Confessing Evangelical

The King of Thailand has been having a busy week. Fresh from celebrating his 60th anniversary on the throne, King Bhumibol Adulyadej has now been granted a European patent for "weather modification by royal rainmaking technology"

The method claimed by the patent involves the use of chemicals to "trigger", "fatten", "move", "attack" and "enhance" rain and clouds, and the patent also includes details of the traditional background to this method:

The patent application documents the more traditional methods of rain generation in the area. "In the old days, people in this North-East region cleverly launched a firework to function as a traditional cloud seeding device to cause chemical burning underneath the cloud resulting in rainfall. They had to carefully observe behaviour of the frogs in the locality as it is well-known that frogs are animal able to indicate the possibility of rainfall," it says.

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The modern method is, the patent claims, more reliable. "The 'Royal Rainmaking Technology' is therefore developed to make rain to fall onto a target area successfully by applying this invented technology and using aircraft," it says. "This technology provides sufficient fresh water supplies which may otherwise rapidly become inadequate to serve a growing water demand in each part of the country."

The full text of the patent can be found here.

His Majesty has clearly set the pace for his fellow royals. Time for our own dear Queen to come up with a patented cure for scrofula, perhaps?