Interview: By Jaime Ortega.
“Author, journalist and broadcaster Nick Pope, who once ran the British Government’s UFO project and is now recognized as a leading authority on the unexplained, conspiracy theories and fringe science”.
Why is HAARP important for studying the Ionosphere? Is the US the only country to develop such technology and are they more HAARP’s?
In our increasingly connected world, communications are ever more important. Thus, anything that interferes with communications (e.g. natural phenomena or deliberate jamming) has a greater capacity to disrupt our lives than ever before. HAARP plays a crucial role in helping us understand the ionosphere, thus helping to ensure that communications are not disrupted. Outside the US, there’s a similar facility in Russia and another in Norway. But data is shared on a much wider basis, especially in the scientific community.
Some scientist claim HAARP could be used to instantaneously paralyze and take down an aircraft flying, Is this true or false?
It’s completely false. Clearly there are lasers and directed energy weapons being developed around the world, but this has nothing to do with HAARP.
Many people (some conspiracist ) are concerned about HAARP’s capabilities. Out of all you heard what is the most credible one, if any is factually true?
There are several different (and mutually-contradictory) conspiracy theories about HAARP, covering areas that include death rays, weather weapons and mind control. On the basis that HAARP causes slight ionospheric warming I suppose that the weather weapon conspiracy theory has a very slight factual basis, but it’s pretty tenuous.
Clearly some degree of weather modification is possible (the cloud-seeding that was done as part of Operation Popeye is a good example), but conspiracy theorists take something like this and then extrapolate way beyond the facts.
Some people believe HAARP could be used to warm up the Ionosphere and create different weather patterns, is this true or false?
HAARP does cause a degree of ionospheric heating, but this is negligible and very short-lived. It certainly has no discernible effect on weather or climate.
HAARP is used for the ionosphere, but could it also be potentially used as a weapon also?
Not in the way that conspiracy theorists mean, when they (incorrectly) envisage some sort of death ray or weather weapon. But clearly there are military applications here, in terms of continuity of communications. The key term isC3 (command, control, and communications).
How much energy can HAARP emit when used?
The headline figure is around 3.6 million Watts.
Is HAARP’s technology ever been tested on humans accidentally or incidentally? Could HAARP magnetic radiation (plasma) cause brain malfunctions on a massive scale?
No on both counts. Clearly there’s an electromagnetic field associated with the facility (and a capacity to generate ELF signals in the ionosphere), but levels are well within safety margins. Extensive environmental impact studies have been undertaken and all the results have been published.
Is HAARP been used frequently?
Some of the scientific equipment is in continuous use and other parts of the facility (e.g. the high frequency transmitter) are used from time to time.
Is the fact that DARPA’s association with HAARP’s programs, raise any suspicion, considering DARPA’s other controversial projects?
DARPA features in many conspiracy theories and certainly they’re working on a number of highly-classified projects, the details of which are not publicly known. Secrecy fuels conspiracy and given the absence of verifiable facts, speculation takes over, as it has with HAARP.
Unfortunately, such speculation is often wide of the mark. Some of this is due to innocent misunderstandings, but some people exploit people’s understandable concerns about technology to create anti-government and anti-science conspiracy theories that they know to be false. This kind of fear-mongering is dishonest and contemptible.
