas of the property, such as the farm, experienced significant flooding and damage to the buildings.

10:48
few animals did pass away, unfortunately. The next hurricane that hit was only about a week after, on October 9th, 2024. The hurricane did not, or it did go up to her category five, and it hit the west coast.

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near Siesta Key. The death toll is at 23, I guess, at the time of the writing. There were several deaths that took place in St. Lucie County. Where from? And mainly though from tornadoes. 1.9 million customers were still without power two days after the hurricane.

11:35
Power lines right after all the practice that we get With hurricanes the power lines teams seem to go down But all the time when things are flying through the air at a hundred and fifty seven miles per hour It's kind of hard to you know keep them up our power lines got attacked by frogs and went out two times in one night Attacked by frogs they just sat on it and electrocuted themselves dumb frogs

12:04
Not even frogs, plural, frog singular. It was one frog. He climbed back up there and fried himself again. For a second time. Yeah. I mean, you know, ridiculous. OK, so let's actually get into why we are doing this episode. OK. According to certain government parties, Democrats control the weather and the government created the hurricanes. It's so ridiculous. According to some Republicans.

12:33
I can't even. Okay, just FYI out there, if you're from another country, our government in the US, both sides are just dumb. I'm not funny. Unfortunately, we have a lot of dumb people in government and have been there for a very long time and need to go bye-bye. I'm not putting any death threats out there, but you know, hey, we need to get them out and we need to put some better people in. There are numerous posts on social media that push that idea.

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and some even going as far as claiming Democrats targeted red states with the hurricane. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, my least favorite person, one of them, even tweeted, Climate change is the new COVID. Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. Did you ever give permission to them to do it? Are you paying for it? Of course you are.

13:33
Heck that means, but okay. Rolling Stone reported that this one-fringe belief has become so harmful that some meteorologists are getting death threats. Speaking before Milton's landfall, President Biden addressed the reckless and irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies about what's going on. He also stated that it undermines the rescue efforts after Hurricane Helene.

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He went on to say, now the claims are getting more bizarre. It's beyond ridiculous. It's stupid. It just has to stop. We have Project CIRUS from 1947. It initiated in 1947. Project what? CIRUS. CIRUS was a US government research project carried out by General Electr- oh, I can't even talk.

14:31
General Electric GE under contract with the US military. It aimed to explore the potential of cloud seeding to influence weather patterns, particularly hurricanes. A significant event associated with Project Cirrus was an attempt to seed a hurricane on October 13, 1947. The hurricane they targeted was moving out to sea and after seeding,

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an unexpectedly changed course and made landfall in Savannah, Georgia, leading to some controversy regarding the effectiveness and control of such experiments. The results of Project Sirius were inconclusive, with debates over whether the hurricane's change in path was due to the seeding or just natural variability. This event highlighted the complexity and unpredictability of weather modification.

15:29
The project officially ended in 1952, but sparked discussions about ethical, scientific, and environmental implications of weather control. Richard Spinrad, an American oceanographer and government official that had served in several high-profile roles within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA,

15:58
that weather modification is being supported by private enterprises, indicating activities outside of NOAA's official hurricane research efforts. This highlights that such endeavors are happening independently of government funding for hurricanes. There was also project Storm Fury. You can read that one. Storm Fury. Storm Fury. Following the earlier...

16:25
Somebody's compensating for something. This is my project. I'm gonna call it Storm Fury. Maybe they're short like me and they're aggressive. Following the earlier project. Serious? Project Storm Fury was launched in 1962 by the US government involving the US Navy in the National Weather Service, which later became part of NOAA.

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The primary goal was to study and attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by cloud seeding. The storm... Storm fury! Sorry! Gotta think it goes. That should be the password to our wifi. Storm fury! Now we can't because then Paul can't answer. No, it's not, but that would be hilarious.

17:18
But if you want to do it in your Wi-Fi, it's because Fury Weird headquarters. The Storm Fury Project aimed to weaken hurricanes by seeding their clouds with silver iodine Iodide. Oh, iodide. Oh, I thought it was iodine. I'm like, I'm allergic! Rude! Causing super cold water to freeze. This freezing would release heat, promoting new rain bands that would weaken

17:47
the hurricane's core. Science stuff. Science. The most notable seeding experiments were conducted on Hurricanes Balua in 1963, Debbie in 1969, and Ginger in 1971. The experiment on Hurricane Debbie showed some signs of success. After seeding, the hurricane's maximum winds appeared to de-

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decrease and it's I can't even talk it's I diameter

18:27
increased which was interpreted as a weakening effect. However, these results were not consistent across all experiments and there were significant issues with controlling groups and data interpretation. Stop flank footsie with me, I hate feet. Sorry. He's trying to flirt with me over here. Over time skepticism grew about whether the changes observed

18:55
after the seeding were due to the intervention or natural hurricane behavior, just as we mentioned with the last project. The difficulty in establishing a control group in such experiments made it hard to prove causation. Project Storm Fury was officially terminated in 1983. The reasons included new research suggesting that the type of clouds most conductive to seeding, those with supercooled water,

19:23
were not commonly found in mature hurricanes. Advances in understanding hurricane dynamics, which made the original hypothesis seem less viable, and the ethical and environmental issues associated with manipulating the weather systems, like the government transparency on these projects, accountability for any issues associated with the projects, disruption to wildlife ecosystems, manipulation for military or political gain.

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chemical pollution, and so on.

19:57
Fun facts! Not so fun facts. Hurricane Katrina remains the worst hurricane in the United States. The estimated damages exceeded 200 billion, with a B, dollars. The hurricane claimed the lives of at least 1,392 people. Sheesh. Yeah, there's a few documentaries out there. I can throw them up on our social media for you guys to watch if you wanna watch documentaries on.

20:27
Heartbreaking. Oh, yeah heartbreaking. Yeah That's a gonna be a tearjerker The FEMA workers had to stop working in North Carolina because there were groups out there wanting to attack them Yep, there would be these groups of people riding around in trucks Hunting down FEMA workers trying to attack them. Well There was also FEMA workers stopping

20:56
Because they weren't getting paid. Well, they weren't getting paid. There's all sorts of things going on. Female workers weren't getting paid for like six, eight weeks at a time. So they're like, I'm not gonna continue working if I'm not gonna get paid, which is understandable. Yeah. I mean, it sucks, but it's understandable. So question for you. Question time! Question is. Do you think that the government creates hurricanes? No. No!

21:24
You have to be freaking stupid to believe that shit. Sorry. Do I believe people might be scientists, maybe trying to figure out ways to help reduce the hurricanes? Like full-time hashtag geostorm movie. But do I feel like the government is causing them and somebody's there with a joystick playing Hurricane Katrina around Florida? No. No, it's not the case.

21:54
so call it the skeptic in me. Yes, yes. Well, I would like for that to happen so that we don't die during hurricanes. I don't think it's happening. Not anytime soon. So you've lived in Florida for a while. Half your life. Something like that. Cause you did live in Asheville for a while, for like six months. Six months. And you lived in New York for like 15 years or something like that. Yes I did.

22:24
I've lived in Florida my whole life, so I have more experience, but what was the... Well, excuse me, maybe I should ask the question and you should answer it. What is the worst storm you have been in? Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, babe. No, not Katrina. What was the one? Oh, 405? Oh, 405. Yeah. I forgot the name. It was Katrina. That was not Katrina. I'm pretty sure it was Katrina. No, it wasn't. Oh, boy.

22:52
Sure, go ahead and Google it. But anyway, in 0405, when our area got hit by like three storms, they were the three, they were like four and five and I think five and four, it like changed. But yeah, well, they all changed. They start low and go high and then they kind of teeter totter sometimes. Sometimes they gain more strength. But you got an answer, Molly? Matthew. No, that was not the name. Yes, it was. No, it was.

23:21
Charlie, Francis, Francis, Charlie, Ivan, and Jean. Those were the four. Francis, Francis, Charlie, Ivan, and Jean. So, Ivan?

23:33
I don't know. I was here and it was massive. The storm. Yeah, we lost power for like a good like six weeks. I've seen trees that look like they had to be at least 100 years old. Uprooted tipped over with all the roots just pulled, you know, everything pulled out of the ground. Like it damaged a lot. People's roots were gone. Just

24:01
gone or collapsed into the into their houses like our next door neighbors were. Um I mean I remember having to give we brought over some soup and stuff because it was an elderly couple. We brought over some extra leftovers well not leftovers but just extra portions over to them. Um it was it was bad. It was it was really bad. I don't remember which hurricane it was but it was just me and my mom and my for some reason my brother my grandma.

24:29
weren't there for some reason, I don't remember. But I remember my mom's house, we lived in Florida. My mom's house is one of the few houses with a basement in Florida. Sand, that's everywhere. And hard to make a basement with sand. And we were in the basement. It went up on me, her, some of the dogs, not all the dogs, because some of the dogs got scared. My mom went upstairs for something, I don't remember.

24:55
I wanted to go get one of my dogs that was my favorite so I ran upstairs to go get her. Bella. No, not even Bella. It was Honey. Oh, Honey at the time. Yeah, it was Honey. She was afraid of storms so she was hiding in my room I think. So I went to go try to get her to coax her to come downstairs. My mom's like, Mommy get your ass downstairs later on! And so I ran downstairs without my dog and I was like, I'm just trying to get Honey! And she's like, get back in the basement! There's a tornado in the backyard! And there's tornado in the backyard.

25:25
um and the basement was flooding while we were in there. Oh lovely. And um we heard a crash and my mom has a fireplace at our house. Well apparently the chimney um fell to the side, slid down the roof, and crashed outside of my window door, my window. Like I was on the second floor and it was like on the first floor but right outside my window. So my my room was basically

25:55
Um, I was in middle school at the time, and my school, um, hated that school. It was a Catholic private school, um, because there, yeah, it was a lot. But, um, hashtag trauma. But they did a, they had a counseling group of the kids that had like the worst destroyed houses and I was one of them. I think my house was like the most destroyed. Yay.

26:23
Not really, but yay. But yeah, we didn't have- So hurricanes suck. They suck and they're scary and they're traumatizing and you can ask Josh every time, even like a category one hurricane comes, I'm freaking out. I make sure we have toilet paper, but I don't panic buy. I am full like panic mode, hyperventilating in the corner crying and Josh is like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like most of the housing.

26:50
especially since these hurricanes that happened in 0405 have been updated and reinforced and better equipment's been used for the roof and the windows. And so if it didn't collapse then, it's most likely not collapsing now. Most likely. I mean, of course, everything's been... Our building codes have gotten a lot better in Florida since then. I should know. I worked in the building department. Better drainage, better systems in place. So when big torrential rains and storms come...

27:19
we're a little better able to handle it. Unlike places like Asheville, North Carolina that are not meant for heavy rain. I mean, if anybody saw the videos, you'd see all like what looks like landslides because literally you'd be driving on these roads and there's nothing but dirt holding the next level of the mountain up. And it's like clay dirt. So as soon as that clay gets wet, it collapses and it becomes mud. And I mean, the videos, you saw them. They were just...

27:49
The house is sliding down the river! And I'll find some videos and post them on social media and Patreon and stuff. It was nuts! Didn't your sister have a mudslide in her neighborhood and they couldn't leave? Everybody did. Everybody had mudslides. Everybody had slides everywhere. There was water everywhere. Like the whole place was just an ocean basically. Traumatizing. Jesus. I hope y'all did okay and were safe during that time because that was nuts to watch from afar.

28:18
Yeah, those hurricanes, like we literally moved into our house in September and the hurricane, one of the hurricanes hit in October and I remember like, like, oh my god, we just bought a house! Oh my god! Why did we buy a house during hurricane season? But our house is like an old, isn't it? Wasn't our house built in like the 30s or something like that? 1936. So it's still here!

28:44
Through all those hurricanes, it's still here. It probably never got directly hit, but it's still here. It's still here. We got big drain ditches all around us. Yeah, all around us, so we're good. We're not far from the hospital, we're not far from shelter areas. We got an okay spot. I remember one hurricane during the 0405. We stayed for some of them and we left for some of them. My mom, she's a smart cookie.

29:13
Okay, she's smart. During one of the, I think one of the category five ones, she's like, you know what? 95 and the turnpike are gonna be like bumper to bumper. We're taking A1A. Right on the water, seeing the waves go crazy as hell. Almost to the road. Almost on the road, but mom, rode it all the way up, no traffic.

29:36
No traffic. My mom was like, we're taking A1A. No traffic. For those of you that don't understand, A1A is like 20 feet off the ocean. It's literally like ocean level. It practically is. The dock is like, it goes right off the road and then it's right there basically. I mean, there are some areas that are a little higher, some a little lower, but like come

30:04
You know, waterfront property. Yeah. You just open the door and swim out. Like, it's that close. We took that up as far as it would go. And I don't remember it be there being any traffic. Where'd you end up? I don't even remember. Like one of the hurricanes, we drove up to Pennsylvania. I have family in Pennsylvania. So we stopped in West Virginia to go see Aunt Anne. My aunt, my great aunt, when she was still alive.

30:34
and then we stopped there for a day or two and then we drove up to Pennsylvania for like a week and then we drove back. It was me and my mom, my brother, my grandma, two cats and I think three dogs and a minivan. Oh my God. And my brother and my grandma were both throwing hissy fits Of course they were. when we were about to leave. And so my mom drove up to a shelter, opened the door and said, get the hell out of my car if you're gonna keep talking like that.

31:04
I'm not listening to this all the way up. Get out or shut your mouth. And they shut their mouth and you're left. Love you, mom. She's from New York, so she can be a tough cookie. I love my mom. Shout out, mom. Shout out, Katie. You're the best. I love you. So if you have any stories about storms, please feel free to hit us up on Twitter or.

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X. Hit us up on Facebook, hit us up on email, anything. If you just want an anonymous thing, send an email and let us know. We would love, love, love to hear from you. Yes, and maybe we'll share, like, if we get Storm Stories. If we get enough of them, maybe we'll put something together and share them. On Patreon. Yeah. Maybe we'll share it on Patreon and do, like, hashtag Storm Stories and tag us in the post. Okay? That's it.

32:04
As the controversy swirls, the truth about weather manipulation remains as unclear as the hurricane's path, leaving us to question nature's role versus human intervention. Stay safe, stay weird y'all. We want to thank you for tuning in. You can find us on all your favorite social platforms by searching ConspiriWeird, posting photos and details from each episode.

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Please consider keeping our tummies full by donating to the Snack Fund. Donations will be given a shout out on the podcast. Special thanks to Audionautics.com for the theme music. And remember, question everything.