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In the first few days of 1916, Charles Hatfield and his brother Joel finished construction of a twenty-eight foot tower beside Morena Dam reservoir, about 60 miles east of San Diego. Atop the tower were galvanized steel evaporating tanks, ready to be filled with a secret chemical cocktail of Charles’ design. He had been hired by the San Diego city council to fill the near-empty Morena Dam reservoir, and was offered $10,000 to put it at capacity. Charles Hatfield was known as a Rainmaker, though he referred to himself with the much more scientific-sounding title of “Moisture Accelerator.”
Mr. Hatfield was infamous in America for his rain-making efforts, with enough high-profile “successes” to offset the failures (though whether he was causing the rain or just skillfully predicting it was a subject of lively debate). By the time the San Diego city council hired him, he had already been experimenting with rainmaking chemicals for about thirteen years. Just after the new year, the Hatfield brothers filled the evaporating tanks beside Morena Dam reservoir. Smoke and fumes wafted skyward, and within a few short days, the rains poured. And poured, and poured.
Throughout January, the sky gushed water almost daily. Rivers flooded, bridges washed away, and dams burst… an estimated 20 people were killed in the destruction. “I entered into a contract with the city,” Hatfield responded to the press after the rains subsided, “and it was up to the city to take the necessary precautions.” The city council refused to pay him, implying that if he collected his $10,000 fee, he would be admitting responsibility for the destruction and deaths, and would be liable for lawsuits. Despite his best efforts, he never squeezed a single dime out of the city council. He continued his rainmaking career elsewhere with mixed success, but ultimately had to give it up when the Great Depression struck in 1929, and he went back to his old job as a sewing machine salesman. The secret of his rainmaking formula died with him in 1958.
Earth’s weather is an incredibly complex machine which is influenced by countless factors, large and small. It is feasible that mankind could exert forces to deliberately alter the weather, but such localized influence would have unpredictable results. Despite this, Charles Hatfield was not the only person to claim success with rainmaking machines.
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who was trained by Sigmund Freud himself. Because some of his writings were disagreeable to the Nazi party, he fled Austria for Norway, and boarded the last boat to leave for the US before the war in Europe broke out. He held a strong conviction that the universe was filled with a primordial cosmic energy called Orgone, which was responsible for effects as diverse as the weather, gravity, and human emotion. He even enlisted the help of Albert Einstein to try to prove his Orgone theory, and Einstein’s findings reinforced Wilhelm’s belief in the primordial energy.
In 1940, he constructed devices intended to concentrate and focus orgone energy— called orgone accumulators— and claimed that they could be used to cure cancer and other illnesses. He also created some orgone-focusing “Cloudbusters” which resembled anti-aircraft guns. He claimed that these were able to manipulate streams of orgone energy in the atmosphere, affecting the weather by forcing rainclouds to form and disperse at his will.
In 1956, Reich was imprisoned for continuing to market the orgone accumulators as a cancer cure, despite an injunction placed by the Food and Drug Administration. Just one day before he was to due to apply for parole, he died of a heart attack in prison. No scientific journals printed an obituary, but TIME magazine printed the following:
Died. Wilhelm Reich, 60, once-famed psychoanalyst, associate, and follower of Sigmund Freud, founder of the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, lately better known for unorthodox sex and energy theories; of a heart attack in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, Pa; where he was serving a two-year term for distributing his invention, the “orgone energy accumulator” (in violation of the Food and Drug Act), a telephone-booth-size device which supposedly gathered energy from the atmosphere, and could cure, while the patient sat inside, common colds, cancer and impotence.
Despite science’s rejection of his ideas later in life, Reich’s influence is still strongly felt in psychotherapy today.
Researchers still explore methods to wring moisture out of the sky, but their methods are more orthodox than Dr. Reich’s. Introducing some silver iodide or dry ice into clouds is known to reduce cloud density, and is thought to increase precipitation. But much like the observers of Charles Hatfield and Wilhelm Reich, it is impossible for observers today to know how much rain would have fallen without intervention, so the effectiveness of such methods remains in question.
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The response from the San Diego city council in regards to Mr. Hatfield was typical bureaucratic behavior.
Mr. Wilhelm Reich’s discoveries would have had a dramatic influence on the future of mankind and the medical industries financial future. Perhaps the powers to be were not interested. I would be interested to know who criticized him and who belittled his studies and discoveries with accuations of promoting unorthodox sex and false energy theries.
Ron said: “Mr. Wilhelm Reich’s discoveries would have had a dramatic influence on the future of mankind and the medical industries financial future. Perhaps the powers to be were not interested. I would be interested to know who criticized him and who belittled his studies and discoveries with accuations of promoting unorthodox sex and false energy theries.”
One of his biggest critics was Mildred Brady, a freelance writer who composed articles for the New Republic and Harpers magazines. See this section of the Wikipedia article for details.
Does anyone know why we’re getting all these re-runs? We’re not running out of material are we?
Certainly there’s more Damn Interesting material in this crazy world…
Something about a site move or something…
Non the less its a shame such life long dreams are taken to their graves, infact I would consider it a waste and rather selfish esp if they can help people. or perhaps these geniuses were just lazy, or perhaps they really didn’t know wtf they were doing anyway? :)
Either way its too late now…
Then write down and share your great ideas!
That was just a real funky little bit – makes me want to dig deeper, so it must be DI.
Thanks Alan!
HearWa said: “Does anyone know why we’re getting all these re-runs? We’re not running out of material are we?”
Click the “We apologize for the re-run” link near the top of the page for the explanation.
Its obvious to me that Wilhelm Reichs “orgone energy accumulator” worked, look at his hair. Normal hair doesnt do that unless its affected by the ozone! Brilliant I say! Brilliant!
“Orgone energy,” that’s rich. I hope the Judge buys it.
Hatfield picked a convenient time to set up his machine – January and February are the typical monsoon months in San Diego. Practically the entire year’s rain falls in six or eight weeks. Of course, the city council was sort of stupid to pay for the “service”, I’d say.
I suggested this as an article to DI, but they probably thought i was some nutty conspiracy theorist like all the others… Anyways this is about chemtrails, those funky white thick trails you see in the sky. Even if you dig deep, you really can’t find any official admitting what they are, or much less THAT they are. Here’s the link. Give me your thoughts. http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Chemtrails.html
Um… yeah. They’re called contrails, dude. Planes make them.
lol,.
PS. I intend to write down my inventions, along with my giant robotic ant ideas too.. MUahahha..
Around the start of WWI, we have some german making what strangely look like anti-aircraft guns?
Also, just what evidence did Einstein give as to proving the existence of “Orgone”?
Einstein probably didn’t have anything specifically to do with “orgone”. He probably had a few theories as to natural phenomenon and observances that were taken to mean that orgone existed, without following them all the way through.
Even though I don’t buy it the orgone stuff sounds exactly like the conspiracy theories about the military HAARP program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program
Damn, we need some of those rainmakers around here in the Caribbean… :-(
Mike the headless chicken
Alien hand syndrome (on hand gets a “mind” of its own)
Two damn interesting stories