The first systematic study of the cloudbuster a large passive antenna, similar to the lightning rod, but which is grounded into living water ("highly structured" or "activated" water) was undertaken by myself in late 1970s field trials at the University of Kansas. The work included 12 tests for increasing clouds and rain during normal, non-drought conditions, 3 tests for decreasing clouds and rain during episodes of heavy rains, and controlled photographic analysis of the effects of the apparatus on fair-weather cumulus clouds. The tests to decrease rain produced no apparent result, but the other two tests did, and my Thesis on the subject was accepted.(1) The study area for that work was the entire state of Kansas, which approximates the anticipated range of influence of the apparatus.

Subsequent individual field trials were undertaken by myself during mild to severe droughts in Florida,(2) Illinois,(2) Georgia/S.Carolina,(3) Arizona,(4) Washington State (4) and California (5) Results were very positive, with a restoration of natural rainfall episodes generally within 48 hours after operations commenced. Cloudbusting experiments have also proceeded in arid and semi-arid lands, in the Southwestern USA (6), Greece,(7) Cyprus,(7) Israel,(8) Namibia (9) and Eritrea (10). These latter cases often constituted more definitive case studies, given the drier desert conditions under which the apparatus was tested. Nevertheless, the results were also positive in these cases, sometimes far beyond our expectations, with the termination of drought conditions and development of significant rains over adjacent desert areas.

Not all of these field operations have been subjected to a complete data analysis, but most have, using weather data from the National Weather Service or other official sources. In particular, I point to my 1989 study undertaken in Arizona, where five operations were made with the cloudbuster on pre-announced dates. An observed average-doubling of rainfall occurred for a full one-week period after operations commenced.(6) Results of approximately 80% of my experimental field operations have been positive, with published field reports in non-mainstream but peer-reviewed journals, and regular abstracted paper presentations to various scholarly societies (Association for Arid Lands Studies, Association of American Geographers, American Association for the Advancement of Science, International Society for Biometeorology, American College of Orgonomy) and International Symposia (Congress on Geo-Cosmic Relations - Amsterdam; Relations of Biological and Physicochemical Processes with Solar Activity and Other Environmental Factors - Pushchino, Russia).

Taken together, my findings have confirmed the original 1950s claims of the inventor of the cloudbuster, Wilhelm Reich.(11) To clarify, I am not the inventor of the cloudbuster, nor the first person to test it and announce positive results.(12) I am, however, the first natural scientist to undertake systematic and ongoing field tests of the cloudbuster, with presentation of significant positive results within formal academic institutions for open discussion and debate. As such, my work constitutes a corroboration and verification of Reich's prior findings.

Usually, this form or corroboration is sufficient to open the doors of science to professional advancement, funding possibilities, and so forth. In the present case, the positive results observed and reported have had just the opposite effect, in the USA at least. At the "official" academic level, Reich's biological and atmospheric discoveries are still widely misunderstood and irresponsibly misrepresented. A major problem for the scientist who is serious to investigate Reich's findings is the unfortunate fact that his major books and research journals were literally "banned and burned" by the US Government in the 1950s, in a legal case with much broader historical significance than the Scopes Monkey Trial.(13) Most of Reich's central experimental protocols appear only in those same destroyed books and journals,(14) which are difficult to obtain and not widely found in libraries.

In my view, Reich was a genius, and his findings provide a sound and productive basis for understanding many atmospheric processes and problems, as well as providing a very practical approach (Cosmic Orgone Engineering, or cloudbusting, as it is popularly called) to actually do something constructive in regions suffering from drought or desert spreading.

For example:

- Reich appears to have been the first scientist to describe the role of atmospheric haze as a precipitation-blocking factor in drought and desert atmospheres.(11) Reid Bryson's work on desert dusts is better known,(14) for sure, but the dust theory suffers from the assumption that "haze" is composed 100% of particulates. Reich attributed at least some of what we call haze to a stagnated form of the atmospheric orgone, which impedes the transmission of light. (Recall that Reich's orgone is an ether-like energy continuum, upon which the mechanics of light-transmission may be dependent.) Bryson's arguments, like those of Reich, were never widely acknowledged by atmospheric scientists. But from field observations, it is apparent that "desert haze" can be softened and observably reduced with a few minutes work with the cloudbuster. If haze were fully composed of particulates, this would not be possible. Based upon Reich's theory, and data on atmospheric haze, I have produced a comprehensive Desert-Drought Map which suggests a trans-oceanic global interconnectivity between all desert regions of the world, from which droughts periodically erupt.(15)

- Reich appears to have been the first scientist to fully describe what we today call forest-death,(16) including: the dying of trees from the top-down, hazy and suffocated atmospheres filled with ozones and acids, blackening rock surfaces, and other components widely observed and acknowledged today but virtually unknown in Reich's time. Based upon Reich's theory, and with assistance from a German group, I recently directed a 4-year experimental investigation of the cloudbuster's influence upon air pollution levels in the region around Berlin. The preliminary results appear positive, but there are several complicating factors which must be controlled for in the analysis, which will be forthcoming at some point in the near future.(17)

In both the above cases, Reich's observations agree with the modern-day descriptions, but his theories as to the mechanisms are based upon his life-energetic discoveries, which are essentially unknown to most scientists. This difference in mechanism may raise objections, but at a basic level Reich's approach provides a completely new and revolutionary way to look at nearly unresolvable problems. One may agree or disagree with Reich's assertion, of a living and sensitive atmosphere, but his ideas are testable and refutable, in the best tradition of the natural sciences, and provide an approach to actually do something of potential benefit in deserts and air-polluted environments. The classical mechanistic approaches, of "empty space" and a dead atmosphere, by definition claim no capacity in this regard. Surely, this alone warrants a more open attitude.

Our laboratory has recently been moved to a new headquarters in rural southwestern Oregon, at 4200' altitude, where some of the more sensitive orgone energy experiments described by Reich can be undertaken. Several educational seminars and workshops have been established for the interested student and/or professional, and our Drought-Abatement and Desert-Greening Programs continue to be offered as a service, to those regions in critical need where funding is available. Those with interests in this new field of research are invited to contact us for a brochure, publications list, and schedule.

Citations:

1. J. DeMeo: Preliminary Analysis of Changes in Kansas Weather Coincidental to Experimental Operations with a Reich Cloudbuster, Thesis, Univ. of Kansas, Geography-Meteorology Dept. (cf. Masters Abstracts, 18(1), 1980). Bound xerox available from Natural Energy Works, PO Box 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520.

2. J. DeMeo: "Field Experiments with the Reich Cloudbuster: 1977-1983", Journal of Orgonomy, 19(1):57-79, 1985.

3. J. DeMeo & R. Morris: "Preliminary Report on a Cloudbusting Experiment in the Southeastern Drought Zone, August 1986", Southeastern Drought Symposium Proceedings, March 4-5, 1987, South Carolina State Climatology Office Publication G-30, Columbia, SC, 1987.

4. J. DeMeo: "CORE Progress Report #20: Breaking the Drought Barriers in the Southwest and Northwest USA", Journal of Orgonomy, 23(1):97-125, 1989.

5. J. DeMeo: "CORE Operations in the Western USA", Pulse of the Planet 3:110-111, 1991; "CORE Breakthrough in California Rains, March 1991", Pulse of the Planet 3:115-116, 1991; "CORE Progress Report #26: California Drought of 1990-1991, Part II. With a Special Note on Underground Nuclear Testing and the Oakland Wildfires", Journal of Orgonomy, 26(1):,49-71 1992.

6. J. DeMeo: "OROP Arizona 1989: A Cloudbusting Experiment to Bring Rains in the Desert Southwest", Pulse of the Planet, 3:82-92, 1991; also published as a Special Report, Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory, 1991.

7. J. DeMeo: "CORE Progress Report #25: Two Year Research Summary The American West, Greece, and Germany", Journal of Orgonomy, 25(2):181, 1991; "CORE Research and Field Operations Overseas", Pulse of the Planet 3:111-112, 1991.

8. J. DeMeo: "OROP Israel 1991-1992: A Cloudbusting Experiment to Restore Wintertime Rains to Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean During an Extended Period of Drought", Special Report, Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory, 1992; "CORE Report #30: The Desert Greening Project in Israel 1991-1992", Journal of Orgonomy, 26(2):248-265, 1992; reprinted in Pulse of the Planet 4:92-98 1993.

9. J. DeMeo: "OROP Namibia 1992-1993", Pulse of the Planet 4:115, 1993.

10. Data not yet published or presented publicly.

11. W. Reich: "DOR Removal and Cloud-Busting", Orgone Energy Bull.,

IV(4):171-182, 1952; "OROP Desert. Part 1: Spaceships, DOR and Drought", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VI(1-4):1-140, 1954; "Expedition OROP Desert, Ea: DOR Clouds Over the USA", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VII(1-2):4-19, 1955; Contact With Space, Oranur Second Report: Orop Desert Ea, Core Pilot Press, NY, 1957.

12. A few examples of the earliest corroborating reports: W. Hoppe: "Wolkenbildung und Wolkenzerstoerung durch Orgon Energie (Cloud Formation and Cloud Destruction through Orgone Energy)", Int. Zeitschrift fur Orgonomie, I(4):204, 1953; W. Moise: "OROP Drought Atlantic Coast Summer 1954", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VII(1-2):68-83, 1955; C. Kelley: A New Method of Weather Control, Radix Institute, Santa Monica, CA, 1961; R.A. Blasband: "CORE Progress Report", J. Orgonomy, 5(2):189-191, 1971; T.J. Constable: "Operation 'Backwash' #1: Rainmaking, Los Angeles Basin", J. Orgonomy, 5(2):192-198, 1971; J. Eden: "Drought Relief in the Northwest", J. Orgonomy, 6(1):98-103, 1972.

13. J. Greenfield: Wilhelm Reich Vs. The U.S.A., W.W. Norton, NY, 1974; L. Wyvell: "The Jailing of a Great Scientist in the USA, 1956" and "Eyewitness Report of the Burning of Scientific Books in the USA, 1956", Pulse of the Planet 4:70-75, 1994.

14. R. Bryson & T.J. Murray: Climates of Hunger, U. Wisconsin Press, Madison 1977; R. Bryson & D.A. Baerreis: "Possibilities of Major Climatic Modification and their Implications: NE India, A Case for Study", Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 48(3):136-142, March 1967.

15. J. DeMeo: "Research Progress Report", Pulse of the Planet 2:82, 1989; also see: "Desert Expansion and Drought: Global Interconnections and the Desert/Drought Map", Abstracts of Papers, Association for Arid Lands Studies Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon, April 1990, and "The Desert-Drought Map and its Implications", Abstracts, 90th Annual Meeting, Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, California, 29 March - 2 April, 1994, p.81.

16. W. Reich: The Oranur Experiment: First Report (1947-1951), Wilhelm Reich Foundation, Maine, 1951 [originally appeared as Orgone Energy Bull., III(4)185-344, 1951]; "The Blackening Rocks: Melanor", Orgone Energy Bull., V(1-2):28-59, 1953; W. Reich & R. McCullough: "Melanor, Orite, Brownite, and Orene: Preliminary Chemical Analysis", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VII(1-2):29-39, 1955.

17. J. DeMeo: "Reduction of Rainwater Acidity Following the End of the 1986 Drought: An Effect of Cloudbusting?", Journal of Orgonomy, 21(2):249-251, 1987; "CORE Research and Field Operations Overseas", Pulse of the Planet 3:112-115, 1991; "Orgonomic Project Waldheilung 1989-1993", Pulse of the Planet 4:114, 1993.