HAARP: Weather Weapon or Radio Research?

The Story

Beside a highway in eastern Alaska, near the small community of Gakona, rows of metal antennas stand on a gravel pad. This is HAARP, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program. According to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which runs it, the array is 'a phased array of 180 HF crossed-dipole antennas spread across 33 acres and capable of radiating 3.6 megawatts into the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.'

The program 'began in 1990 as a congressional initiative.' Between 1990 and 2014 it was managed jointly by the Air Force and Navy, with research aimed partly at improving 'communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes.' Construction began in 1993, and the full 180-antenna array was finished in 2007. In August 2015 the military transferred the research equipment to the university.

'The HAARP system is basically a large radio transmitter.'

What HAARP does is heat small regions of the ionosphere, the electrically charged layer that 'starts at about 60 to 80 km altitude,' and then measure what happens. The university says this lets scientists study effects 'similar to the kinds of interactions that happen in nature' on their own schedule instead of waiting for nature.

A military-funded antenna farm in the Alaskan wilderness, beaming energy into the sky, was always going to attract suspicion. Over the years it has been blamed for hurricanes, earthquakes, mind control and chemtrails.

The university answers these one by one on its website. Can HAARP control the weather? 'No.' Its radio waves 'are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere—the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth's weather. Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather.' And 'if the ionospheric storms caused by the sun itself don't affect the surface weather, there is no chance that HAARP can either.' Mind control? 'No.' Chemtrails? 'No.' HAARP 'has no capability to release gases or liquids.'

The effects it does produce are fleeting. Because the ionosphere is constantly churned by the sun, the university says, artificial effects 'are no longer detectable after times ranging from less than a second to 10 minutes.' One of its scientists compared HAARP to putting an 'immersion heater in the Yukon River.'

Nor is it secret. 'No, HAARP is not classified,' the university says. Its environmental impact documents are public, its research is published in scientific journals, and once a year it holds an open house 'when anyone is welcome to visit the site.' In its own words, 'The HAARP system is basically a large radio transmitter.'