Update: spent 4 hours chasing a "chemtrail" video only to find out it was a de-icing test over Minneapolis
Honestly I typed the flight number into 2 tracking sites and pulled the airport's own maintenance log before accepting it was just winter ops. Tbh the part that bugs me is how fast the group moved on to the next clip without anyone admitting they got it wrong. Ngl, how do you all decide when a theory is actually dead versus just badly explained?
Four hours is a lot to give a video, but the part about the group moving on is pretty normal for internet stuff. People don't like saying they were wrong, so they just drift to the next shiny thing. Not sure it's some big deal though, happens in every hobby and every comment section. The real tell is when nobody even tries to explain the clip anymore, they just drop it. Honestly the flight tracker and maintenance log move was already more work than most folks do.