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Conspiracy file · Since 1993

H.A.A.R.P.

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program: a field of 180 antennas near Gakona, Alaska, built by the U.S. Air Force and Navy to study the ionosphere. Theorists say it can steer the weather, trigger earthquakes and broadcast into people's heads.

Also known as HAARP · High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program · Ionospheric Research Instrument · Gakona

On the recordTimelineFrom the comicsIn Paranoid American comicsSources & further reading

H.A.A.R.P., a panel from a Paranoid American comic
From Time Samplers #1

The story

HAARP is a research station near Gakona, Alaska. Its main instrument, the Ionospheric Research Instrument, is a grid of 180 antennas on 33 acres that can beam up to 3.6 megawatts of high-frequency radio energy into the ionosphere, the electrically charged upper layer of the atmosphere, and then measure what happens.

The program began in 1990, funded by the Air Force, the Navy, DARPA and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Construction started in 1993 and the full array was finished in 2007. The Air Force ended its experiments in 2014, and on August 11, 2015, the university took the site over. It now runs research campaigns and an annual open house.

A military antenna farm in the Alaskan wilderness was always going to draw attention. Bernard Eastlund's patents on heating the upper atmosphere, and Nick Begich and Jeane Manning's 1995 book Angels Don't Play This HAARP, made it a conspiracy landmark. It has been blamed for storms, earthquakes and mind control. The university's FAQ answers the big ones in one word each: no weather control, no mind control.

Memorandum for the recordSubject: H.A.A.R.P.

On the record

  1. HAARP began in 1990, jointly run by the U.S. Air Force and Navy; DARPA and the University of Alaska Fairbanks also helped fund it.
  2. Construction started in 1993 near Gakona, on land the Air Force had acquired for an over-the-horizon radar that was never built.
  3. The Ionospheric Research Instrument was completed in 2007: 180 crossed-dipole antennas on 33 acres, up to 3.6 megawatts, 2.7 to 10 MHz.
  4. In 1987 physicist Bernard Eastlund patented a "method and apparatus for altering a region in the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere, and/or magnetosphere" (U.S. Patent 4,686,605). He later claimed HAARP drew on his ideas.
  5. Responsibility for the site passed from the military to the University of Alaska Fairbanks on August 11, 2015.
  6. According to the university, HAARP's frequencies are not absorbed in the lower atmosphere where weather happens, so it cannot control the weather.

The theory

  • HAARP steers the weather, causing floods, droughts and hurricanes (Michel Chossudovsky and others).
  • It can trigger earthquakes; it has been blamed for disasters from Haiti to the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes.
  • It is a mind-control device that can beam signals into human brains (Nick Begich).
  • It is Tesla technology turned into a weapon that could knock out satellites (Bernard Eastlund) or make the sky "literally appear to burn" (Begich).

Timeline

  1. 1987Bernard Eastlund's patent on altering the ionosphere is granted
  2. 1990The Air Force and Navy start HAARP
  3. 1993Construction begins near Gakona, Alaska
  4. 1995Angels Don't Play This HAARP is published
  5. 1999A first 48-antenna array goes on the air
  6. 2007The full 180-antenna array is completed
  7. 2014The Air Force ends its experiments
  8. 2015The University of Alaska Fairbanks takes over (August 11)
  9. 2023HAARP is blamed online for the Turkey-Syria earthquakes

From the comics

Panels straight from the page. Click one to read it full size.

From Time Samplers #1: Escape from Jekyll Island · Pages 3-4

Silent weapons for quiet wars

HAARP Research Station, Gakona, Alaska. In the comic the antennas sync with a "V2K" satellite and turn a shopping mall into a frenzy: mind control by microwave, one Black Friday at a time. The real HAARP studies the ionosphere, and its operators say it can't control minds or the weather.

Silent weapons for quiet wars, 1 of 5
Silent weapons for quiet wars, 2 of 5
Silent weapons for quiet wars, 3 of 5
Silent weapons for quiet wars, 4 of 5 Silent weapons for quiet wars, 5 of 5
  1. Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars: a supposed 1979 "programming manual" for controlling the public through the economy, said to have been found in a surplus IBM copier in 1986. Bill Cooper reprinted it in Behold a Pale Horse (1991). Where it really came from has never been established.
  2. V2K, "voice to skull": an entry under nonlethal weapons in the U.S. Army's CALL thesaurus, for devices that transmit sound into the skull. The physics is real but modest: the microwave auditory effect, studied by Allan Frey from 1961, lets pulsed microwaves be heard as clicks and buzzes.

Get the evidence

In Paranoid American comics

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