Jet Lag

Aajonus described the aircraft air system as fundamentally flawed in design. He explained that in commercial jet aircraft, the air supply to the passenger cabin is drawn through or past the engines before being circulated to passengers. This means that fuel exhaust byproducts, including benzene and carbon monoxide, enter the cabin continuously during flight. He noted that you can smell the benzene when a plane is backing away from the gate, and that because the air is continuously recirculated through the same compromised system, the contamination remains present throughout the entire duration of the flight.

He described discovering an Australian union lawsuit that gave him confirmation of what he had suspected. Flight attendants' and pilots' unions in Australia were suing every airline operating flights, regardless of the airline's country of origin, on the grounds that the aircraft were all designed with this fundamental flaw: fuel exhaust routed back into the cabin air supply. The airlines denied it. The unions hired biological detectives who went onto the planes and took swabs from all areas of the air compartments. What they found, in his words, was "heavy, heavy jet fuel, fumes, byproducts" coating everything. He described it as thick, with a major accumulation occurring with every flight, adhering to all surfaces in the air compartments. The lawsuit was in progress at the time he discussed it.

He noted that among American flight attendants and pilots he spoke with, almost none of them had heard about this lawsuit, yet they were experiencing the same cluster of symptoms he had experienced: fatigue, neck aches, headaches, and swollen feet and legs. The most severe cases involved flight attendants and pilots who had been exposed to heavy monoxide events from oil drippage, which he said could permanently damage the nervous system. He estimated this catastrophic level of exposure happened on roughly twenty flights per year out of hundreds of thousands, which he acknowledged was not a high proportion, but pointed out that someone like himself who was on three to four flights per week was exposed to the chronic lower-level benzene accumulation continuously.

Aajonus wore a mask every time he was on a plane, and he was specific about the type. He did not use a standard surgical mask. He described initially obtaining a thick cotton mask in China, and later described having a cotton mask made in Vietnam, the kind worn by people on motor scooters and motorbikes throughout Southeast Asia. He demonstrated folding an organic cotton handkerchief as an additional layer. He described the mask as having twelve layers of filtration.

He wore the mask throughout the entire time on the plane. He said that when he consistently wore the mask, the neck ache and leg swelling that he had previously experienced after flights went away. He continued to have some knee aching, which he attributed to electromagnetic fields rather than the air quality issue, and which the mask did not address.

Aajonus brought a Trifield meter with him on flights after a flight to Asia left him, in his words, "a nervous freaking wreck" by the time he arrived. When he measured the electromagnetic field levels with the meter, he found that from the cockpit extending through the business class section, the EMF reading was 35 to 55 milligauss. At the very back of the plane, the reading dropped to 3 to 5 milligauss, and while the plane was in flight, it dropped further to approximately 3 milligauss.

He explained the source of these high fields as the cockpit instrumentation. The cockpit EMF level was anywhere from 135 to 200 milligauss. He attributed this to capacitors, which he said produce a high electromagnetic discharge that radiates back through the plane. He contrasted capacitors with transistors, which he said would produce far lower fields and could be substituted for approximately 50 cents more per computer, but were not used because, in his view, the industry had no interest in reducing EMF exposure.

He gave specific seating advice based on engine placement. If the engines are on the wings, the EMF from the cockpit travels back through the fuselage and the engines on the wings add to the field in the front and middle sections, so the correct seat is at the back of the plane. If the engines are on the tail, the cockpit field extends back but the engine field originates from the rear, so the correct position is several rows before and at the wings. This advice was consistent with what he published in newsletter form, which stated: "In airplanes with jet engines on wings, EMFs are extremely high all the way from the cockpits through the business sections; it is best to sit in rear of those planes. If engines are on tails of planes, it is best to sit several rows before and at wings."

He used the high pilot hour limits being progressively reduced as evidence of the recognized danger. He noted that pilots are permitted only 36 hours of flight per week, or less, and that the allowable hours kept dropping, which he interpreted as an implicit acknowledgment of the biological harm caused by the high cockpit EMF exposure, even if that acknowledgment was never made explicit by industry or regulators.

Aajonus described using long-haul flights as one of the few occasions when he could sleep for extended periods. He said that he trained himself to wear the mask while sleeping and that he would attempt to fall asleep as soon as possible after takeoff. He mentioned waiting until the aircraft reached 10,000 feet so he could remove his seatbelt, because he did not want the metal buckle pulling electromagnetic radiation into his body. He noted that sometimes he fell asleep before reaching that altitude and did not wake until the plane was about to land, even on ten-hour flights. He described arriving at destinations more refreshed than most travelers because he had slept through the flight and, wearing the mask, had not absorbed the benzene and exhaust.

He also mentioned that solar radiation experienced at altitude was not a concern in his framework. He described direct sun radiation at altitude as "not damaging" but "healthy and vitalizing," consistent with his broader position on sunlight.

Aajonus traveled to Asia regularly, including flights to China, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia. He described Australia as requiring potentially five separate flights if he wanted to minimize total travel time, routing through Singapore with layovers but cutting the journey to approximately twenty hours instead of forty-eight to fifty hours.

For food on long international flights, particularly to Asia, he described working with airline supervisors rather than TSA alone. He specifically described China Airlines and Japan Airlines as responsive to this approach. He would explain his dietary needs to a supervisor, who would arrange for the food to be hand-checked, then handed personally to a dock worker or loader who would deliver it to the plane and then give it to Aajonus on board. He described one China Airlines supervisor who accompanied him through to TSA and insisted, citing a doctor's note stating that the food was medicine, that every item be hand-checked. He said that applying pressure to the airline first gave better odds of getting through TSA.

For flights to countries with fever screening on arrival, particularly Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Japan, he described carrying an ice pack and applying it to his neck before disembarking so that he would not register a fever on the thermal cameras in the airports.

Aajonus traveled with substantial quantities of raw food and described the airport process in detail. He went through security without using body scanners, always opting out, and went early enough to allow time for thorough hand inspection of his food. He noted that he went approximately three hours ahead of time for international flights because it could take an hour to get through TSA with full hand inspection of all his food items.

He described different airports as having very different approaches. Some would simply look at the food and pass it through. Atlanta, he said, was particularly thorough: they would open everything, ask what it was, look at it, smell it, and had once asked him to drink some of his juice, to which he responded that opening it would make a mess they would have to deal with, which caused the agent to put it down without opening it.

He described a specific technique for minimizing X-ray exposure for food he had to send through the machine. He put the food through separately, leaving a gap of at least two and a half feet between his food bag and anything in front of it, and another gap behind it before sending the next item. His reasoning was that a bag being scrutinized by the machine gets exposed for a much longer time than one that passes through cleanly, and if his food bag was adjacent to a bag being held, it would also receive extended exposure. By isolating it, he minimized the duration of radiation exposure. He noted that food is largely transparent to X-ray and moves through quickly when there is nothing to see.

He described traveling with two quarts of milk at a time, large glass jars of butter (two-cup jars), glass jars of meat (two-cup jars with approximately eight ounces of meat), and approximately eight ounces of honey, noting he could usually obtain honey wherever he traveled. He kept butter wrapped in a towel inside his bag to maintain warmth, as he preferred not to refrigerate butter and noted it could remain unrefrigerated for up to two weeks, though he preferred glass containers over plastic for extended unrefrigerated storage.

For a doctor's note supporting the need to bring food as medicine, he described having patients obtain letters stating specific medical conditions requiring the food, and he noted the note was effective for as long as four months per letter. He described renewing the letter by email when planning the next trip.

He described his traveling food protocol in explicit terms. He always carried a minimum of enough meat to last thirty-six hours, which he considered enough time to reach a store in any destination. His standard travel quantities for every fourteen days of travel were two and a half pounds of no-salt-added raw cheese, one quart of unheated honey, and three pounds of unsalted raw butter. He did not drink vegetable juices during trips and substituted by eating many tomatoes, drinking coconut milk, chewing celery and expectorating the pulp, consuming one grapefruit per day, or eating other low-carbohydrate fruits.

He ate nothing provided by airlines. He described his approach to airline staff: on shorter flights within the United States, he would simply bring everything himself. For some international flights, he worked with supervisors as described above.

Aajonus described adopting significant security precautions during travel after he believed he had been targeted. He stopped using his credit card while traveling, stopped using his cell phone, and would sometimes buy a ticket for one flight and then take a different one. He described not wanting his travel itinerary to be known in advance by anyone who might use that information against him.

In hotel rooms, he used motion detectors (he said he had two), placed a chair under the door if there was no deadbolt, and put bottles on the floor near the door so that anyone entering would knock them over. He was explicit that this was because "they mean business."

For entering countries with fever screening, he carried an ice pack to apply to his neck before walking through the thermal cameras, as described above.

For someone who had been significantly exposed to benzene from flying without a mask, or who lived in a tropical area and needed to clear their system, Aajonus described eating large quantities of eggs: approximately twenty eggs per day, half a cup of meat twice a day, and large amounts of cheese, with cheese described as the primary food emphasis. He said this protocol should be followed for approximately three months to help the body recover from benzene-related nervous system damage.

For people living in foreign countries who could not obtain raw foods locally, Aajonus described families shipping raw cheese and butter in twenty-pound quantities. He cited examples of people in Aruba and the Philippines receiving shipments from their families. He noted that of his typical raw foods, cheese was the most practical to ship internationally, but that butter could also be shipped. He suggested that if someone was not getting good local food, receiving cheese, butter, and honey by shipment would at minimum build their system.

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