Being immediately put on the fence by the spotlight might seem very encouraging, but the real test is how the effect plays out over time. Dunne returned two months later. True to his word, Rob was still unswayed, but Tammi still seemed somewhat open to the possibility, at least intellectually.

The partial failure there was due to two factors. Firstly, the spotlight was not held there long enough for the explanation to really sink in. But more significantly here is the fact that it is difficult for a couple to change their beliefs. Partners want to be supportive of each other, so there’s a natural reluctance to let your own beliefs change in a way that would contradict the beliefs of your significant other. The spotlight can be shaded by someone with their back to it, protecting their partner.

There are several other core claims in the Chemtrail theory. They might not always be the ones you expect. The ballast barrel claim (where ballast barrels on test planes are misidentified as “Chemtrail” barrels) seemed like a simple little thing to me, trivially easy to explain. I wrote and updated a long post on Metabunk with many examples of mislabeled aircraft barrel images. I did not really expect it to have much effect—it was just a fun and easy thing to research.

Hence, I was quite surprised when Willie told me that not only had the ballast barrel claim been key to his going down the Chemtrail rabbit hole, it was also key to him getting out again (“it changed my life”). Perhaps it was the sheer simplicity of the claim that did it. If he had been tricked for years by something that was easy to debunk, then there surely must have been other things he’d been tricked about, and other things that he’d been lied to about. As soon as he started looking for these things with a truly open mind they started to become apparent.

The spotlight need not shine incredibly bright, it just needs to shine in the right place for that person. You might not get many opportunities, so if you are going to take the time to shine a light for someone, then spend a bit of time in figuring out what will work best for their particular beliefs.

Floodlight Debunking

Some people can begin their journey in and out of the rabbit hole by pivoting on one key piece of information, like the long contrails, or barrels on planes. Others though are more convinced by the sheer weight of the evidence. The seemingly vast amount of supporting evidence for a conspiracy theory (often referred to as “proofs”), and the corresponding lack of opposing evidence, is what keeps them in. The people who have this broad base of belief have what Sunstein and Vermeule called a “crippled epistemology,” a narrow and restricted set of sources of information.

For many conspiracy theorists being shown that one particular “proof” is wrong is irrelevant. For a start they often don’t really believe your explanation, but even if they did, it’s irrelevant to their belief because each and every “proof” is to them a near absolute actual proof by itself—meaning they only need one thing, one proof, to continue to believe.

Floodlight debunking means we shine a light on everything. If they’ve got a list of 200 proofs of a Flat Earth, then it might actually work best to respond to all 200 items—or at least find someone else who has. If it’s 9/11 then you might not actually get anywhere until you’ve refuted a substantial chunk of the Loose Change documentary, or you’ve addressed all ten of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth’s (AE911Truth’s) “10 Key Points” about the towers, and the “25 Points of Specific Concern in the NIST WTC Reports.”

Floodlight debunking also means bringing perspective. Conspiracy theorists often have a warped view of the way the world works and how power and government actually work. So try to examine the everyday forms of political corruption that actually go on, such as campaign finance and lobbying. With 9/11, look at actual conspiracies, actual real-world “false flag” events, and suggested events like Operation Northwoods. Compare those to what your friend suggests happened to the Twin Towers. With Chemtrails look at the actual state of climate engineering research and ask them to view their theory in that context. Would we be geoengineering if we don’t even know what it does? With Flat Earth you can get some actual perspective by going to the beach and looking at distant islands obscured by the curve of the Earth.

The most valuable perspective is simply to understand how society functions. How is wealth created? How are laws created? How do elections work? Who’s actually on the Forbes list of billionaires? How is science funded? How many scientists and science students are there? Why are there wars? How did the Russian oligarchy arise? What do other countries think about the US? What do people talk about at Davos?

You may well be hampered here because your friend will initially feel they understand the true workings of the world far better than you do. This might actually be true in some areas, but less so in others. Try to approach it as a mutual journey of discovery. You will probably learn something from them. Embrace this, and they will be more open to learning from you. Both of your perspectives will be expanded, and the exit from the rabbit hole will get a little closer.

Be Polite and Respectful

If your goals are to effectively communicate, then you need to be polite and you need to respect your friend.

People will push back when they feel they are being attacked. Regardless of the intentions of the person they are talking to, or the article they are reading, or the video they are watching, if they feel it denigrates them in any way then they are far less likely to actually consider the validity what is being said.

Phil was a visitor to my Chemtrail debunking website ContrailScience.com who did not agree with this approach. Phil was very intelligent, he knew a lot about the science behind contrails, and he was aware of most of the problems with the Chemtrail theory. He was able to provide concise explanations that refuted the bunk posted by others and gave helpful overviews of the actual science.

Yet Phil would almost invariably conclude his posts with something along the lines of “get an education,” “take some classes,” or “that’s just ignorant.” He would sometimes use more direct insults like “uneducated chemtards,” “uneducated simpleton,” and even “mentally ill,” and urged people to “get professional help” for their “paranoia.”

This had two effects. Firstly, it meant either that any Chemtrail believer who engaged Phil in conversation would leave the forum or that the conversation would almost immediately degenerate into a flaming insult session where the original topic was essentially forgotten. It was highly counterproductive.

Secondly, it tainted the site, and it tainted the other debunkers by association. Since Phil was quite an active poster, it was very easy for a visitor to get the impression that his opinion was the opinion of the site. The opinion came across as Phil being an intellectual snob, arrogant and disdainful of contrary opinions. It also came across as Phil being totally unwilling to listen to the opinions of the believer. Since the believer was strongly emotionally and intellectually invested in their beliefs, this dismissal came across as a slap in the face. A direct insult. When more polite debunkers tried to explain things, the damage had already been done. The shields were up, and the mind was closed.

I tried to explain this to Phil several times, but he in turn took my criticism as a direct insult. So I banned him. This was not an action I took lightly, as he was generally a good contributor. But the damage he was doing by his insulting manner was outweighing the useful factual contributions that were great alone, but unfortunately seemed only to be a preamble to his insults.

Don’t be like Phil. Even if you feel your friend is being stupid, uneducated, or even crazy, it’s still best to just focus on the facts. Show them where they were wrong, show them what they missed, show them where their sources are wrong. Don’t tell them they are stupid. Be polite, please!

Avoid Backfire

The backfire effect is an occasional phenomenon where attempting to correct a false belief actually “backfires” and makes it stronger because the person involved fights against the correction. Anyone who has attempted to debunk things online will have had the experience of presenting very reasonable counterevidence to someone, only for them to seem to become even more entrenched in their position.

Most research into this effect is relatively new and has revolved around politically charged beliefs such as climate change. In 2010, Nyhan and Reifler wrote:

Shortly after that Lewandowsky and Cook wrote The Debunking Handbook, discussing ways to avoid this effect, focusing on the issue of climate change denial. They cover three strategies:

The idea behind this advice is that to debunk a topic effectively, you’ve got to first, avoid mentioning it; second, take pains to preface it as being wrong before you do mention it; and third, provide something else to fill the mental gap you create when you debunk the misinformation. (They later add a fourth recommendation, which is that information should be conveyed graphically if possible—a good idea.)

This advice on avoiding the backfire effect is basically sound, but it’s important not to jump through hoops unnecessarily. One should not avoid discussing the misinformation to the extent that your friend does not know what you are talking about. Focusing only on facts is great, but it’s also important to understand why they believe as they do, which means you may also have to discuss the false belief. Providing an alternative explanation to fill the gap is often very useful, but if you find yourself struggling to create one, then perhaps “that’s incorrect because …” is actually the best approach.

For example, if your friend thinks that HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, a research facility in Alaska) causes earthquakes, then you could avoid any backfire effect by solely explaining what causes earthquakes—plate tectonics. But to fully address the issue you also need to explain why HAARP is incapable of creating earthquakes—it’s a low-power radio transmitter that can only affect one spot of the sky above Alaska.

You should exercise caution in applying lessons derived from surveys to the individual situation of your friend. Is the backfire effect even a problem for them specifically? In 2018, Wood and Porter published “The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence,” in which they attempted to extend Nyhan and Reifler’s original research and were somewhat surprised to find that a generic backfire effect did not seem to exist.

On the other hand, both the backfire effect and the heeding of factual information were somewhat confirmed by Chan, et al. in a 2017 meta-analysis, where they found:

The takeaway from Chan is not so much that you need to provide an alternative explanation, but you need to provide detailed factual reasons why their explanation is wrong. You need to exercise caution, because people still respond irrationally when motivated to do so and people do push back against what they see as attacks on their ideology, but people simultaneously do heed factual information. Chan describes the approach as “detailed debunking,” which tallies with the second broad part of the Metabunk method: supplying them with useful information.

In my experience, backfire is largely the result of problems with communication methods, and not with the information being supplied. People get angry when they think you are belittling or mocking their beliefs, so you need to be polite and respectful. When we look at the stories of the people in this book who escaped the rabbit hole, we find that they did so because of finding some useful information they were missing. Willie discovered that Chemtrail tanks were just ballast barrels, Steve discovered contrails actually can persist, Richard discovered that heat weakens steel beams well before their melting point, Edward discovered that NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) had a detailed explanation for the collapse of Building 7, and Stephanie discovered people promoting Chemtrails also wanted to shoot lasers at passenger planes.

All these people escaped the rabbit hole in part because of useful information they were missing. They were influenced by factual and logical information communicated to them with politeness and respect. They did resist initially and it’s likely that some early attempts to communicate with them did backfire. But eventually the weight of the evidence ran its natural course.

Keep supplying useful information to your friend. Keep up the communication, the supplying of perspective, and the encouragement of a genuinely open mind. Resistance is an inevitable part of the process. Don’t be disheartened. Give it time. It might take months, or even years.

Supplying Useful Information

Communication techniques can be discussed in the abstract, but supplying useful information is a very practical matter. What is the information that you should be supplying? The remainder of this book focuses on key examples of this information, and how to communicate them. We can identify a few types of information you should be supplying:

Identifying Errors—A simple explanation of something that is wrong is a core part of debunking, and one of the most common things that we will encounter. If someone thinks that the fires in the World Trade Center were nearly extinguished when it collapsed, then you can show them the photos taken by Greg Semendinger minutes before the collapse that show the North Tower ablaze with walls of flames 40 feet high and 200 feet wide.8 It’s a simple demonstration that they were wrong, presented without judgment.

Explanations—Demonstrating an error sometimes stands alone, but it works best if you can provide a more complete explanation for what is going on. This means discussing the underlying details, providing a real-world explanation that can replace the one you’ve shown to be false. This is best done with a practical illustration. For example, when they claim that hot spots under the World Trade Center rubble pile (weeks after the collapse) are evidence of incendiaries, then explain that incendiaries would have quickly burnt up and show them articles about landfill fires that burned underground for weeks,9 months,10 or even years.11

Exposing the source—We are often told that an ad hominem attack (an argument directed against an individual as opposed to the position propagated) is a logical fallacy. You cannot prove an argument to be false by attacking the character of the person making the argument. You should address the argument itself. This is a good general rule but there is an important situation where this does not apply—when your friend is using an argument from authority.

If your friend tells you that they believe 9/11 was a controlled demolition in part because “thousands” of professionals at AE911 Truth say it was, then it’s perfectly reasonable to show that that AE911 Truth is composed of many non-experts, is frequently incorrect, and has historically repeated false information long after it has been proven false.

Make clear that this is not a personal or vindictive attack. Your friend has claimed that this organization is a reliable and authoritative source. You simply need to demonstrate that their source is not as reliable or authoritative as they thought. Demonstrating the errors the source has made, and the falsehoods they continue to repeat, is a great way of prompting your friend to take a more critical look at the source’s other claims.

Perspective—Is the theory even plausible? How would it work in the real world? The reason that some conspiracy theories get traction is because people don’t really have a good perspective on the context and the meaning of what is being claimed. Who would it actually benefit to fake the shooting of children? How much is a trillion dollars? How many tons of steel, concrete, and drywall were there in the World Trade Center? How much has air traffic increased since the 1980s? When did people discover the Earth was round? What percentage of structural engineers think that the World Trade Center fell because of a controlled demolition? How many millions of scientists are there that need to be silenced? How would that even work?

In the next part of the book we will look at many practical examples of communicating these types of missing information. We’ll look at four major conspiracy theories that span the spectrum: Chemtrails, 9/11 Controlled Demolitions, False Flags, and Flat Earth. We’ll meet people who’ve escaped from the rabbit hole in all four areas. But we’ll start with someone who was down the rabbit hole for a long time, and then emerged to start his own campaign of respectful communication and supplying useful information to the people who used to reside down there with him.