HAARP, the Antenna Field in the Forest
In the Alaskan wilderness, a field of 180 antennas beams energy into the sky. The internet has blamed it for storms, earthquakes and controlling minds.
What was reported
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, HAARP, is a research station near Gakona, in a remote part of Alaska. Its main instrument is a grid of 180 antennas spread over about 13 hectares, which can send powerful radio waves up into the ionosphere, the electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere.
It was built with funding from the US military, and for years little was said about it in public. It became one of the internet's favourite suspects, accused of steering hurricanes, causing earthquakes, making strange lights and sounds, and controlling people's thoughts.
Explanations offered
HAARP studies how the ionosphere behaves, which matters for radio communications and GPS. Its transmitter is powerful, but tiny compared with the energy of weather systems or earthquakes. Since 2015, it has been run by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which holds open days where visitors can see it.
- When
- Built from 1993
- Where
- Gakona, Alaska, USA
- Witnesses
- Researchers and the public at open days
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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