-Caveat Lector-
Mystery In Alaska by Mark Farmer
Popular Science Magazine September 1995
At a remote facility ringed with barbed wire, a brand new
array of 36 antennas rises from the black spruce forest that
stretches hundreds of miles across Alaska. Completed in
December 1994 and now undergoing testing, the antenna field
is the visible part of a powerful and sophisticated
high-frequency radio transmitter designed to transform areas
of the upper atmosphere into the equivalent of huge lenses,
mirrors, and antennas.
This little known Pentagon sponsored radio physics
project, called the High Frequency Active Auroral Research
Program (HAARP) is officially intended to expand knowledge
about the nature of long range radio communications and
surveillance using the fluctuating ionosphere (See "Way up
in the Ionosphere"), the portion of the upper atmosphere
extending from 35 miles to 500 miles above the Earth's
surface.
According to program manager John L Hecksher of the
Phillips Laboratory at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, potential
military applications of the HAARP research include
developing Department of Defense for detecting cruise
missiles and communicating with submarines. "Although HAARP
is being managed by the Air Force and Navy, it is a purely
scientific research facility that poses no threat to
potential adversaries and has no value as a military
target," he says.
But thats just the publicly announced part of the
program. HAARP also has a secret agenda: pursuing more
exotic military goals, such as locating deeply buried
weapons factories thousands of miles away--AND EVEN ALTERING
THE LOCAL WEATHER ABOVE AN ENEMIES TERRITORY.
A 1990 internal document obtained by Popular Science
says the programs overall goals is to "Control ionospheric
processes in such a way as to greatly improve performance of
military command, CONTROL, and communications systems." It
provides a description of the following applications:
* Injecting high frequency radio energy into the ionosphere
to create huge, extremely low frequency (ELF) virtual
antennas used for earth penetrating topography--peering deep
beneath the surface of the ground by collecting an analyzing
reflected ELF waves beamed down from above.
* Heating Regions of the lower and upper ionosphere to form
virtual "Lenses" and "Mirrors" that can reflect a broad
range of radio frequencies far over the horizon to detect
stealthy cruise missiles and aircraft.
* Generating ELF radio waves in the ionosphere to
communicate across large distances with deeply submerged
submarines.
And, patent documents filed during an earlier research
effort that evolved into the HAARP program outline further
military applications of ionospheric-heating technology:
* Creating a "Full Global Shield" that would destroy
ballistic missiles by overheating their electronic guidance
systems as they fly through a powerful radio-energy field.
* Distinguishing nuclear warheads from decoys by sensing
their elemental composition.
* MANIPULATING LOCAL WEATHER.
When the HAARP facility is fully constructed, it will
include several sensing and analysis systems. At its heart
is the antenna field, which now (1995) is a demonstration
version of a larger planned array named the Ionospheric
Research Instrument (IRI) which will include 360 antennas.
The IRI is designed to temporarily modify 30 mile diameter
patches of the upper atmosphere by exciting, or heating
their constituent electrons and ions with focused beans of
powerful radio energy. A household analogy would be a
microwave oven, which heats food by exciting its water
molecules with microwave energy.
(Snip)
Virtual lenses and mirrors will be generated in the
ionosphere, if the IRI works as intended (1995). By
precisely warming a patch of the lower ionosphere, the IRI
reduces its density relative to the surrounding atmosphere.
An "Ionospheric Lense" thus formed can in turn focus a radio
beam into the upper ionosphere. Normally, most high
frequency radio waves broadcast from the ground are absorbed
or scattered in the lower ionosphere, and few of them reach
such high altitudes.
Next the focused radio beam excites a patch of the
upper ionosphere to form a virtual mirror. Finally, a radio
communication signal broadcast by the IRI, focused through
the lens and reflected from the mirror can be directed far
over the horizon.
(Snip)
Proprietary phased-array (Local Arrays) transmitting,
steering, and pulsing techniques built into the IRI will
permit rapid aiming of the radio frequency beam in any
direction, and at angles as low as 30 degrees above the
horizon. This "Oblique Heating" ability enables HAARP to
form virtual lenses and mirrors at distances of more than
1000 miles from the transmitter.
(Snip)
The full Global Shield is an exotic proposal for an Earth
encompassing shell of high speed electrons and ions that
would be generated by a much more powerful version of
HAARP. Any Missile or Warhead
