21. Bombing the Sky
There were no serious scholars or scientists willing to risk their reputations by having anything to do with something as batty as Edward Powers’ rain-making theories. So a patent lawyer named Robert G. Dyrenforth stepped up and was assigned the task of carrying out the experiment. In August of 1891, Dyrenforth set up shop in a section of Texas prairie, and put on what must have been an impressive pyrotechnics display.
His men blasted clouds with mortars and with dynamite carried aloft by kites, while trailing behind them were balloons filled with flammable hydrogen. To add to the noise, Dyrenforth’s men increased the decibel levels by packing prairie dog holes full of dynamite, and setting them off as well. Unsurprisingly, the plan did not work. That did not stop Dyrenforth from claiming that it did. His fabrication was foiled, however, by a meteorologist who observed the experiment, and published a scathing report about it in Nature.