HAARP's new owner holds open house to prove facility 'is not capable of mind control'
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HAARP is under new management, and the public is invited to get a look at the research facility that, in past years, has been the subject of dark rumors.
The antennas of the upper-atmosphere research station near Gakona keep exploring at the facility, which is now owned by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. (Bill Bristow / UAF)
The University of Alaska Fairbanks now owns and operates the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program and invites the public to an open house Saturday. This is interested visitors' chance to learn about the scientific mission and research at the Gakona facility, which was transferred last year from the U.S. Air Force to UAF.UAF officials are hoping for a high turnout."We hope that people will be able to see the actual science of it," said Sue Mitchell, spokesperson for UAF's Geophysical Institute, which operates the facility. "We hope to show people that it is not capable of mind control and not capable of weather control and all the other things it's been accused of."HAARP, which opened in the 1990s, is one of the world's few centers for high-power and high-frequency study of the ionosphere, Earth's thin upper atmosphere, which gets its name from the high quantities of ionized atoms and molecules that bounce around it. The ionosphere is important because radio waves used for communication and navigation reflect back to Earth, allowing long-distance, short-wave broadcasting.To study the ionosphere and what is happening there, HAARP uses 180 high-frequency antennas spread over 33 acres.The antenna field will be available for public tours at the open house, and one of the facility's scientist will be available to explain how it works, Mitchell said.Other features include an unmanned aircraft "petting zoo" and various interactive displays about space weather and other subjects, Mitchell said. There will also be an opportunity for visitors to tour UAF permafrost and seismic stations that are not part of HAARP but within walking distance, she said.Refreshments will be served, and the event is open for all ages, according to the Geophysical Institute.HAARP is a 240-mile drive from Fairbanks and roughly 198 miles from Anchorage.A related event is a Friday night public lecture on HAARP, to be held at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Visitor Center, about 30 miles away from the facility.
More info here.
Folks who have been reading this blog for very long will know that I'm not given to panic, shaky accusations, or hyperbole. But this one's a puzzle, and I don't have any answers.
But there's this: the government, the builder of the project, has lied so often that it's impossible to know when, or whether, they're telling the truth. These days, it seems pretty rare. It wouldn't be the first time that a university took over a gov't facility without realizing what it could do. And it wouldn't be the first time that a university took over a facility knowing full well what it could do.
Sigh.
27 comments:
We hope to show people that it is not capable of mind control and not capable of weather control and all the other things it's been accused of.
Please forgive me, that sounds very much like trying to prove a negative...
GIven the state's very real struggle with revenue, I tend to suspect this open house is partially about UAF trying to prove to the public that its engineering program is relevant and worth retaining. (Given their scale, I think they've done an outstanding job, FWIW). Both UAF and UAA have programs, with different purposes, and they're both fighting to keep them. And if the state truly wants to develop any kind of post-oil economy, then, this is a Very Important Question.
Arizona went through a variation of this same question in the 2008 recession; can it afford two research-grade universities (UA and ASU)? So far, it's kept them, and although the state's tech business isn't strong as it once was, it's still there.
(Incidentally, being a split resident, I sometimes paint the picture to Alaskans as to how much it actually costs to live in AZ. Stuff on the store shelves looks comparatively cheap, then you realize that they hit you with almost 8-10% tax going out the door. Then you add in a pretty healthy income tax, and you realize it's not so cheap. AZ never had a real natural resource boom. Then I relate the story of what Texas did with their version of a PFD decades ago, and why that led to their successful tech economy today. Always a fun conversation.)
I'm really glad you pointed this out. I might just have to go visit and see for myself.
You're right, and - forgive me - I hadn't thought about UAF trying to justify its purchase of the project. I should have, though.
If you're able to learn anything there, be sure & let me/us know. And if it seems they're doing P.R. for the sake of P.R., let me know that, too.
Rule 1, the whole world is show biz.
You should go, take some pics and do a post. The power generated compared to the sun's radiation is a measly drop in the bucket. I have read they only have one technician reinstalling all the transmitter tubes. She should be finished later this year.
I am in the nothing to worry about camp. Drjim at every-blade-of-grass.blogspot.com posted about it on August 8. I see you commented.
Terry, I'm tending toward your version of events. I've driven past that place twice in recent years, but won't make a 400-mile roundtrip on a whim. Since airphoria is going, I'll wait for his comments.
Just an evil thought. Could it be that .gov tried mind control and/or weather control, failed abysmally and sold the site for what it could get?
Frank, there's so much that the government tries these days, which would have been unthinkable until it was exposed, that anything's possible.
I hate feeling paranoid, but who can tell? The answer is a good, solid, "Maybe".
If we still lived there, we'd probably go.
I was stationed at Clear AFS for a year, and then we did four at Eielson. I wish we could have stayed.
But we are where we are supposed to be.
Is the UAF as liberal as most universities in the Lower 48? If so, I wouldn't believe anything they said.
I'd probably wear a tin foil hat while taking the tour, too.
Hi, Linda - thank you for your service. From one vet to another, welcome!
Re: UAF, I've had very limited contact with them. UAA seems to be the bastion of Rightthink (as in politically correct), while UAF seems - from Southcentral - to be a bit more science/fact based. YMMV, and all that. But I'd be pretty skeptical, just the same.
Thank you as well, Rev. Paul. I apologize for not having read back on your blog. I did not know you were a vet also. Thank you.
We share many of the same interests, too. Science Fiction, Red Dwarf, Firefly, Doctor Who.
And as a maintenance tech, hubby shares your interest in aircraft and aviation history.
Be safe and God bless. ^_^
See how nice they are and letting everyone in to take a tour!(S/) I don't trust anything the government has or had a hand in.
Linda - nice to meet a fellow Whovian, too. :)
Chickenmom - through many years of exposure, I've arrived at the same place. I want to be able to trust them, but ... I just can't.
Who paid to upgrade the electrical plant? The diesels needed to be replaced and the cost to bring in Tier 3 equipment was too much was one of the validations for shutting it down.
Of course everyone know that HAARP manipulates weather not minds and clearly the replacement facility is up and running as demonstrated by Louisiana's weather week before last. "Sarcasm" "Maybe"
Jay, those are great questions. Answers? Not as easily forthcoming.
There was a lot of talk, up here, about HAARP while it was in operation. Anecdotal evidence had it playing hob with birds' flight patterns. One friend who has a cabin about 80 miles from the facility swore, quite seriously, that she could tell whenever it was turned on, because birds would fly into her windows. Repeatedly, every day.
Oh, boy....I really don't have too much to say.
If HAARP was capable of doing any of these things, they would have clamped a lid on it, sealed off the area, and you wouldn't hear anything about it again.
I've been around high-power and extremely high-power RF since the early 1970's, and I'm still walking the Earth.
The physics of this stuff is fairly well understood, otherwise they wouldn't have built it in the first place. HAARP was originally built as a "Well, we know this, so let's try that, and see if it has any effect".
The Radio Frequency energy is directly almost straight up, although I thought I remembered reading something indicating that they can "steer" the beam of focused energy a few degrees.
Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of HAARP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program
I suppose one of these days I should do up a post about RF radiation (NON-ionizing) vs Nuclear radiation (IONIZING), and explain the differences.
Jim, I'm glad you didn't have much to say. I'd hate to see the novella an outspoken response might have morphed into. :)
I kid; I kid.
Actually, I was hoping you (or someone with equivalent knowledge) would be able to straighten out the tangled info flow. Thank you.
Speaking of not trusting the government and them lying, saw this today:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/the_nsa_is_hoar.html
The NSA and the Whitehouse does nothing but lie. I expect nothing from Congress.
Since I've done a LOT of RF exposure calculations for the Iowa, and I've been to several company-paid seminars on RF safety, I'll try and roll all that into a post.
And I'll probably get hammered with "Cell Phones Cause CANCER!!!", replies......
Terry - "The NSA and the Whitehouse does nothing but lie. I expect nothing from Congress." At least you can't be further disappointed.
Jim - I'll look forward to that post, whenever you have time to get it compiled. Thanks.
Drjim, I look forward to your post on RF. All I know about it is that when I was at Clear, I could tell whenever the tracking antenna was pointed toward the barracks, because it always came over the speakers whether the stereo was on or off. Ha!
Linda, you could ask any sailor how many times they heard the announcement, "Do not rotate or radiate while men are working aloft." (Refers to the ship's radar. Hint: we heard it a lot.) That's when I first began to work out that the Law of Unintended Consequences applied to more than just laws. ;^)
They would give tours to the civilians out at Clear, in the tracker dome. The Tech Reps (also civilians) were happy to show how you could hold a light bulb and show how it would light up when the antenna was supposedly in maintenance mode.
I often wondered about that part and the Law of Unintended Consequences...
The gift of unintended consequence.....wow that does cover a terrifying amount of territory!
Fiona - you've neatly summed up the entire problem, right there.
OK, so, we made the trip. Nice drive...colors starting to turn up towards Tahneta Pass, decent views of the Wrangell-St. Elias range from the highway.
Because of a long workday yesterday (4:30am start...), I was a little sluggish getting going today, and we didn't get going as soon as I'd wished. I knew it was open 9-3, and ended up not getting there until just before 2. At that point in time, they had closed the antenna array, but the control building was still open. I managed to catch the last 20 minutes of a background presentation (asked for a copy of the slides...we'll see if that works out).
(Warning...geek speak coming)
There's really not all that much to it...30 acres of crossed-dipole antennas (180 total) in a grid maybe 1/3 mile from the control building. The lights/heat/controls run off of local power, but 5 diesel generators in the control building power the transmitters (about 10MW total, not all that much when you think about it).
Much of the control building is office space, a bit of storage, a small kitchen area, and a little living space. The actual control console is about a dozen computer monitors and a few monitoring instruments, about the size of a modest executive office, that's it. Not much equipment, really; mostly just generators, some heating equipment, and some people space.
The transmitting array only runs at 45% efficiency for RF purity-of-emission reasons. It radiates 3.6MW of energy in a frequency band from 2.8-10MHz (that's the lower end of the shortwave band, not too far above the commercial AM broadcast band). The antennas are phase-fed so that it can transmit from straight-up over to about 30 degrees above the horizon.
There is just enough power there for very localized heating of the lower parts of the ionosphere for a very short time. Not much more effect than relieving oneself in a big river...it would just get lost in the noise compared to what the sun can actually do.
That's my observation, anyway. I wish I could have seen the antenna array up close...maybe next year.
(end geek speak)
As it turns out, UAF had a hand in its operation for quite some time. Once the DoD got what they wanted from it, it would have been scrapped. UAF still thinks they can operate it for other exo-atmospheric scientists. Technically, it still belongs to USAF, and they're working on transferring title to the University.
And, it's the Geophysical Institute that operates it (contrary to my initial assertion about engineering). Still, I do have to wonder if the University wants to show the public what it's up to...it does need to do that.
Any questions, let me know. I did take a few photos, need to figure out what to do with them yet.
Thank you. It does sound as if it's no more than originally claimed. I believe the nature of the problem is a) that Americans love a good conspiracy theory, and b) the government has lied to us about so many things, for so long, that it's hard to accept anything they say at face value.
I also think that obsessive secrecy just for the sake of secrecy contributes to the effect...if they're hiding something, it must be for a reason. Governments are prone to that, and ours seems to obsess over it (until it's politically expedient for specific individuals to play fast and loose with secrets for their own gain...oh, never mind...)
Now that I've actually seen it, I'm struck by the utter simplicity of the whole setup...it's really just one big HF phased-array radar, so to speak. Not even that big, given the frequencies involved. I'm far from any kind of ionospheric scientist, but, having worked around electrical engineering most of my adult life, while also being a bit of a radio geek, it certainly makes sense for it's stated purpose.
They can do some really oddball things with it, such as to induce low frequency waves into the ionosphere. That has implications for long range communication, and may not be without second order effects. Still, it's a really tiny pebble in a huge ocean of sky.
Thank you, sir. That helps, and I hope it puts the issue to bed. At least, around here.
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