Who is starting this weather machine bullshit and why are some of my family members believing this? Why is it so hard for people to identify when they are being lied to?

It popped up during the Obama era with HAARP, a scientific research station in Alaska that monitors the ionosphere. Wingnuts claimed it was a weather control machine; they claimed the increase in disastrous weather wasn’t because of global warming, but because HAARP was causing storms so Democrats could take over and institute Full Communism.

It disappeared from the right wing zeitgeist for a while, but recently got revived by Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Anything to pretend their own actions aren’t at fault.

I just want to add that the HAARP conspiracy theories are way older. i read about it mid of the 90s. Already back then it was a weather control machine / earthquake generator / mind control device / magnetic pole flipper.