Conspiracy theorists accuse US government of 'weather manipulation' and believe Texas flood was no accident

Some social media users claim that the weather is controlled by the US government. Conspiracy theorists use tragedies like the Texas floods to create new conspiracy theories, writes The Guardian.

Photo: Alexander Marko | Dreamstime.com

Disasters and tragedies have long been the source of American conspiracy theories, old and new. Recently, devastating flash floods hit Texas. As the death toll continues to rise, far-right conspiracy theorists online are seizing the opportunity to make new claims that blur the lines between fact and fiction.

Some people associated with the same sources as the long-running QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that a shadowy “deep state” is working against Donald Trump, have been spreading claims on X that the destructive weather is controlled by the government.

On the subject: Flood Alley: The History of a Texas Region Frequently Prone to Catastrophic Flooding

“I NEED SOMEONE TO FIND OUT WHO’S BEHIND THIS,” wrote Pete Chambers, a former Special Forces commander and frequent participant in far-right events who once led an armed convoy to the Texas border. He has published documents he says show the government’s weather manipulation. “WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THERE CLOUD SEEDING?”

(Cloud seeding is a method of artificially influencing clouds to produce rain or snow, change their intensity, or prevent adverse weather phenomena such as hail or fog. – ПRome.)

The same thread of X posts mentioned a California-based "rainfall enhancement" company as a possible culprit for the flooding.

Soon after, a key member of the QAnon movement reposted Chambers' post, which garnered millions of views on the Elon Musk-owned app.

“Can anyone respond to this?” wrote retired Gen. Mike Flynn, a former national security adviser in the Trump administration who helped legitimize the QAnon movement.

One YouTuber with hundreds of thousands of subscribers posted an emotional video titled “THE TRUTH ABOUT WEATHER MANIPULATION,” which has garnered nearly 200 views.

Such claims have also been heard in Congress: Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vaccine skeptic and Republican hardliner who has also spread conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein, took the opportunity to announce that she would introduce her own legislation in the wake of the floods.

"I will introduce legislation to make it illegal to inject, release, or distribute chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the purpose of altering the weather, temperature, climate, or intensity of sunlight," she wrote in X. "It will be a criminal offense."

A false story circulated online that rescuers had found two girls alive near Comfort, Texas, debunked by CNN journalist Brian Stelter. Laura Loomer, another far-right propagandist and one of the leading lights of the MAGA movement, retweeted the rumor, as relayed by a volunteer rescuer. The story was later proven false.

Of course, there’s been a lot of debate online about who’s to blame for the deadly floods, with many turning not only to outlandish theories about weather manipulation but also blaming the Trump administration for recent budget cuts that favored, for example, massive funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a viral Instagram post, Austin's firefighters union blamed its chief for delaying the flood response in hard-hit Kerr County, claiming he was more concerned with saving money than saving potential flood victims.

"Why, you ask, did Fire Chief Joel G. Baker do this?" the author of the publication asked. "It was an attempt to save money."

The National Weather Service has been criticized for underestimating the amount of rainfall in central Texas. The service issued overnight flood warnings, but officials will review the speed with which they were issued and how well they worked with local emergency services.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was overseas during the disaster that killed his constituents. Last week, he helped push through what he called a big, beautiful bill that, along with other big cuts, would severely slash federal funding for weather forecasting nationwide.

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Telegram posts from neo-Nazi and far-right circles, which typically seek racist explanations for any news story — and generally support the Trump administration — harshly criticized the response to the flooding and blamed government stupidity for it.

"There is growing anger in Texas from both Democrats and Republicans against the state government for its failure to organize statewide emergency management and its incompetence in planning and building disaster protection facilities," one post read.

Another post claimed that the Trump administration had failed to protect "the lives of white girls" and "white Americans" in general.

Meme creators on the left of the political spectrum took the opportunity to mock those on the right. One popular meme that spread online depicted Principal Skinner from The Simpsons wondering if Trump's cuts were causing the deaths in Texas.

"No, it must have been the Democrats using the weather control device," the caption reads.

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