#217 Augustus Doricko - Did Cloud Seeding Cause the Texas Floods?

Shawn Ryan Show has donated to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund. Donate & Get Involved - https://cftexashillcountry.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=4201 Augustus Doricko is the founder and CEO of Rainmaker Technology Corp., a company focused on cloud seeding and weather modification. A Thiel Fellow and rising figure in climate tech, Doricko has recently faced public scrutiny following the major floods in Texas. His team conducted a brief cloud seeding operation on July 2 in a limited area of the state, then suspended operations out of caution. While some have raised questions about a possible connection between his work and the recent flooding, Doricko joins us to explain what cloud seeding actually involves—and to weigh in on the growing speculation surrounding it. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://USCCA.com/srs https://masachips.com/srs https://ROKA.com https://tryarmra.com/srs Augustus Doricko Links: Rainmaker - https://www.rainmaker.com X - https://x.com/ADoricko LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/augustus-doricko-660b20145 Substack - https://substack.com/@doricko Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

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• 1:05Shawn Ryan?

  Augustus Torco, welcome back. Thanks for having me back, Sean. Didn't expect to see you again so soon. It was quite the timing, yeah. Yeah, man. So, massive flood tragedy in Texas. You were there, cloud seeding before. And so, I know you're getting blasted on the internet. People are fucking irate, you know, what's going on and, you know, but...

• 1:35Shawn Ryan?

  I pride myself on giving everybody a voice. And so, I wanted to offer you the opportunity to come back and talk about what's going down on there. So, quick introduction and some stats on what's happened last week. Augustus Torco, founder and CEO of Brainmaker, a next-generation cloud seeding company. Your name popped up in the news last week, obviously, because of the Texas floods and the cloud seeding stuff. And so, like I said, I just want to bring you on, give you the opportunity to speak to the public, my audience, about what was going on on there. But, but let's take a moment here to recognize the scale of the tragedy. Killed at least 120 people and left at least 176 missing.

• 2:20Shawn Ryan?

  Notably, 27 girls and one counselor from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp, were killed.

• 2:28Shawn Ryan?

  And I just want to say that, you know, every time something like this happens, uh, me and my organization, we like to donate. And so we're making a sizable donation. We did some research and found a, found a, a nonprofit to donate to. So we're donating, uh, to the relief efforts through the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill County, uh, country in the show. And, uh, we'll link that, that link in the show notes for anybody of those that wants to donate, including you, if you want to donate to it.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Rainmaker will do the same.

• 3:02Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. And, uh, some facts about the flooding.

• 3:07Shawn Ryan?

  Texas Hill Country alongside, along the Guadalupe River, heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Berry, unprecedented flooding. Between July 4th through 7th, five to 11 inches of rain fell in a few hours, leading to the Guadalupe River rising 26 to 29 feet in some areas within 45 minutes. Among the deadliest in the U.S. in a century, it's destroyed homes, camps, infrastructure, killed a lot of people, a lot of people still missing that they're looking for. The tragedy centered in Flash Flood Alley underscored the region's vulnerability to such

• 3:48Shawn Ryan?

  events with historic floods that also happened in 1987, 1998, and 2015 as precedents. And, uh, I also want to take a moment and, uh, and just

• 4:02Shawn Ryan?

  recognize a lot of the heroic actions that were going on there. Extensive, extensive rescue operations involving over 850 rescues. One Coast Guard crew made 165 rescues and first responders and everyday Americans stepped up to save their neighbors. So, um, you know,

• 4:24Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know how to say this, but you know, when it's when things like this happen, it's just, it's good to see how many Americans step up. You know, we saw it in Hurricane Helene. We saw it in the wildfires. We're seeing it here. I mean, it's just, it's good to see Americans. I mean, we live in a very divisive society now. It's good to see people step up in their community and come together to to help those in need and these tragic events. So.

• 4:55Shawn Ryan?

  So I know you were there. I think it was two days prior to the flood, correct?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 5:01Shawn Ryan?

  And um.

• 5:04Shawn Ryan?

  What were you doing there?

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Sure. So just again, for those that haven't heard before about what cloud seeding is, in no uncertain terms.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  I run a cloud seeding company. We make a little bit more rain and snow for farms or for reservoirs or for aquifers when they're dealing with drought. Right? Obviously, right now, after the flooding, Texas does not need more water and we've indefinitely suspended operations because of that. And we'll keep them suspended until first responders have stopped working. Cloud seeding is not long streaks in the sky. It's not trying to dim out the sun. It's certainly not creating hurricanes. Cloud seeding is a technology that was invented in the US that relies on clouds, natural clouds with liquid water droplets in them. And flying into those clouds dispersing material that then freezes onto those drops

• 5:54Speaker 03

  makes big enough, heavy enough, snowflakes such that they fall and either fall as snow or melt back into rain. We have customers throughout Texas, the South Texas Weather Modification Association, the West Texas Weather Modification Association. These are groups of counties and individual farms that pay us for cloud seeding because they historically have needed more water, right? If you look even back to June 24th, not long ago, a lot of Texas, a lot of the hill country was in severe or moderate drought. Right? And so what we were doing there on July 2nd and prior was trying to make more rain for these farms and for these reservoirs and to recharge the aquifer because they tend to need more water.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  We were operating on the second and we flew one 20-minute cloud seeding mission. So we seeded two clouds and we dispersed 70 grams of silver iodide into those clouds. First of all, those clouds dissipated over the course of the two hours after the mission. Right? So, did we seed the storm itself? No, absolutely not. Did we seed clouds that dumped tons of precipitation? No, not that either. Like, the most successful cloud seeding missions that have ever been conducted either by Rainmaker or research labs have produced tens of millions of gallons of precipitation. They got hundreds of billions of gallons of precipitation over the course of just hours and trillions cumulatively.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  So, cloud seeding, though it can make useful amounts of water for these farms and ecosystems, cannot produce a million times more than what the best operations ever have. So that's the first thing to say. The second thing to say is, well, you know, maybe because you seeded those two clouds on the second, the material stayed in the atmosphere and then made the flooding worse later. And we know categorically that that's not true either. When you seed into clouds and there's subsequent precipitation, the material that you disperse gets precipitated out with the rain. Right? So, one, we know that by seeding into the clouds, the aerosol dissipated.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  But, two, even if we had just been seeding into open air, and we weren't, right? It was 20-plus hours between when our mission occurred and when the flooding ensued, and the winds were blowing northwest, northwest such that any of our aerosols would have been long and far north, had they even persisted in the atmosphere, and they didn't.

• 8:18Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, let's rewind. What were you saying about, what was that last thing?

• 8:23Speaker 03

  About the aerosols up there? So, one thing...

• 8:27Shawn Ryan?

  The wind.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the winds when we were seeding were blowing to the northwest. Right? In the ensuing days, right, you had the storm just plop down and pound this one particular area. But when we were seeding, the winds were going northwest such that any of the aerosols that could have possibly remained in the atmosphere, and I don't think that any consequential amount did, they would have blown out of the direction of the storm as well.

• 8:55Shawn Ryan?

  You don't think or you know?

• 8:56Speaker 03

  We, we know, we know.

• 8:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did you see those clouds dissipate?

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:00Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have that on video?

• 9:01Speaker 03

  We have that on radar.

• 9:03Shawn Ryan?

  You have that on radar? Have you released that information?

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, we posted that online.

• 9:07Shawn Ryan?

  You did?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:08Shawn Ryan?

  And you were operating, I believe, south, was it southwest of?

• 9:13Speaker 03

  It was about a hundred miles southeast.

• 9:15Shawn Ryan?

  A hundred miles southeast?

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:18Shawn Ryan?

  And then, and the wind was blowing which way?

• 9:20Speaker 03

  It was blowing, uh, northwest.

• 9:22Shawn Ryan?

  It was blowing northwest, so it would have been in the direction of that storm from, from your location.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Correct, however, one, it was seventy grams of silver iodide.

• 9:34Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  That amount of particulate dispersed over hours would have been lower in concentration than just the natural amount of dust that gets kicked up from the soil, right? It could not have any impact because of those concentrations. And the notion that like, by seeding, could we have worsened the storm somehow because we created the low pressure system? Like, I think a lot of people, and I'm not one to always defer to experts, right? Like, I think that people should trust but verify. Um, the notion that any sort of seeding operation then could have worsened the remnants of the tropical storm, and then the convergence of a system from the Pacific is like, totally impossible.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  And, and you can defer to other atmospheric scientists that have brought this up and corroborated it not from Rainmaker. You can defer to other meteorologists. You can even defer to the Texas Department of Agriculture commissioner that dispelled any rumors about cloud seeding having to do with this.

• 10:34Shawn Ryan?

  Why did they, what, who hired you to go down there?

• 10:37Speaker 03

  The South Texas Weather Modification Association. So that's a bunch of counties and farms that need more water.

• 10:43Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, okay. Did they, I mean, when you're seeding clouds, I mean, are, how?

• 10:50Shawn Ryan?

  What's the radius of where you're doing it from? How many miles out are you guys looking at weather?

• 10:57Speaker 03

  We're looking at, well, for forecasting, you know, this is an important point, right? We're looking at the entire region, just so that we understand the situation. Even if we're only seeding over a handful of counties, we want to understand the context. And it's important to do that because on the second, our meteorologists identified that there was this inflow of moisture from the Gulf. And that's why we suspended operations the afternoon of the second. Now, that's important because, one, that's like, Rainmaker wants to do no harm and did no harm. And by proactively forecasting so that we know we're not seeding during storms or during flash floods, like, we can prevent ourselves from doing any damage, right?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  But it's also important because a lot of people have said, "Well, you know, who even is regulating you guys? Who even is giving you permission to do this?" And it's worth saying, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation has permits for weather modification and cloud seeding operations. They have for decades. Cloud seeding isn't a new technology, right? Only recently have people been able to measure what the effects of it are with new radar tech, but it's not new. The states have regulations. The states have to grant you permits if they approve your concept of operations and also if they approve your suspension criteria. And so that is maybe one of the most important parts here. Suspension criteria are basically the weather conditions or conditions on the ground that

• 12:23Speaker 03

  would result in us being required to stop operating. And so, one of the suspension criteria is if the National Weather Service issues a flash flood warning. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at about 1:00 a.m. on the 3rd, right? We suspended operations on the 2nd. We proactively suspended operations even before we were notified to by the National Weather Service or before we would have been required to by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. So, not only did we adhere to the rules, but we proactively stopped long before we needed to because our meteorologists were able to see that there was impending risk.

• 13:05Shawn Ryan?

  If you...

• 13:09Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I had a handful of friends reach out to me after, you know, after the flood had happened and all of the questions were exactly the same. Did Augustus Doricko cause this? And I'm not a scientist. I don't know. And, you know, all I know is what I learned in our interview together. And this was, you know, I kind of expressed this in the interview. This is what everybody is scared to death of is of something like this happening. But, you know, going back to your interview, I mean, I remember, if I remember correctly, you said you, that the window of opportunity for it to rain after you see the cloud is 15 to 45 minutes, correct?

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Max two hours, but generally within the hour, yeah.

• 13:52Shawn Ryan?

  So, I mean, I don't, I just, I don't, and I don't see a, you know, a, a small, medium sized drone being able to create, you know, that much devastation. How many, how many drones were you guys using?

• 14:08Speaker 03

  So in Texas, we, we use airplanes, not drones.

• 14:11Shawn Ryan?

  Used airplane.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  Um, we use airplanes, however, right? Uh, these airplanes are like six seater aircraft. They're not the high altitude jet liners or stuff. That's worth saying because I think a lot of people hear about cloud seeding. They'll look up and see these trails in the sky. They'll think that that's cloud seeding. That's not cloud seeding, right? Um, whether you believe that those long trails in the sky are condensation trails or chemtrails, and I don't think that they are chemtrails. I haven't seen evidence for it. A lot of people have sent me, uh, the movie, The Dimming. Have you heard of this?

• 14:42Shawn Ryan?

  No, I've not, I've not seen it.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  There's, there's this piece on, um, geoengineering and, and the risks of, of solar radiation modification and potentially chemtrails that a lot of people have sent to me. I'm not compelled by that evidence, frankly. Anyway, all that to say, uh, I am totally open minded to the notion that there could be nefarious stuff from state actors. Um, we know that China is investing 1.4 billion dollars into their weather modification program. As of our last conversation, it was 300 million. They just ramped it up to 1.4 billion.

• 15:18Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  So we do know that they're interested in that. We do know that the Chinese are interested in that. I don't believe that any of those contrails are in fact chemtrails, but these airplanes were flying at, this one airplane, to be clear, was flying at 1,600 feet above ground level. So another important detail is the altitude where we were flying means that those particulate fell.

• 15:46Shawn Ryan?

  It seems like the weight of it would, I mean, they wouldn't be able to travel that far, 1,600 feet. That's just not that high.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 15:53Shawn Ryan?

  But have you seen this video that Nicole Shanahan put out by chance? Jeremy, can you roll that real quick? I just want to get your reaction to this and...

• 16:06Speaker 04

  Hey, everybody. So EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced today that his agency will finally release detailed information on geoengineering. If you've followed me for a while, you know this is something I care deeply about. So this feels like the right moment to share. I have been speaking with a whistleblower over the past several weeks who has helped me really understand what's happening in our skies. They have given me information that could shed real light on these programs, who's behind them, where the funding's coming from, and what we can do to stop them. I'll be posting an article on my X feed later today, so please stay tuned.

• 16:43Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think she's talking about with this whistleblower? I mean, we obviously know who's behind it. Where does the funding come from? Money comes from the Texas Weather Modification, whatever group that you were talking about, correct?

• 16:54Speaker 03

  So note, she said geoengineering.

• 16:57Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  I don't do geoengineering. I do weather modification, and that difference is really important. Cloud seeding is a kind of weather modification, and it's weather modification because it's local in both time and space, right? Like, it affects an individual county over the course of hours. Geoengineering is a global climate intervention, like dimming the sun, that is aimed at cooling the entire planet down, where the aerosols dispersed into the stratosphere would persist for years.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  The funding for our cloud seeding operations come from these counties and farms that we work with. The federal government spent $2.4 million on cloud seeding research last year, and that was all that they'd spent in years since. We don't do any work with the federal government. If we do, I'll be happy to tell people about that. With respect to geoengineering,

• 17:58Speaker 03

  I'm interested to see what she says. The statement that Lee Zeldin gave, I think, yesterday on transparently accounting for what contrails are, what geoengineering activities exist, I think that that is absolutely a step in the right direction. Like, I think if people are trusted with information, if the government is able to disclose to us what activities are going on, I think that people will rightfully either feel more safe and comfortable about these technologies or feel less safe about them. And then we can regulate appropriately, right? So the whistleblower that she's alluding to, I suspect I know who that is.

• 18:44Speaker 03

  Without getting into whether they're a credible source or not, I'll just say, to all of the "Make America Healthy Again" people, I am super empathetic. Like, I want clean water, I want clean air, I want clean food. I'm into regenerative agriculture. I don't think manipulating the weather is the only way to get more water on the ground for a more productive agricultural base, but I think that cloud seeding is one way to do that. And so, insofar as Nicole is interested in talking about how to make America healthy again, how to ensure that our skies and our climate is clean, like, I am totally down to do that and appreciate at least the sentiment around inquiring about what's going on.

• 19:25Shawn Ryan?

  I mean,

• 19:28Shawn Ryan?

  my inclination is she's talking about you. You know, whether she put the word "geoengineering" in or "cloud seeding", I mean, the timing, she's got to be talking about you. And...

• 19:43Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, she's obviously very concerned. I mean, everybody's very concerned. I'm concerned. And, uh, but I mean, as far as this whistleblower, you don't have to name a name because, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's not factual yet, but let's, what position does this person hold and why would they not be credible?

• 20:02Speaker 03

  Um, if it is who I think it is, and it might not be, right? I, uh, I think it's someone that used to, uh, work in a part of the air force that was unrelated to any clandestine operations or, uh, attempts at cloud seeding or geoengineering. Um, but I think has made a name for themselves in posting inflammatory, inflammatory, false information about this. And that, that gets into a bigger point, right? Um, over the course of the last few days, me, fine, a lot of people have offered death threats, so be it, right? Like, I'm happy to continually engage in good faith with the questions and concerns that people

• 20:47Speaker 03

  have because emotions are running high right now for good reason. Like, there has been a natural disaster and a tragedy. Part of the problem is that there are these accounts online, be they anonymous or even public figures, right? Like, government figures, politicians. People have come out and knowingly posted false information or, uh, insinuated in their posts that cloud seeding had something to do with these floods despite knowing that there's no way it possibly could have. And they've done so either for Elon bucks on X or just to rally political support to them from people that are rightfully concerned

• 21:28Speaker 03

  about the consequences of this technology, but don't yet know the facts. And I think that manipulating people into a frenzy and a mob to make a scapegoat, not just of me, but of people unrelated to our cloud seeding operations, that is reprehensible. Um, I will always, because our Lord was forgiving, be willing to forgive and break bread with people that have done this. Um, but that will stop. That has to stop.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 22:35Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 23:11Shawn Ryan?

  I know what you're saying about, you know, about, I mean, conspiracies run wild, you know, and, um, and people are looking for fame. They're looking for numbers. They're looking for Elon Bucks, as you referred to it. But, I mean, I, you know, the people are, they're fucking pissed, man. I mean, it's a lot of death and a lot of missing people, a lot of kids. And, you know, when you brought up China earlier and, and, and what, how much did they?

• 23:42Speaker 03

  1.4 billion.

• 23:43Shawn Ryan?

  1.4 billion invested.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Per year.

• 23:45Shawn Ryan?

  Have you researched, have you done any research on if China's cloud seeding program has caused any, any flooding or is there any, is there any evidence of this happening with anybody else that's doing this type of stuff? Because we did see it in Dubai.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:00Shawn Ryan?

  We did see it in Dubai.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Um, so you wouldn't be surprised to find out that China is not extraordinarily open about their program.

• 24:08Shawn Ryan?

  Um.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  What we do know is this. We know that they're investing all of this money. We know that they have 35,000 employees in their weather modification program. We know that they have two universities that offer bachelor's degrees in weather engineering. Right? We know that China has stated explicitly that they intend to export their cloud seeding and weather modification systems around the world and are probably interested in doing so, not just for the sake of benevolently producing water, but for the sake of, one, having leverage over countries for whom they produce water, and, two, like, we know that cloud seeding has before been used as a weapon. We know that the Environmental Modification Treaty came out in the 70s to ban weaponized

• 24:54Speaker 03

  weather modification internationally because the United States used cloud seeding during the Vietnam War to flood the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Do I think that cloud seeding wholesale should be banned because of that? And American farmers and ecosystems and cities and reservoirs shouldn't be able to use cloud seeding to produce more water? No, I think that would be not just an overcorrection, but like unsound policy. But should there be radical transparency? Should there be serious regulation and permitting around this? Should there be reporting so that people are able to scrutinize the information from cloud seeding activities? And should there be monitoring from institutions like NOAA or the National Weather Service to look for nefarious or malevolent weather modification operations? Yeah, absolutely.

• 25:39Shawn Ryan?

  Can you change the color of rain?

• 25:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 25:43Shawn Ryan?

  I saw all these things on X where people were claiming it's, I think they were claiming it's your rain because it came down blue and there's all these videos out there. There's no, there's no discoloration of the rain at all?

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Not at all. When we cloud seed and create these snowflakes, right? The initial snowflakes that are created are created by water freezing onto the silver iodide, right? But then those snowflakes break apart and create more snowflakes, and you get this chain reaction where, you know, the, the concentration of silver iodide is de minimis. Like, like I said before, After decades of operating, we've only seen as much as an increase in like eight parts per trillion of silver iodide in soil where cloud seeding is occurring. There's already two parts per million in most American soil. So like if even it is a statistically significant result, after decades of operation, cloud seeding has added a million times less than what's naturally there.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  So there's no adverse ecological effects at all. Certainly not enough to change the color of the rain. Um, I don't know what that was. Uh, I hope it's not more deliberate.

• 26:52Shawn Ryan?

  Disinformation?

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Content, yeah.

• 26:54Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, can you talk about the size of the two clouds that she seeded versus the tropical storm?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:03Shawn Ryan?

  Like what, what's the ratio here?

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Uh, like a million times, a million times, the, the remnants of the tropical storm were a million times larger than.

• 27:14Shawn Ryan?

  Is that a factual number?

• 27:15Speaker 03

  That is an approximation. What I'm, what I'm getting at there is the best cloud seeding operations that have occurred to date have produced tens of millions of gallons. That storm produced like four trillion gallons of precipitation. So that's roughly on order of magnitude, like a hundred thousand to a million times larger than the best cloud seeding operations could, could yield in terms of water.

• 27:38Shawn Ryan?

  Other than the volume, how about the area?

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I, I don't want to perjure myself here, so I'll be as specific as possible and people can look at the report that I posted online with all of the radar data on these cells, but um significantly smaller than the area of a county. Um, we're talking in terms of acres here, not like tens of square miles.

• 28:05Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. What are, what are some of the other things that people are saying?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  You know, I think, I think a lot of people are saying that um

• 28:24Speaker 03

  me coming out and trying to be public about this, some people appreciate the candor and appreciate the transparency. Some people think that by

• 28:34Speaker 03

  going out and talking to all these people, like, it's clearly some sort of psy-op.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Some people have said that uh, you know, Augustus clearly isn't responsible and cloud seeding isn't to blame, but he's the fall guy for some larger nefarious operation. I don't yet have reason to believe that that's true. I certainly hope that's not true. If that is true, uh, then we have to find out. The way to do so, I think, one, is through submitting freedom of information requests to all of the relevant federal agencies about what weather modification research or activities they do have going on. And then going forward, like, reporting accountability and regulation more permitting from the federal government. Um, and it's not to say that like, at this point in time, people totally trust the federal government, right?

• 29:24Speaker 03

  I am very empathetic to that. I do not think that they are always great.

• 29:29Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody trusts the federal government.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:31Shawn Ryan?

  Especially with all the shit right now with the Epstein stuff. No way. No fucking way.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:37Shawn Ryan?

  The P Diddy shit, the Epstein stuff, all within a week. Nobody trusts the federal government. Then we go the last four years.

• 29:47Shawn Ryan?

  That's, that's gonna take a long time before anybody trusts the US government. It's just, it's just, it's just the way it is, you know, I mean.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 29:57Shawn Ryan?

  They gotta give us a reason to trust them.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:00Shawn Ryan?

  So far, that hasn't out happened.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  No, I agree. And I mean, another thing that keeps coming up, right, is like, we will say something defective, like, cloud seeding is a useful or effective way to produce more water for farms and ecosystems, and it's totally safe. And then people will say, oh, safe and effective? Safe and effective? We've heard that before, right? Doesn't sound so safe and effective.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  That is a really hard portion of the information landscape that we operate in now. I think the only solutions to that are to the extent there are any good people left in the government, them scrutinizing this, and then me continuing to provide as much information as I can and answering as many questions as I can. You know, there's people with like four followers on Twitter that ask me some question about silver iodide toxicity, and I'm trying to respond to every single one of those.

• 30:53Shawn Ryan?

  I see you doing it. I see you doing it. I mean, what are some things? Have you learned anything out of this? What have you taken away?

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Well, for one, I would say

• 31:18Speaker 03

  despite all of our attempts to save money federally and cut the budget, right? Which, in the abstract, I am in favor of, cutting the budget in a way that prevents us from building critical infrastructure for either forecasting or severe weather alerts and flood alerts, that can happen. If we had better flash flood sensors on the Guadalupe, we could have notified people significantly earlier. If we had better forecasting.

• 31:52Shawn Ryan?

  By we, you mean?

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Not Rainmaker, but the US government, yeah. The National Weather Service, or local fire departments even. They were trying to warn people earlier. I don't know if you heard those phone calls, but that was pretty hard to listen to. That's one thing. Another thing is I think that

• 32:17Speaker 03

  Although net-net, because of how supportive people have been and receptive to information and earnest dialogue, like in a certain sense, I've developed a lot more faith in the American people and our government. I also do know, and this has been pretty upsetting to learn, that there are people, once again, who know that cloud seeding and Rainmaker and I had nothing to do with these floods, who despite knowing that, are trying to find a way to pin the blame on me in some sort of investigation or otherwise, to drum up political support or, you know, get the heat off of them.

• 32:58Shawn Ryan?

  Are you open to a full-blown investigation?

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Obviously, that'd be inconvenient, but I have nothing to hide.

• 33:05Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  So, yeah, I think that the overwhelming amount of evidence that we've provided that any meteorologist can corroborate, that any atmospheric scientist, or hydrologist, or otherwise can look into, even any individual person, just look at the timeline and the facts, I think that it's all pretty clear that there's nothing that we did that could have affected this. That said, if it came down to it, yeah, fine, sure. I am happy to provide any information should there be an investigation. I will happily engage with authorities as is necessary, should they so choose.

• 33:38Shawn Ryan?

  Has there been any talk of that?

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:41Shawn Ryan?

  What would it take, what would it take to, or is it even possible, to 100% prove to the American people that it was, it had nothing to do with cloud seeding? Is it, is it possible to prove that? And if so, how, how would you do it?

• 34:00Speaker 03

  So, for one, I would say that the information that we have reported on already from our meteorologists does prove that.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Now, beyond just what we've reported on our flight tracks, on our flight times, on the amount of material dispersed, on the clouds that we seeded and how quickly they dissipated, on the dissipation of the aerosols and the fact that we only dispersed 70 grams, like 8 to 10 Skittles worth of material, a day in advance of when the flooding began. Despite all of that, I think that is 100% proof unto itself. If we were to do more, you could get atmospheric scientists to run simulations on where the aerosols would have gone, how that would have affected precipitation patterns and the pressure systems in the vicinity. And you could double the, with like rigorous academic papers and publishing.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Again, not that people are going to defer to that sort of authority or credential, but you could do that as well to further corroborate this. But like, I promise you that you will be hard pressed to find a capable meteorologist that thinks this had anything to do with it and is not 100% convinced it did not.

• 35:14Shawn Ryan?

  What else should I be asking you?

• 35:28Speaker 03

  You know, I think, uh, I think there's maybe like two last points just to think about here. The first of which, again, just to give like scale and context here, we haven't really gotten into like whether silver iodide is healthy or not, right? Whether it's safe to use during cloud seeding operations. I think when you just intuit how little we're dispersing on these missions, you can kind of get a sense that it's safe. But for scale, right? Like, and again, I want to make America healthy again. Like, I'm totally pro clean food, clean air, clean water, regenerative agriculture is great, et cetera.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Just in terms of scale of what sort of toxins we're exposed to right now, Americans consume like 2 billion kilos of pesticides every year. We consume a commensurate amount of herbicides every year. We are wearing microplastics, right? There is microplastic, and we mentioned this in the last... Time we chatted and that is kind of like the biggest clip like there is birth control metabolites in the water that we drink like we are exposed to an inordinate amount of toxins all the time that either we deem sufficiently safe because of how little we consume on a day to day basis or that like is not great for us and we should

• 36:51Speaker 03

  transition away from but is not like killing people or causing respiratory issues or causing cancer in in an enormous way. The amount of material that we're using 70 grams in an operation is what is that that's like 10 100 billion times less than like the total amount of herbicides and pesticides that people are consuming every year and

• 37:15Speaker 03

  like I hope someday to be a big company I hope sometime to scale our operations meaningfully and to produce lots of water for people that are in need again obviously not flash flood alley and in the Texan Hill country when there has been flooding but like

• 37:29Speaker 03

  one the amount of material that we're using from silver Ida that for for the amount of silver Ida that we're using for these cloud seeding operations it is de minimis relative to all these other things we're exposed to on a daily basis and even so Rainmaker will just for PR sake just for the sake of making people feel safe we will eventually transition away from silver iodide into something totally biodegradable totally organic just because

• 37:56Speaker 03

  I think that's another way to build trust and it is going to continue to be our responsibility to do everything we can to earn the trust of people that have appropriate skepticism and concerns about all of this.

• 38:09Shawn Ryan?

  Do you mind if I make a suggestion?

• 38:12Shawn Ryan?

  You know I think you know when you're talking about transparency that's what everybody wants with everything they want transparency on covid they want transparency on Epstein they want transparency on Diddy they want transparency on cloud seeding they want transparency on

• 38:28Shawn Ryan?

  You name it. I mean, that's just where we're at. Like I said, there's, there is little to no faith in the US government on either side at this point. And so, you know, for you, something that you may want to think about is do document every single time you do this. Video, radar, whatever the hell you have to do. You know, and, and I realize for safety concerns, maybe you can't announce like, hey, we're going to be cloud seeding in Salt Lake City today. But, or maybe you can, you know, maybe you can and, and, and, and document every

• 39:09Shawn Ryan?

  second of what happens, you know, or maybe you do it afterwards. Hey, I just want everybody to know we did a cloud seeding operation in Salt Lake City. Here's the entire video. Here's the radar. Here's everything. This is how much precipitation happened. And, you know, maybe, maybe, and I don't want to look like I'm taking a side here, you know, because I'm not. But I mean, people, that's what it's going to take. It's going to take transparency. And it's going to take case studies of how this goes, you know, and so, so by, you know, by, by building these case studies and documenting every single thing you're doing, you build, I mean, basically what you're building is a portfolio of, hey,

• 39:49Shawn Ryan?

  we did it here, we did it here, we did it here, we did it here. This is how long it lasted. This is how long it took it to rain. It was within the 15 to 45 minute window that I, that I said that's what happened or the 15 to two hours or whatever it is. And, and, and you kick those out to the public every single time. I don't, I don't know if that's possible. But that's something that I'd be looking at because otherwise, you know, there's always, there will just always be distrust.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  You know what the crazy thing about that is, Sean?

• 40:21Shawn Ryan?

  You already do it. Do you already do it?

• 40:22Speaker 03

  We are regulatorily required to do that already. All of these reports are publicly available on state government websites right now. Um, should Rand Makers start announcing those ourselves? Sure, totally, absolutely. Um, I think that's a good idea and I appreciate the suggestion there. Uh, but we already have to do that in order to be permitted to operate in these states. Like these states, back when they made these regulations, they realized, you know, this is gonna be a big deal, uh, in terms of like what its consequences could be. And also like people are gonna wanna know what's going on. They have a right to know what's going on, like the government lying to them all the time, people lying to them all the time, that's unacceptable.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  I really care about this country, um, and I will not lie about any of what we're doing. So I'll, I'll start making those things more available online. Um, at the very least, for the time being, uh, we cannot do real-time reporting. Um, there are simply too many death threats. Oh, this is what I was referencing earlier in terms of, uh, American terrorist organizations. Um, there is a militia in Oklahoma that is running around, uh, blowing up and dismantling radar systems. Um, they believe that the weather radar that's being used to monitor

• 41:49Speaker 03

  cloud conditions, what we're using to forecast severe weather, is directing energy into these clouds and into the atmosphere such that it is creating severe weather. Um, I think that the FBI is investigating them, but, uh, yeah, like it is not just concerned or emotional people online. It's not just paranoid schizophrenics. Um, like there are organized militias that are, uh...

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Wrongfully trying to destroy our nation's critical infrastructure for weather sensing right now and that also don't care too much for Rainmaker. There has been severe flooding across the United States in the past week, right? And people are drawing conclusions and correlations between that, right? Like in New Mexico, there's flash flooding. In North Carolina, there's flash flooding. There was, I think flooding in Chicago and thunderstorms there. We don't operate at all in either Chicago or in New Jersey or in North Carolina. We have operated before in New Mexico. Our program ended there on June 30th.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  So the flash flooding that happened after the 4th had nothing to do with us. We also posted those reports. I think the, I think the two conclusions from all of this severe weather, again, are one, like we clearly need better forecasting capabilities, right? Like we need to be able to forecast and alert people to these things far before when we're doing so now in order to keep them safe. And the second thing is, again, I don't have evidence yet to suggest that there are state actors participating in malicious weather modification, but if we don't have a more serious regulatory framework to monitor this stuff, like how even would we know?

• 43:43Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh, uh huh. You know, another thing, I mean, has, have any major news outlets reached out to you for a statement to come on the news, anything?

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, so I was on Fox.

• 43:58Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Two days ago, I was on CNN last night. I was on a handful of other programs. Interestingly enough,

• 44:09Speaker 03

  You know, it's funny, uh, because we'll get some group, be it mainstream media or some sort of new media or some sort of written piece to lay out the facts and outline, uh, you know, what's true and what's not. And I wonder if like going on mainstream media like Fox and CNN actually hurt my case because people just said like, well, don't trust them either. This is clearly an op. Um, maybe it's better for the general public and sentiment, but, uh, I'm grateful that we had the opportunity to talk to them. In a certain sense, there's almost like, yeah, to your point, like nobody trusts anybody anymore. So I'm not exactly sure what to do other than continue to publish this information that that would make it trustworthy.

• 44:54Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think, I mean, it's a, it's,

• 44:58Shawn Ryan?

  how do I say this? I mean, it's, it's a, I mean, it's just a, it's a, it's a technology that people know little to nothing about. And, you know, and we're seeing all these crazy things happen like the wildfires in California, the wildfires in, in, in Hawaii and the, you know, the flood that just happened and Hurricane Helene. And I mean, it's just,

• 45:24Shawn Ryan?

  for whatever reason, you know, it's, this stuff seems relatively new and

• 45:38Shawn Ryan?

  getting the info out there like you're doing, I mean, it's, it's going to take a lot of education to build any trust at all. And, uh, so, I mean,

• 45:52Shawn Ryan?

  I think you're being, I feel like you're being as transparent as you possibly can be and, and, and it like I've scrolled through your, your ex account and it's, it does seem like you're trying to answer every single question. And, but you know, by going on the media and I think, I think you're just going to have to continue doing that, you know, to, to,

• 46:15Shawn Ryan?

  to educate, you know, and, and get other parties doing it, but.

• 46:21Shawn Ryan?

  Man, man.

• 46:25Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 46:27Shawn Ryan?

  I guess I appreciate you coming. Like I said, I just wanted to hear your piece. We literally just did that interview, what, a couple of weeks before this happened and and I had expressed that in the interview. I was like, this is what everybody's worried about. You know, and then it happened and, and um. Yeah, so, so I want to offer you the opportunity here. You're a new Christian, right?

• 46:52Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 46:53Shawn Ryan?

  I'm gonna offer you the opportunity to lead us in prayer for for the families and the kids that are going through this hardship in Texas.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 47:01Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  Heavenly Father.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  We're praying for the families in Texas, for the children affected, for the children that are with you now. For the consolation of all the families that have lost. For the first responders and rescue workers that have seen so much and been through so much and have sacrificed so much to save lives when they could. Lord, we're praying for safety and peace. We're praying that natural disasters don't befall the people of Texas like this again or anymore, or anybody else in the world. Would you help to make us resilient in this time so that

• 47:50Speaker 03

  we can stick through the difficulties that come when tragedy strikes? We're praying for communities to rise up together so that they might be able to help one another, their brothers and sisters and you.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  When they do lose, for all of those, not just the first responders, but for all of those people in government that have tried to help, for all of the families that have made food trains and that have donated and that have tried to participate in the relief, we thank you. Would you please provide us peace and resolve? Would you help us to be true and kind and generous to our neighbors in this time? And would you help for us to get closer to you in the depths of this difficulty? So that we might build a world and a country and communities that better resemble the kingdom that you desire that we live in. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

• 48:43Shawn Ryan?

  Amen. Well said.

• 48:47Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Augustus. Well, I appreciate you making the trip out here and giving us your piece and educating us on, you know, your side of what happened. And thank you. And just one last thing, I just want to reiterate that donation link to help the families and the tragedy that's happened down there, the link's in the description. And, you know, I'd hope that, I hope this episode gets a lot of money to the people that need it to rebuild their families and their homes and just all the tragic events that have happened down there. So, please donate. People need your help. Thank you, Sean. All right.