A puzzled witness to the “rain-making” process said: “The queerest look-
ing clouds you ever saw began to form soon after they got the thing rolling.” And
later the same witness said the scientists were able to change the course of the wind
by manipulation of the device.The growers who contacted Rangeley claimed that they were perfectly satisfied with
the results, and one man said if severe drought were to strike again, he would call on the
“rain makers” a second time. They paid the agreed-upon fee for the operation *.
Reich conducted other weather modification efforts over a broad area. By 1954 he
had several cloud-busters, and at least one functioning in the New York City area. In July of
that year there had been a severe drought in the Northeast. Notifying the Weather Bureau
of his intentions, Reich began the first of a series of drought-breaking operations. He was
successful in New York and also in several other operations.
In assessing Reich’s work in this field, there is always the problem of chance. As
James McDonald, a professor at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of
Arizona, commented: “The presence of natural variability in atmospheric events, which can-
not be controlled or suppressed, may lead to effects twice as great as the one [the researcher]
sought to induce experimentally.”^14
However much the need for caution in evaluating Reich’s weather work, the initial
results still remain impressive. He announced when he would engage in weather modifica-
tion and I know of no instance where he failed. Weather modification following Reich’s
principles and techniques has subsequently been carried out by several investigators with
positive results^15. Indeed, one of the first replications of Reich’s experimental work under
university auspices dealt with cloud-busting. In his master’s thesis on cloud-busting for the
Department of Geography/Meteorology, University of Kansas, James DeMeo noted that
his efforts were successful in decreasing clouds when the cloudbuster was used for that goal,
and in enhancing clouds when that was his intent.He concluded:“While a high degree of
statistical significance was not achieved in this preliminary study, the data and phenomena
observed do fit comfortably with a positive interpretation of the device’s efficacy.”^16
Despite these promising replications, with cloud-busting as with all of Reich’s nat-
26 : The Oranur Experiment: 1950-1953 353
*The blueberry cloud-busting was Reich’s first effort motivated in part by a desire for publicity; it was also the
first “contingency fee” he ever received. He thereby gave the appearance of joining an unsavory tradition of nine-
teenth- and early twentieth-century Americans who promised rain for drought-stricken farmers with a similar “cash
on delivery” agreement. None of these rainmaking forays was based on solid concepts or was replicable before
cloudseeding with dry ice was introduced in 1946. See Clark C. Spencer,The Rainmakers: America’s “Pluviculture” to
World War II(Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1980).
Other aspects ofReich’s work lent themselves to association with scandalous traditions, e.g., his “body therapy”
with the sexually arousing massages of some nineteenth-century hypnotists, his accumulator with quack cancer
cures. Throughout his scientific career, Reich took great pains to separate not only the content but also the tone of
his work from such misalliances; he scrupulously avoided advertising or any other kind of promotional activity.
However, by 1953, desperate in the face of growing opposition from the FDA and various professional organiza-
tions, he wanted to go straight to the public through dramatic, well-publicized achievements.