In a remote area of Alaska, the US Air Force and Navy have been building what they describe as an auroral research project, involving large amounts of RF energy beamed up into the Ionosphere from a vast array of antennas. But many scientists, environmentalists and people living in nearby areas have become concerned about the project and begun to question what it's really designed to explore...

Deep within the forests of Alaska lies an antenna farm which looks more like the farm where they grow Hills Hoists. Imagine a flat block of land, covered in gravel, 305 by 366 metres. Within this plot stand 180 towers each 22 metres high, on a 12m by 15m grid, spaced 25 metres apart.

At the top of each tower, one above the other, are two sets of crossed dipoles - one pair covering 2.5 to 7MHz, and the other covering 7 to 10MHz. The whole works rises above a ground screen covering the entire area, mounted 4-1/2 metres above the ground.

Beneath the ground screen are 30 evenly spaced transmitter huts. Each hut contains six pairs of 10-kilowatt transmitters which feed six of the towers. The total RF power output when everything is running is 3.6 megawatts. And this is only the small model...

This is ground zero for Project HAARP: 'High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project'. Although described as being a purely scientific research facility, the project is a joint effort between the US Air Force and the US Navy. The official description of the transmitter/antenna array is 'Ionospheric Research Instrument', or IRI. Official HAARP documents explain that the military is involved because they use communications that are affected by the ionosphere, so they want to find out as much as they can about it.

As technically savvy readers have probably deduced by now, the purpose of the crossed-dipole array over a ground plane is to beam lots of RF energy straight up, into the ionosphere. But more importantly, by varying the phase and amplitude of transmitter output into the various dipoles, it is possible to focus the beam and shift it in any direction - almost down to the horizon.

Thus, there are some very tight specifications on the transmitters: Each must produce a spectrally pure signal that is controllable over a 60dB range, from 10kW down to 10 milliwatts. According to HAARP documents the design employs two 4CXI0,000 tubes connected in push-pull, and it operates in class AB for a high degree of linearity. Harmonics must be at least 80dB below the fundamental, and above 45MHz all spurious signals must be at least 120dB down. Between 88 and 200MHz, the spec rises to 150dB. That's one clean transmitter!

For low power operation, the output stage can be bypassed and the antenna fed directly from the solid state 1kW amplifier that normally acts as the driver stage for the final amplifier. The transmitter low power input circuitry contains a digitally controlled phase shifter which permits each transmitter in the array to be set to a specific amplitude and phase, so as to produce an arbitrarily shaped antenna beam.

HAARP public relations material says the purpose of the IRI is to 'stimulate small localized regions of the ionosphere, to study in detail what nature produces at random'.

HAARP is not alone in this idea to tickle the ionosphere. Similar, smaller sites have been built near Fairbanks, Alaska; in Puerto Rico; and places like Norway, Peru, and Russia. HAARP differs from earlier sites in that its RF beam is steerable, it has wide frequency coverage, and it runs a much higher effective radiated power (ERP).

HAARP's power level of 3.6MW should give the ionosphere a pretty good jolt, but you ain't seen nothin' yet. According to people who have sighted HAARP internal documents, it's planned to expand the project until it can produce a beam of 1700MW -1.7gigawatts. Just to get this into perspective: even if the IRI is 66% efficient, it would take more than the total output of every dam in the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission (2509MW) just to power it.

According to one account, an abundance of electric power might have been the spark that got HAARP rolling. The prime contractor on the HAARP project is ARCO Power Technologies, a subsidiary of the ARCO oil company. It's said that ARCO's involvement was initially to find a use for 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves on the North Slope of Alaska. Since delivering the gas to US consumers was financially unfeasible, why not use the immense reserves to power enormous radio transmitters?

A scientist working with ARCO Power Technologies, Bemard Eastlund, picked up the idea and eventually took out some patents. These patents resulted in a Defense Department sponsored research project called 'Alaska North Slope Electric Missile Shield'. And thus was born Project HAARP. Or so the story goes. Another account says Alaska was chosen because the earth's magnetic lines of force intersect the earth there...

The basic thrust of Eastlund's work was that powerful radio beams could turn a portion of the ionosphere into a reflector or lens, which could be used to redirect energy in any direction. One of his ideas was a 'full global shield' which could explode enemy missiles before they could cause any damage. HAARP does not acknowledge any involvement of Bemard Eastlund.

Opposition mounts

Many people are wary of attempts to modify the ionosphere, both from a safety standpoint and from fear of possible nefarious uses of the technique. There is a massive 'NO HAARP' campaign amongst university students in Alaska. And it's important to note the connections of some of the primary objectors.

Alaskan researcher Dr Nick Begich is the name most often associated with the anti-HAARP movement. He is co-author of a book called ‘Angels Don't Play this HAARP". Dr Ross Adey has done work for the Brain Research Institute at the University of California, into the physiological effects of electromagnetic fields on tissue. Dr Patrick Flanagan has developed ways to produce useful input to the human body by direct electrical stimulation of the skin. And there are frequent references to the magazine Microwave News, published by Dr Louis Slesin.

Electronics Australia readers will recognize some of these names - they appeared in earlier articles on possible health dangers of EM fields, and links between cellular telephones and cancer. The issue here is much the same, although on a vastly bigger scale. Watts versus gigawatts.

HAARP originated amidst considerable secrecy, but as opposition to the project grew, the project developed an open-door policy to try to allay public suspicion. Now they have a comprehensive Intemet web site at http://w3.nrl.navy.mil/projects/haarp/index.html, filled with technical information, updates, fact sheets, and lots of photos.

However, it was necessary to employ the Freedom of Information act to shake loose other HAARP documents from a reluctant US Government. Among them is a Joint Services Planning Document issued by the Air Force and Office of Naval Research. It says HAARP's uses include 'providing communication to deeply submerged submarines, geophysical probing, controlling properties of radio waves, and generating mirrors which can be exploited for long-range, over-the horizon surveillance purposes, including the detection of cruise missiles'.

These aims seem to extend somewhat beyond the realm of pure scientific research, so perhaps we should look in detail at some of the (alleged) uses of HAARP. Most of it centres upon HAARP's ability to generate ionospheric lenses or reflectors of around 50km in diameter. These appear to be more than mere pie-in-the-sky ideas. Much of the material that follows is a result of the Freedom of Information act; other documents come from sources we'd rather not know about.

Communications

We all know that the ionosphere plays a vital role in world-wide communications, especially via shortwave. The ionosphere can reflect radio waves; other times it's transparent and radio signals pass right through into space. HAARP will be able to manipulate the ionosphere so as to make it reflective or transparent, in places chosen by HAARP's operators.

This means, in time of war, the government can enhance its own communications while screwing up the communications of the enemy. It may even be possible to cause an artificially-generated ionospheric lens to act as an extremely low frequency antenna. If you then modulate the energy which sustains the ionospheric lens, information can be transferred to submarines cruising deep underwater. Goodbye Northwest Cape!

Should your enemy be employing a satellite for surveillance or communications, it should be a simple matter to slide an ionospheric reflector between the satellite and its ground station, blocking the signals.

Radar

Once an ionospheric reflector is established, you can pulse the energy that sustains it, checking between pulses to see what echoes come back. If the reflector is established at a low angle, far from the HAARP transnfitting site, you have a very handy over-the-horizon radar.

Keeping in mind HAARP's lowest operating frequency, it should be possible for the RF pulses reflected from the ionosphere to penetrate below the ground, allowing the radar to probe for secret underground military installations. As this is being written, there is a standoff between the US Government and Iraq over Iraq's refusal to allow United Nations inspectors access to certain weapons storage facilities. If HAARP were operating today in its full configuration, the problem would perhaps be solved, at least from the US Govemment's point of view.

EMP weapon

Electromagnetic pulses (EMPS) have long been known as a side-effect of nuclear explosions. The energy released from the nuke manifests itself in the RF spectrum, as well as in the heat and light spectra. An EMP can do terrible damage to electronic equipment, especially that using solid-state devices. It's just like static discharge - only much, much worse. One good dose of EMP can zap an army's communications system, and all its computers, in an instant.

Valves can tolerate these short-term overloads, so it's common for modem military communications equipment to continue to use valves - to survive EMP. Russia is particularly keen on this idea, so there's still a thriving valve manufacturing industry in that country. Which explains why so many valves in guitar amplifiers are Russian-made...

If HAARP's ultimate 1.7GW rating is continuous power, then it should be possible to pulse the transmitter to much higher levels, for a brief instant. This would generate an EMP, on a scale similar to the nuclear bomb effect, which could be delivered to any target desired depending on phase and amplitude settings at the HAARP facility.

If the target were a major city, you could destroy its mains power distribution system and its communications system, and all its computers, while causing little damage to buildings or human life. (People may be briefly stunned by the EMP.) But the city's economic infrastructure would be in ruins. This may sound like an extreme thing to do, but it's certainly preferable to dropping a nuke on them instead. So we're getting into the realm of non-lethal weapons here (see EA July 1996).

It's interesting to note that the Air Force involvement in HAARP is directed from the Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. During a recent visit to Kirtland I happened upon an interesting structure of wires and towers, identified by a sign as an 'EMP Simulator' (see photo). Could this thing have been a ‘mini' version of HAARP?

Weather changes?

The Earth’s weather is primarily driven by pressure changes, which are in turn related to temperature changes in the air and in the sea. Lately we've been seeing some truly dramatic weather phenomena due to El Nino - torrential rain devastating California and Florida; vicious drought in Australia. These weather effects are primarily due to a small but significant increase in the sea temperature off South America.

If it were possible to modify atmospheric temperature by cooking it with HAARP, it could very well have an effect similar to changes in sea temperature. So a governfnent could produce do-it-yourself El Ninos anywhere it wanted. As with the EMP weapon, you could devastate an enemy's economy while causing little damage to human life.

Power transmission

The HAARP project seems to employ a lot of the technology developed originally by Nikola Tesla (see EA December 1995), namely the generation of enormous amounts of electromagnetic power to make things happen at a distance. One of Tesia's dreams was to transmit AC power from one place to another without wires. He did so successfully almost 100 years ago, powering lights in a house many miles away from a transmitting station in Colorado Springs.

One interesting experiment, allegedly perfomied by ARCO Power Technologies, used HAARP-style transmitters to power an electrically driven remote-controlled surveillance aircraft. It's claimed that sufficient power was transferred to keep the aircraft flying for 10,000 hours at an altitude of 80,000 feet.

Mind control

This is probably the most frightening of all alleged HAARP plans. Research has shown that it is possible to use RF fields to interfere with brain waves and physiological processes in the brain. Back in the 1960's, researcher Dr Jose Delgado was able to stop a charging bull in its tracks by sending signals to electrodes implanted in the bull's brain. Delgado proved that the bull's aggressive instincts could be thwarted by electronically manipulating the animal's reflexes.

Several years later Dr Delgado demonstrated that the behaviour of monkeys could be altered by subjecting them to pulsing magnetic fields. This time there were no antenna implants; mind control was direct.

More recently, Dr Ross Adey has been at the forefront of this research - his work has been primarily with microwave frequencies. He has shown that reaction in the brain is dependent on the frequency, amplitude and dose of the radiation used.

In a landmark experiment during the 1980s, Dr Adey modulated microwave carrier waves with extremely low frequency (ELF) signals to modify brain tissue responses. He worked with cat brain tissue, showing that the binding of calcium ions to neuron sites was affected by weak EM fields. The frequency and amplitude of the fields was similar to that of brain waves as detected on an electroencephalograph (EEG).

Dr Adey demonstrated how a 147MHz field, with an intensity of 0.8 milliwatts per square centimeter, caused a release of calcium ions from this irradiated brain tissue. The response only occurred when the ELF modulation of the microwave carrier wave was amplitude modulated at 6-20Hz. Maximum stimulation of the neurons took place at 16Hz.

Dr Adey's work showed that it is possible to modify brain function with electric fields, by modulating the fields at frequencies similar to natural brain waves. His work was done over a distance of centimetres, but HAARP's power level, modulated with the appropriate ELF frequency, could work worldwide.

By varying the modulation frequency, it could be possible to control a person's brain waves. After all, if it is possible to receive brain waves via an EEG, it should be possible to transmit them as well. According to some documents that have surfaced, the primary use of mind control would be to 'tranquilize' human populations.

A turn of a switch could cause a marauding army to lose interest in fighting. More importantly, if a government directed HAARP at its own citizens, it could cause them to become totally content and docile instead of questioning the wisdom of government actions.

Should the government choose to test this facet of HAARP, the nearest American population other than in Alaska itself is on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, home of the author of this article. Perhaps they can make me stop writing about stuff like this, with one simple zap...

It appears that the Russians have already been using this kind of technology for realworld purposes. They have a gadget called the Lida machine, which transmits low-energy radio waves modulated between 0 and 100HZ. Lidas have been used for years to tranquilize psychiatric patients without physical contact.

Another Russian device, intimately familiar to Australian radio amateurs, is (or was) the Woodpecker. This powerful radio transmitter pounded out pulses, 10 every second - bang-bang-bang-bang. The Woodpecker could totally disrupt a radio conversation. Eventually radio manufacturers started producing receivers with special 'Woodpecker Filters'. The Woodpecker is now silent, its work apparently finished.

The US Department of Defense says the Woodpecker was an over-the-horizon radar designed to track American missile launches. But many scientists feel that the Woodpecker's real purpose was to experiment with modifying human brain function.

HAARP's dangers

Much of the objection to HAARP, in Alaska at least, is on environmental grounds. It's feared that HAARP will affect anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies.

Although most of HAARP's radiation will be at high angles, there are still side-lobes to consider. At 3.6MW they could be considerable, and at the full 1700MW, there would be hot RF floating all over the place. People working on HAARP will be protected because they will be beneath the ground screen - there are even roads under it so they can drive from one transmitter hut to another with little RF exposure.

But outside the HAARP compound there is no shielding, and studies have linked electromagnetic exposure to a range of health problems including fatigue, irritability, sleepiness, memory loss, cataracts, leukemia, birth defects and cancer. Electromagnetic radiation can also alter blood sugar and cholesterol levels, heart rate and blood pressure, brain waves and brain chemistry.

Most closely affected are the Inupiat Indians, who live nearby. In 1993, Inupiat tribal advisor Charles Etok Edwardsen wrote to the White House: 'Many of us are not happy with the prospect of ARCO altering the Earth's neutral atmospheric properties. We do not wish to be anyone's testing grounds, as the Bikini Islanders have been...', referring to Pacific Islanders subjected to radiation exposure from US atomic bomb testing. Edwardsen has appealed to President Clinton to deny further funding to HAARP.

Humans aren't the only ones affected. Wildlife can suffer the same physiological effects. Of particular concern are birds which may fly over the HAARP complex while it is operating. At best they will become disoriented; at worst they will become barbecued. Human fliers - pilots - are also on the endangered list. It's feared their minds may become scrambled,- rendering them unable to control their aircraft. To avoid this, HAARP has installed a special aircraft detector that will kill the transmissions should an airplane approach too closely.

Beyond the range of physiological effects is the likelihood of interference to radio and TV. The HAARP people are sensitive to this, and they've installed a special telephone hotline so anyone who is having probleins from HAARP can complain.

But the most worrying potential dangers from HAARP concern what could happen when enormous amounts of RF energy are pumped into the ionosphere. One concern is that HAARP could blast a hole through the ozone layer which would never heal. This would open the door to powerful ultraviolet radiations reaching earth and causing skin cancers. We already worry about the depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica and the increased UV reaching southern Australia. Perhaps this will happen over North America - Canada - subjecting that country to hazards not of their own making.

Most dramatic of all is the possibility that HAARP could simply short-circuit the earth. There are fears that HAARP emissions, while very powerful themselves, could trigger something 1000 times again as powerful. This can be compared to the action in a transistor, where a small current into the base causes a much larger cuitent to flow in the collector. Should this happen in the ionosphere, if it all becomes suddenly conductive, the resulting current could cause the entire ionosphere to go up in one gigantic flash of lightning. And with it, the earth. All because some guy in Alaska pushed a button...

So ends a story of good news and bad news. If it is true that HAARP is only an innocent research facility, not a tool of war, then it could well deliver some really interesting data on how the atmosphere works by providing artificial stimulation and observing the results. If it is true that HAARP is a weapon in disguise, then the good news is that it will largely replace weapons of death and destruction with weapons of the non-lethal variety.

The bad news is that, if mind control works as planned, none of us may ever again be allowed to rant and rave and complain and knock the government or think for ourselves in any way. And the worst news is that the atmosphere may react in violent ways nobody ever though of, and blow us all to kingdom come. We shall observe Project HAARP with interest...