HAARP Amping It Up

n6kuy writes "HAARP (the High frequency Active Auroral Research Program) will be adding 132 more transmitters to bring their total number of transmitters to 180. "When the massive planar array for ionospheric research is completed in 2007, it will include a total of 180 Continental Electronics D616G 10-kW combined transmitters, which the company is upgrading specifically for HAARP," the supplier (Continental) stated. The facility is near Gakona, Alaska. The installation began in 1993 with 18 transmitters, expanded to 48 in 1998 and will grow to 180 transmitters. The final expansion will bring the HAARP array to full power, with ERP increasing from 84 dBW to about 96 dBW. 96dBW is about 4 billion Watts. There is speculation that the project is really an "effort to develop ways to jam the electronics of incoming missiles from Russia and/or China". 4 billion Watts oughtta do it."

Comments

speculation

[Trigun]

Well, then there's no place for that here. Not on Slashdot!

Ah conspiracy...

[pookemon]

"effort to develop ways to jam the electronics of incoming missiles from Russia and/or China"

And Elvis is overseeing the project. I'm sure he hates those damn russian missiles... Oh wait, aren't they friendly now?

(The russians, not the missiles).

Re:Ah conspiracy...

[ian_mackereth]

Well, it can't be aimed at missiles from anywhere in the ex-Soviet bloc.

The most famous haarp practitioner I know of was definitely a Marx-ist...

Re:Ah conspiracy...

[CrazyDuke]

Too Late

The single-warhead RS-12M Topol has a range of 6,900 miles. The Topol carries on-board steering rockets that allow it to make evasive maneuvers in flight on the way to its target, meaning it can evade any terminal phase interceptors.

The warhead is shielded against radiation, electromagnetic interference and physical disturbance, and designed to be able to withstand nuclear blasts as close as a third of a mile away.

Yes but...

[Ctrl Alt De1337]

Does it go up to 11?

From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[Senes]

HAARP is a United States defense project, one of the many defense measures against nuclear warfare. For more information, see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAARP (Wikipedia.org)

Re:From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[deglr6328]

HAARP is being upgraded by the DOD as a "defense measure against nuclear warfare", but not in the sense that you or the other hundred odd Art Bell quoting posters here seem to think. Specifically, it is not being used to "jam" or "shoot down" any ICBMs or some such nonsense because that is impossible and is well...what's the phrase here that I'm looking for...oh right...fucking retardedly impossible.

So why is the Pentagon interested in upgrading HAARP to ~4 GW? Well, if you do some research on HANEs (high altitude nuclear explosions) you will find that a nuclear explosion of even modest energy (100 KTons) is sufficient, when detonated at an altitude of greater than a couple 100 Km, of flooding the Van Allen belts with high energy electrons. (the native electron population of the radiation belts is "heated" via inverse bremsstrahlung from the hard X-rays emitted by the nuclear detonation) It is even capapble of creating NEW radiation belts at lower altitudes than normally found and it is thus estimated, extrapolating from experiments such as starfish prime in the 50's, that virtually ALL sattelites in LEO would be destroyed within days by ESD and radiation damage if an event like this were to occur.
HOWEVER! HAARP is capable of irradiating the ionosphere with VLF EM radiation of quite high intensity and thus can alter the so called "auroral electrojet", creating a ginormous "virtual VLF antenna" in it by altering its temperature (and thus its conductance). The HAARP is thereby capable of depopulating the radiation belts of high energy charged particles in a fraction of the time it would ordinarilly take for them to calm down on thier own and thus potentially saving the many sattelites in LEO. Sound crazy? Well, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and THAT is why the Pentagon is interested in this thing, not for some kooky mind control/weather control/ray gun type kookery.

Re:From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[Columcille]

so HAARP will be the first nuke target? *HAARP general gets a funny look on his face* "Mr. President, maybe we should have given those interceptor missiles a bit more funding after all."

Re:From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[Prometheas]

I've been a relatively long-time listener of Coast to Coast (the show is no longer named after Art Bell), and I've heard about a dozen different guests speak on the topic of what HAARP "actually is"... and while your explanation is more than possible, it doesn't seem to hold water particularly better than a number of other explanations I've heard.

I'd remind you that there is no complete official explanation to what HAARP does (it is after all largely classified), so you can really just stop thinking you know "why the Pentagon is interested in this thing."

Point is, we don't know.

Now, since it's "kookery," you might get a kick out of discovering that there is a UN treaty -- ratified in the 1977 -- that makes specific stipulations about forbidding the use of weather modification tactics (and earthquake weaponry) in international warfare. The treaty is called "Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques."

Find the whole treaty text here:

+ http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/4783.htm

Not to be overly sarcastic about this, but notice the absolute lack of any international treaties regarding the uses of teleport chambers, portals, and care bear stares.... It's a serious treaty.

I would like to follow this up with Senate Bill S. 517, introduced by Sen. Kay Hutchison [R-TX] in March of 2005. Funny that HAARP's suddenly getting larger in the very same year, isn't it?

While weather modification has yet to be completely openly demonstrated, there *is* plenty of public record that weather modification isn't exactly seen as a joke by people spending our tax dollars.

On a related note, Nikola Tesla accidentally caused an earthquake in New York, experimenting with his Tesla Coil (it's why he had to shut that lab down and move it out of the city). Before I go too far with this, let me tie up the Tesla tangent by noting that anyone seriously thinking about what HAARP could be would find more detailed information about Tesla's work very, very interesting; there is more than a little that HAARP and the Tesla coil have in common. (Tesla himself seemed sure he would be able to manipulate all sorts of natural phenomena, but that's another story.)

Quickly about the HAARP ideas you've dismissed:

1 - Mind Control. This idea comes from the fact that ELF (extremely low frequency) waves have allegedly been found to make humans more complacent, or agreeable. I have no specific evidence to point anyone to confirming or denying this. Though I will say that you all have a Mind Control device in your living room called a "television" that operates at 60 Hz and sends you consumeristic and/or propagandistic messages all the time... I don't see how HAARP can be more effective, but I suppose my point is you never know! ;-)

2 - Weather Modification. This is the most plausible of the three ideas you suggested as being silly. I don't see why not, really.

3 - Ray Gun. Never heard that one before from any guests; though more than one caller to the show has suggested it. Also, I just started listening 3 years ago, so there's plenty of past material I've missed.

Ultimately, I'm not trying to convince you (or anyone) about what HAARP *is*. Rather my point here is that *you just don't know* what it is, and there's *plenty* of room for speculation about it, including the speculation that the "Art Bell posters" have to share.

As parting thoughts, I'd like to remind readers that there weren't aviation laws until the airplane was invented.

Re:From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[Lectrik]

I don't think you can run fast enough.
The US has been fscking up the world for how long now?

Jamming missiles, don't be silly...

[mkraft]

It's obviously a time travel experiment.
4 Gigawatts is enough to power 3 DeLoreans with power to spare.

Maby..

[NIK282000]

They can use it to boost the new nintendo wifi coverage.

Re:die whales

[ScrewMaster]

It's overlords, dude ... overlords.

That's WAAAAY too much...

[no_such_user]

You only need 1.21 Gigawatts.

idle spec

[Red Flayer]

FTFSpeculation: "it seems to me like it's some efffort to develop ways to jam the electronics of incoming missiles from Russia and/or China (I don't think it's an accident HAARP's initial funding came from Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative)"

It could also be that the Star Wars Initiative was based on satellites being able to communicate, and communication in the ionosphere (with endemic electrical currents) was thought to be possibly very tricky, especially in latitudes where the northern lights are a visible manifestation of such.

/tinfoil (not aluminum foil) hat half-off

This only works at night?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Did I read this correctly: that HAARP only works at night?

"Ionospheric heating cannot be performed while the sun illuminates the ionosphere for two reasons:

        * Solar UV creates the ionospheric D-region, which absorbs the radio waves used for ionospheric heating.
        * The solar flux overwhelms any effect of ionospheric heating. "

Re:This only works at night?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, to be more specific, the D-region is formed by solar Lyman alpha photoionization of nitric oxide (NO), with a smaller and more variable contribution from soft X-rays ionizing N2 and O2.

HF radio waves are absorbed mostly in the D-region, and at times can be completely blacked out by elevated electron densities caused by various ionospheric disturbances, including solar X-ray flares and "Polar Cap Absorption" events caused by solar proton events.

The solar (extreme ultraviolet, shortwards of Lyman alpha) flux photoionizes the neutral atmosphere (mostly N2 and O2) creating ions by ejecting photoelectrons from the neutral molecules. These photoelectrons have energies typically up to about 100 eV (electron Volts). The "hot" photoelectrons collide with the cold ambient ionospheric electrons through the Coulomb interaction thereby heating the ionospheric electrons.

The radar heats ionospheric electrons to only a fraction of an eV. However, there are enough electrons in the tail of the heated Maxwellian distribution to excite the atomic oxygen auroral "red line" emission at 6300 Angstroms (630 nm), which has an excitation threshold of 1.96 eV. This red glow produced by radar heating is visible from the ground (with instruments).

I'm one of the "experts" quoted on the HAARP site, although I have absolutely nothing to do with it. However, I find the conspiracy theories regarding HAARP quite amusing. Why? because I can calculate exactly what the radar is doing - that's how I make my living.

Re:This only works at night?

[deglr6328]

Supposedly the HAARP-aurora interaction DOES create naked eye visible scintillations when at 1 MW.....

Re:This only works at night?

[slackerboy]

When correcting others, it's usually good to have a clue yourself.

"The IRI would transmit radio waves over the frequency range 2.8 to 10 MHz." from "Effects in the Ionosphere" http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/ion5.html

This is NOT a radar! It must be difficult to make a living calculate exactly what the radar is doing if you don't know the difference between radar frequencies (in the gigihertz region) and HF in the range 2.8 to 10 MHz.

Actually radar stands for RAdio Detection And Ranging. It is not specific to a frequency range. While most current radar systems may be in the microwave range, many early radar systems were, in fact, in the HF portion of the spectrum. (Scroll down to the "Frequency Bands"section of the above wikipedia article for more info.)

I have no idea...

[FuturePastNow]

...how much RF energy it takes to damage a missile. But, by the time it flies over Alaska, the missile would be a ballistic warhead that has to do nothing more than detonate at a predetermined altitude. I imagine it could be made pretty simple, and therefore hard to kill.

But, four billion watts is a lot of power. The HAARP power page says that for every four watts of power transmitted, ten must be generated (40% efficiency). That's ten gigawatts, and the six diesel generators mentioned on the site produce only fifteen megawatts. Where does the extra power come from? Capacitors? If so, it would only be able to produce a single large pulse. That would be pretty useless against missiles (which wouldn't all come at once).

Re:I have no idea...

[mpoulton]

But, four billion watts is a lot of power. The HAARP power page says that for every four watts of power transmitted, ten must be generated (40% efficiency). That's ten gigawatts, and the six diesel generators mentioned on the site produce only fifteen megawatts. Where does the extra power come from?

It's not actually 4GW. It's only 3.6MW peak envelope power. 4GW is the max ERP, or effective radiated power, under optimal conditions. ERP accounts for antenna gain. In other words, the field strength is the same as that from a 4GW transmitter with an isotropically radiating antenna.
See the HAARP site's technical info on phases of completion at: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/phases.html

Re:I have no idea...

[Ironsides]

I have no idea how much RF energy it takes to damage a missile. But, by the time it flies over Alaska, the missile would be a ballistic warhead that has to do nothing more than detonate at a predetermined altitude. I imagine it could be made pretty simple, and therefore hard to kill.

All modern warheads use precision timed, placed and shaped explosives to turn a subcritical amount of uranium/plutonium into a supercritical nuclear explosion. If any part is damaged sufficiently, you will (at worst) not have a nuclear explosion but a dirty bomb. If the electronic controls are damaged sufficiently, there would be no explosion at all. All modern warheads use electronically controled explosives.

There are two types of bombs where there would be no electronics in it. Even in this, there is the possibility of an RF weapon causing enough damage. The first is where, instead of using explosives to cause an explosion, the two pieces of nuclear material are jammed together upon impact with the ground. A sufficient ammount of RF would still be able to distort the material of the warhead enough so they do not jam together properly and go supercritical.

The second part, involves a critical ammount of Plutonium. Take 16kg of plutonium, put it together, and you get a nuclear explosion. During flight, the halves would have to be kept seperate. I'm not sure if there is a way that does not involve electronics that would move the pieces together that is not similar to the way above. Either way, if you warp/melt the material enough it won't explode.

Two final things. A lot (if not all) of ICBMs make course corrections mid flight. If the guidance electronics are messed up prior to the final corrections, it will fly off targe. Second, MIRVs would also be messed up in a similar way. I'm not sure there is a type of nuclear missle/warhead that would not be messed up by a sufficient ammount of RF.

Re:I have no idea...

[goodmanj]

pretty simple, and therefore hard to kill.

So I worked a few numbers, assuming that the radio transmitters had a wavelength of 100 meters (shortwave), which puts a limit on how tightly you could focus the radio beam. If tightly focused, this array could create an electromagnetic wave with an intensity orders of magnitude more powerful than sunlight, and the electric fields associated with the radio waves would amount to millions of volts per meter. With this kind of power, your goal isn't to zap sensitive microchips: you're thinking about vaporizing thick copper wiring in milliseconds. Maybe even damaging the exterior structure of the warhead.

fifteen megawatts. Where does the extra power come from? Capacitors?

Duty cycle. Charge up capacitors at 15 MW for a couple seconds, zap at 10GW for a couple milliseconds, cook one missile, find another one, recharge another couple seconds, zap again. You might not have time to take out an entire World War III strike this way, but a handful of North Korean nukes? Not a problem.

And anyway, it's possible that the generators are just local redundant backups. Wouldn't be too hard to hook this thing up to a civilian power grid and have access to gigawatts of electrical power. (Okay, Alaska doesn't exactly have gigawatts lying around on street corners, but still, delivering power a few hundred miles from Anchorage is probably doable.)

Off-topic Megawatt story

[crazyphilman]

When I was a wee lad, I had a very interesting, somewhat cranky physics professor. I had bought a several-milliwatt helium-neon laser tube via catalog. Due to a typo, they had claimed its power as something like 4MW, which I interpereted to mean it literally was four megawatts. I was ecstatic and couldn't wait to share my great good fortune with my prof.

I showed the prof the ad, and told him that when the laser came in, maybe we could try it out.

He repeated "4 megawatts? What are you going to do, shoot planes down?"

I said, "Nah, I'm a pacifist. Maybe we can zap one'a them light poles around the quad. Besides, it says so right there. 4MW."

He said "Ah, so it does. And it takes a 9-volt battery?"

I said, "It's got a transformer."

He clenched his lips together extremely tightly, and screwed his eyes shut. He looked briefly like he was rumbling. Then, he gained control over it and said, "Well, you'll have to bring that baby in, kid. I'll be right back..."

Years later, looking back, I'm pleased I was able to give a man his age the belly laugh I'm sure he went out in the hall to enjoy. It's the little pleasures that make life worthwhile...

More conspiracy theories

[iamlucky13]

You've gotta love the unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding HAARP. Jamming the Chinese is the only plausible alternate explanation I've heard yet. If people are so convinced that something evil is going on up there, how about asking some of the grad students at University of Alaska? Everybody knows grad students will sing for a mere six pack or an offer to show their resume to your boss.

The array has so far produced localized auroras (go Google it yourself, I'm not your mother), which is one of the effects it was predicted to be able to achieve in addition to providing a theoretical way to improve radio reception, but I've heard some great crackpot theories. Most come from the tin-foil hat people who think it's a mind control device, but there's some lame stuff like destroying the ozone layer over only blue or only red states so Democrats/Republicans will all die of skin cancer or find oil sources for the big companies with government funding. The best, however, is the suggestion that it controls earthquakes. 'HAARP' + 'earthquake' is an entertaining google search. Iran, Sumatra, you name it. It was a secret government attack. Oh yeah, don't forget Hurricane Katrina. Obviously a creation of HAARP.

Re:More conspiracy theories

[killjoe]

I have set up firefox with the BBC news liveboorkmarks. Yesterday I saw a headline that said the US army finally admitted using phosphorus bombs against human targets (but of course denied killing civillians and denied the fact that these bombs which deployed chemicals were chemical weapons). Just earlier that day US officials in London had denied using these weapons against humans. They were continuing the same lie they had been telling since the attack on fallujia.

I then went over to CNN to see what they had to say and it was nowhere on their web site. It also wasn't on the web sites of ABCnews and needless to say it wasn't on the web site of FoxNews either (Fox news web site is hilarious! they should just replace their banner with Republicans RULEZ!).

Anyway...

Can you really blame people when they don't take the word of the US govt? Can you really blame the people when they don't trust the so-called free press to give them unbiased news?

How can you really be sure exactly what HAARP is being used for?

Re:More conspiracy theories

[Cl1mh4224rd]

HAARP: The Swiss Army Knife of Conspiracy Theories.

I don't think I've heard of any one project being the source of so many "evil" events, natural and man-made. Hell, some people will even claim is was used to steer and strengthen a hurricane to further some mysterious group's plan for global depopulation in once sentence, and in the very next claim it was used to dissipate another hurricane for an "unknown agenda". Wow...

Re:More conspiracy theories

[killjoe]

"If you can call white phosphorus a chemical weapon, than so are guns and bombs."

Mmmm. It's a chemical, it's deployed with bombs, it melts the skin off of it's victims. Nope, it could not possibly be a chemical weapon, no way, no sir.

"The reason there was no mention of it is that it was covered several news cycles ago. It turns out it's crap. Who knew?"

Appatenly not you. Because that day it was on the front page of asia.cnn.com. cnn.com didn't have it on their front page while asia.cnn.com did.

"Because we're not goddamned idiots."

Maybe not, but I can sure make a case for the fact that you are ignorant if you don't read the news sites from other nations.

Re:More conspiracy theories

[killjoe]

" Phosphorus bombs are considered incendiary/marking devices, not chemical weapons."

This is a common republitard tactic. When the facts are clearly against you simply redefine the subject. Clorox is a household chemical so is ammonia, mix them together and you get a dangerous chemical, put it in a shell and lob it at people and it becomes a chemical weapon. In this case the US military lied over and over again saying that they only used it for smoke and marking. Yesterday they admitted that they were lying and that they used it against human targets. That's what makes it a chemical weapon the fact that they used it against human beings.

If it was not they would not have lied to you for months and months, they would not have waited will there was film to admit it.

"Yet another bullshit issue championed by the Marxists on behalf of their Islamic allies."

Sorry to put a wet blanket over your orgasm dude. Just ignore me and go back to stoking yourself while you look at pictures of dead muslims.

Re:More conspiracy theories

[Derling Whirvish]

Yesterday I saw a headline that said the US army finally admitted using phosphorus bombs

The Army has never denied that.

Just earlier that day US officials in London had denied using these weapons

There was only one official making that claim. He is Ambassador Tuttle -- a crony of Bush. His last job was an auto dealer for goodness' sake. He is not qualified to comment on Army weaponry, much less be the ambassador. He's clueless.

Here's his bio from the State Dept web site:

Robert Holmes Tuttle was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's on July 14, 2005. A businessman with extensive experience in the private sector, Mr. Tuttle is Co-Managing Partner of Tuttle-Click Automotive Group, one of the largest automobile dealer organizations in the United States.

You can't claim a vast government conspiracy to cover-up something simply because one idiot in London spouted off before checking the facts. Well, you can actually, but you will look like an idiot if you do.

Re:More conspiracy theories

[skarphace]

Clorox is a household chemical so is ammonia, mix them together and you get a dangerous chemical, put it in a shell and lob it at people and it becomes a chemical weapon.

Yes, that is mustard gas. It is a chemical weapon by definition. See the UN definition of chemical weapons.

"Chemical weapons, as defined by the 1969 United Nations report entitled "Chemical and Bacteriological Weapons, and the Effect of Their Possible Use," are chemical agents of warfare taken to be chemical substances, whether gaseous, liquid, or solid, which might be employed because of their direct toxic effect on man, animals, and plants."

While I hate the use of phosphorus bombs on humans, it's not a chemical weapon. And I think the UN should ban it, just like they banned napalm.

Re:More conspiracy theories

[Guysmiley777]

Ok, I'm anti-Iraq war, and anti-Dubya, but that is just stupid reasoning. "White phosphorus is bad because it burns people." Yeah, it's used to burn the crap out of people and things, and to create very thick smokescreens. News flash: a 5.56mm round isn't designed to tickle, and hand grenades aren't just a nice way to say "hi". As I've said before, all explosives are chemicals. So are they chemical weapons? No. And neither is WP. Chemical weapons are nerve agents, souped up insecticides, and they are orders of magnitude more lethal than explosives or WP.

The military's job is to break things and hurt people. Do a search on XM1028. It's a 120mm shotgun shell for an M-1 Abrams tank. You think being in front of one of those is more or less preferable to WP? It's ALL bad. We shouldn't be in Iraq, but we are. Blaming the troops for employing weapons and tactics that they're trained with is the worst kind of stupid.

Go Joe!

[GMFTatsujin]

Cobra Commander is >THIS far away from carving his face on the Moon!

Re:Wow big suprise US spending billions on defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and a magical purple bunny might come along and make that alternative energy a reality! Unfortunately, you didn't spend anything on defense so some other country just took your energy source and the bunny. They left your wife, pity.

Fortunately, the magical purple bunny was the last defense project that the US spent money on. That other country will be in for a surprise come Easter.

Besides, we all know that there was no war before the US started pissing everyone off. Actually, War was born right after G.W. Bush popped out of Barbara Bush. War is Bush's non-evil twin - The secret is out, now you know what the W in W stands for: W as in WAR. Yes George W(ar) Bush's full name is George War Bush. The non-evil twin is W(ar) George Bush. Strangely, the twins share a common last name. The other twin permutations were lost in a rather nasty incident on the way out of Barb during berthing. It seems that a simple case of negative pressure and a poor US healthcare system led to their demise. The evil Christian priests attending the berthing tried a plunger but it was dirty so Barbara screamed "Get that damn dirty plunger well away from there! Those my special baby berthing pieces and I can't get them that dirty!" By the time the plunger was cleaned the other Bushes were lost somewhere deep in the heart of Texas or Barbara. The search teams never returned so the mystery was never solved. Rumor has it that the lost twins did attend Yale and also received better grades than John Kerry.

Anyway, Barb serves little importance to the tale. Her duty as the pneumatic tube of War and George served, Barbara returned to a life of drunken debauchery, knitting, and ballroom brawling - ninja style. It must be explained that neither George War nor War George ever really cared for the magical purple bunny. The bunny's soft fluffy fur was of no interest to the War brothers. No, it's simple you see, George War and War George both preferred the prickly stubble of each other's unshaven face. They referred to the prickly intercourse as their love brush. They would often say Love Brush real fast until one would slip and say Love Bush. Given that we're talking about George Bush he would normally fuck it up about half way through the first incantation of his accursed name.

Good troll. I like to feed 'em. I choose to feed this one insanity with a generous portion of love.

Listen to HAARP

[medazinol]

Rejoice in the sounds of HAARP presented by Art Bell, an avid HAM operator. Pretty weird sounds to be just for jamming signals. I think they're up to no good. 4 BILLION WATTS is a lot of power to be pumping into the ionosphere... http://mfile.akamai.com/5022/rm/artbell.download.a kamai.com/5022/clips/04/09/091904_what_is_haarp.rm

Re:Wow big suprise US spending billions on defense

[killjoe]

"Besides, we all know that there was no war before the US started pissing everyone off. "

IN the last few decades the US has been involved in more wars then any other country on the planet. The problem we have with George is that he is waging war for profit, fun, and because "god told him to" (his words not mine).

What is the real Power?

[Dr. Null]

Just to make sure that everybody is up to speed on that stated power, Let me Clarify something about antenna radiation. What was quoted was 4 billion watts ERP. The term ERP means Effective Radiated Power compared to that of a simple dipole antenna. This is a sort of measure of power density, not absolute power. Power stated as ERP is a measure of the power radiated and how narrow the radiation beam is. High ERP power is very much like looking at a narrow laser beam from a great distance. The beam looks bright, so if you think that the light is coming from a source that is shining in all directions, then it is as if the light source is shining with megawatts of power. Although the beam is bright, it is very narrow in extent, thus the real power radiated is small. For antennas, the beam width is proportional to a measure called antenna Gain. Large arrays of antennas like the HAARP antenna farm have VERY high gains, thus very directional radiation beams. IT is more likely that HAARP antenna array has a collective gain near 1000, thus the real power is more like 4 megawatts, not gigawatts (something that can be supplied by on base generators).

Megawatts of RF power is big, but not big enough to knock down ICBMs. The Idea with HAARP is to use the RF power to heat the Ionosphere in the northern latitudes where there are enormous currents induced by the Aurora. The power sloshing around in the upper Ionosphere is of the order of Terawatts. They hope to modulate these rivers of currents by locally heating small spots in the ionosphere plasma, thus radiating gigawatts of power at ultra low frequencies ( 1 to 100 Hz)... a very cool Mad scientist Idea... Very evil..

DR. Null

I've been to HAARP...

[astrila]

... and it's no great conspiracy. Of course it's got goey government funding, most cool research does. But you can forget about the wild nuclear weather balloons. They've actually got some good stuff going on. It's just a bunch of guys in their tshirts checking out the atmosphere with some nice antennas, accompanied by the occasional requisite military officer. Main thing I remember the guys getting at was the effect of the aurora on communications and tracking (military and otherwise). So drop the raised eyebrows.

Re:Negative Effects

[Inspector Lopez]

HAARP is capable of heating up a small patch of the ionosphere directly above the site. When the transmitter is turned off, the ionosphere recovers quickly. It has no ability to affect global, permanent changes in the ionosphere.

-----

Ionospheric physicists have two general attitudes about about HAARP.

(1) it's a cool facility which permits manipulation of the bottomside F region plasma physics, and provides an opportunity to study some intriguing plasma physics (3 and 4 wave interactions), as well as some thermospheric chemistry.

(2) It's yet-another-boondoggle from the Stevens/Murchowski axis, bringing pork to AK for no good reason, to support a need which no longer exists (how to communicate with subs, so that they can bomb whoever is threatening our precious bodily fluids [URL:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012]).

HAARP is not the only ionospheric heater on the planet. There is another one at Tromso, Norway (Ramfjordmoen), and there has been one at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. It got flooded and broke; they'd like to rebuild it. There are probably others in Russia somewhere.

---
I'm an ionospheric physicist, and I vote.

Re:Wow big suprise US spending billions on defense

[panxerox]

Yah cause intercepting nukes just is soo wrong, you will change your opinion if some piddling country launchs an emp nuke from a cargo ship and shuts this country off like a switch. What good is all that computer science education when the highest form of tech in this country is a shovel.

HF RADARs [Re:This only works at night?]

[Doug Jensen]

As someone whose professional application domain includes RADAR, I verify that HF RADAR is a currently deployed and advancing technology. Over the horizon RADAR's, which are on the HF band, such as the Upgraded Early Warning RADAR, are alive and well. Do a search for "UEWR" at globalsecurity.org.

Legends

[Phantasmo]

Anyone else here play X-Men Legends?
Perhaps they're trying to contain Magneto.

Article about HAARP in Nature

[Pchelka]

I believe that the article on HAARP and the aurora iamlucky13 referred to was published in the journal Nature.

I first heard about all of the conspiracy theories surrounding HAARP when I was studying physics in graduate school. When I took a research trip up to Alaska, I asked my apartment building manager if she could take care of my plants. She totally freaked out because she had heard about this evil HAARP thing the U.S. government had hidden in the Alaskan wilderness.

All of the conspiracy theories surrounding HAARP are a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. The physics behind this project is complicated and not understood by your average Joe. People understand just enough of it to realize how little they actually know, and that scares them. After my apartment manager told me about HAARP, I checked out a few of the web sites claiming to tell the truth about HAARP. Some of these "experts" on HAARP claimed that because they had Ph.D.s they were qualified to judge the merits and true purpose of HAARP. These people probably got their "degree" by responding to an e-mail from some school in Nigeria that will give you a diploma based upon your life experience if you send $500. It never fails to surprise me how many naive people out there will believe anyone who claims to have a Ph.D. in something or will believe anything they read on the Internet. Nerds are supposed to know better!

These conspiracy theories aren't just ridiculous because of their faulty and inaccurate science. A major conspiracy to cover up a secret and illegal military experiment implies that the leaders of the U.S government are organized enough to restrict the release of information and coordinate their cover stories and propaganda. Our government couldn't properly coordinate the relief efforts for the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Does anyone out there honestly think our government is organized enough to orchestrate a massive cover up for the development of an evil death ray?

Then again, why should anyone believe what I have to say? I know people involved with HAARP and I have a Ph.D. in physics so I'm just another evil genius out to destroy the world. People like Art Bell who seriously believe that there is a conspiracy would probably think that I am a part of it and lying about everthing. I wish I was part of the conspiracy so I could go take that alien space ship they have hidden at Area 51 and leave the planet as soon as possible. I sure don't like the way our world is heading.