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root. subtly changes the ionosphere, providing
No, Dumbasses, the Heckscher’s explanation, endlessly scientists on the ground with useful data that can
Government Doesn’t repeated by frustrated scientists and government support advancements in communications
officials over the past two decades, hasn’t technology. The Air Force transferred HAARP
Cause Hurricanes With Its stopped the conspiracy theorists from spreading to the University of Alaska in 2015.
their ideas. When billionaire technologist “It’s radio science, it’s ionosphere
Secret Weather Machine
Richard Branson tweeted that “man-made physics and chemistry and even space science,
climate change is a key factor in the intensity of since radio waves indeed go into space,” Paul
hurricanes,” one Twitter-user replied, “Man- Kossey, former HAARP director, told radio
The High Frequency Active Auroral made as In [sic] geo-engineered? I agree.” host—and noted conspiracy theorist—Alex
Research Program has been attracting The tweeter added the hashtag #HAARP, Jones in 2008.
the tinfoil-hat brigade for decades. joining a seemingly growing coterie of online It’s impossible for HAARP’s
Their newest notion? That HAARP is skeptics demanding the “truth” about the Alaska transmission to affect the weather. “Weather is
facility. formed lower in the atmosphere,” Mitchell told
behind the recent rash of hurricanes.
“HAARP may allow the military to The Daily Beast. “HAARP’s transmissions
modify and weaponize the weather, by don’t interact with that layer.” But conspiracy-
triggering earthquakes, floods and hurricane theorists conflate HAARP’s science mission
by David Axe [sic],” tweeted The Blow of Reality website, a with other government initiatives that actually
self-described purveyor of “public news that do influence the weather—albeit on a small
Internet conspiracy theorists are claiming that a matters the most.” scale and with debatable benefit.
former U.S. military ionospheric research The website promoted a Sept. 9 story by Since the 1940s, government agencies in
facility in Alaska is to blame for the back-to- YourNewsWire.com that seems to be a major the United States, Russia, China, and other
back hurricanes that have flooded Houston, accelerant of the current round of HAARP countries have routinely “seeded” clouds with
ravaged the Caribbean and Florida, and killed conspiracy theories. The YourNewWire story silver iodide, potassium iodide or solid carbon
scores of people. falsely claimed that physicist Dr. Michio Kaku dioxide, creating ice crystals that melt and
The conspiracy theorists believe the admitted that recent “‘man-made’ hurricanes produce rainfall, essentially on command.
High Frequency Active Auroral Research have been the result of a government weather- At least, that’s what the agencies hope will
Program site is a weather-altering weapon in modification program in which the skies were happen.
disguise. They claim that HAARP’s radio waves sprayed with nano particles and storms then In fact, “in more complex cloud systems
can somehow cause, or worsen, storms—and ‘activated’ through the use of ‘lasers.’” it is often difficult to determine a seeding effect
that the government is behind it all. (That is, The story is a fabrication. “Kaku never on a cloud-by-cloud basis,” according to the
when HAARP isn’t controlling minds, said that HAARP was responsible for American Meteorological Society. It’s possible
conducting long-range spying operations, or hurricanes,” fake-news-debunking website that seeding doesn’t actually generate more rain
threatening to “capsize” the planet.) Snopes explained. “YouTube videos espousing than an area might get on its own.
That, of course, is untrue. HAARP is a the conspiracy theory splice together The reality is, governments can’t control
science facility that’s no longer under military misinformation about HAARP with an interview the weather on the level of individual
control—and nothing that HAARP does has any Kaku did with CBS News in 2013 in which he hurricanes—but they certainly can make
bearing at all on the weather. talked about the possibility of governments one extreme weather worse by pumping carbon
“We’re well aware of the conspiracy day being able to cause rainfall using lasers and dioxide into the atmosphere and hastening
theory stuff,” Sue Mitchell, public information other means.” destabilizing climate change.
officer at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks’ What HAARP actually does is far less But climate change doesn’t have the
Geophysical Institute—which oversees frightening than what the truthers claim it does. same sci-fi vibe that HAARP does—and doesn’t
HAARP—told The Daily Beast. “I’ve been Built by the U.S. Air Force starting in 1993, the make for a very exciting narrative. So the
getting lots of telephone calls about why we’re 33-acre facility includes a high-frequency radio HAARP conspiracy theory could endure. “I feel
causing hurricanes.” transmitter composed of 180 crisscrossing bad about people believing that,” Mitchell said.
“The site itself is strictly a scientific antennae that transmit up to 3.6 megawatts of “I know they’re looking for someone to blame
research site,” former HAARP project manager power straight into the ionosphere, which for all this. But HAARP is completely incapable
John Heckscher told Canadian Broadcast extends from around 40 miles to around 300 of doing this any more than your AM radio
Corporation in 1996, around the time miles up. station in town.” []
misinformation about HAARP began taking The power HAARP sends into the sky