U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters Monday that weather modification — an increasingly popular right-wing conspiracy theory used to explain natural disasters — played no part in the catastrophic Central Texas floods that killed more than 90 people over the weekend.
“To the best of my knowledge, there is zero evidence of anything related to anything like weather modification,” the Texas Republican told reporters during a press conference in the Hill Country. “Look, the internet can be a strange place. People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories.”
Cruz — who’s spread past outlandish falsehoods of his own –– made the comments after right-wing conspiracy theorists and at least two pro-MAGA politicians made posts online over the weekend blaming the July Fourth flooding on cloud seeding and weather manipulation.
Hard-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Georgia, tweeted Saturday that she plans to introduce a bill that “prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.”
“This is not normal,” Greene wrote in a follow-up post. “I want clean air, clean skies, clean rain water, clean ground water, and sunshine just like God created it!!! No person, company, entity, or government should ever be allowed to modify our weather by any means possible.”
Kandiss Taylor, a Republican running to represent Georgia in the U.S. House, tweeted that the Texas floods were “fake.”
“Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake,” Kandiss said in the post without added context.
Other right-wing social media influencers have blamed a cloud seeding operation over Texas by California-based company Rainmaker for the catastrophic flooding.
The online attacks on Rainmaker by individuals including retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn became so severe that Augustus Doricko, the company’s CEO, issued a public statement explaining that his business wasn’t responsible for the Texas disaster.
“The last seeding mission prior to the July 4th event was during the early afternoon of July 2nd, when a brief cloud seeding mission was flown over the eastern portions of south-central Texas, and two clouds were seeded,” Doricko tweeted.
Doricko said the clouds persisted for about two hours before dissipating later that afternoon.
“The clouds that were seeded on July 2nd dissipated over 24 hours prior to the developing storm complex that would produce the flooding rainfall,” Doricko added.
As the Current reported in May, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) issues permits to entities, including groundwater conservation districts, to alter the weather via cloud seeding, and has done so for decades. At the time, TDLR hydrologist Chris Hooyboer explained to Texas lawmakers that cloud seeding, while able to produce rain to remedy drought situations, is incapable of unleashing massive storms.
“They are essentially introducing particles that allow the formation of water droplets to produce rain, which will then fall in the target area that we have assigned them on the permit,” Hooyboer said. “But, it’s not supercharging the storm cell to then wreak havoc on the rest of the state.”
Last year, online conspiracy theorists also forced the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to put out a statement denying its involvement with “non-existent weather manipulation technology” after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated parts of the Gulf Coast and the mid-Atlantic.
“No technology exists that can create, destroy, modify, strengthen, or steer hurricanes in any way, shape, or form,” NOAA wrote. “All hurricanes, including Helene and Milton, are natural phenomena that form on their own due to aligning conditions of the ocean and atmosphere.”
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This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 9, 2025.
