Project HAARP: The Military's Plan to Alter the Ionosphere
by Clare Zickuhr and Gar Smith
Fall 1994
Clare Zickuhr, a former ARCO employee and ham radio operator based in
Anchorage, is a founder of the NO HAARP campaign. Gar Smith is editor
of the editor of Earth Island Journal.
The Pentagon's mysterious HAARP project, now under construction at an
isolated Air Force facility near Gakona, Alaska, marks the first step
toward creating the world's most powerful "ionospheric heater."
Scientists, environmentalists and native peoples are concerned that
HAARP's electronic transmitters -- capable of beaming "in excess of 1
gigawatts" (one billion watts) of radiated power into the Earth's
ionosphere -- could harm people, endanger wildlife and trigger
unforeseen environmental impacts.
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project (HAARP), a joint
effort of the Air Force and the Navy, is the latest in a series of a
little-known Department of Defense (DoD) "active ionospheric
experiments" with code-names like EXCEDE, RED AIR and CHARGE IV.
"From a DoD point of view," internal HAARP do***ents state, "the most
exciting and challenging" part of the experiment is "its potential to
control ionospheric processes" for military objectives [emphasis in
the original]. According to these do***ents, the scientists pulling
HAARP's strings envision using the system's powerful 2.8-10 megahertz
(MHz) beam to burn "holes" in the ionosphere and "create an artificial
lens" in the sky that could focus large bursts of electromagnetic
energy "to higher altitudes... than is presently possible." The
minimum area to be heated would be 50 km (31 miles) in diameter.
The initial $26 million, 320 kW HAARP project will employ 360 72-foot-
tall antennas spread over four acres to direct an intense beam of
focused electromagnetic energy upwards to strike the ionosphere. The
Earth's ionosphere is composed of a layer of negatively and positively
charged particles (electrons and ions) lying between 35 and 500 miles
above the planet's surface. The next stage of the project would expand
HAARP's power to 1.7 gigawatts (1.7 billion watts), making it the most
powerful such transmitter on Earth. While the project's acronym
implies experimentation with the Earth's aurora, HAARP's public
do***ents make no mention of this aspect. For a project whose backers
hail it as a major scientific feat, HAARP has remained extremely low-
profile -- almost unknown to most Alaskans, and the rest of the
country.
A November 1993 "HAARP Fact Sheet" released to the public by the
Office of Naval Research (ONR) stated that the Department of Defense
(DoD)-backed project would "enhance present civilian capabilities" in
communications and "provide significant scientific advancements."
However, while previous DoD experiments with smaller high frequency
(HF) heaters in Puerto Rico, Norway and Alaska were conducted to "gain
[a] better understanding" of the ionosphere, internal HAARP do***ents
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that the
project's goal is to "perturb" the ionosphere with extremely powerful
beams of energy and study "how it responds to the disturbance and how
it ultimately recovers...."
The public fact sheet describes HAARP as "purely a scientific research
facility which represents no threat to potential adversaries and would
therefore have no value as a military target." However, while
ionospheric experiments at the government's Puerto Rico transmitter
site are managed by the civilian National Science Foundation, the
Journal has learned that proposals for experiments on HAARP are to be
routed through the Pentagon's Office of Naval Research.
A February 1990 Air Force-Navy do***ent acquired by the Journal lists
only military experiments for the HAARP project, including:
"Generation of ionospheric lenses to focus large amounts of HF energy
at high altitudes... providing a means for triggering ionospheric
processes that potentially could be exploited for DoD purposes...;
Generation of ionization layers below 90 km [56 miles] to provide
radio wave reflectors ("mirrors") which can be exploited for long
range, over-the-horizon, HF/VHF/UHF surveillance purposes, including
the detection of cruise missiles and other low observables." The
do***ent concluded that "the potential for significantly altering
regions of the ionosphere at relatively great distances (1000 km or
more ) [621 miles] from a heater is very desirable" from a military
perspective.
One of HAARP's less-publicized goals is to find ways to disrupt the
global communications capabilities of adversaries while preserving US
defense communications. The Pentagon also wants to know if HAARP could
bounce signals to deeply submerged nuclear subs by heating the
ionosphere to trigger bursts of Extremely Long Frequency (ELF) radio
waves.
Patents held by ARCO Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI), the ARCO
subsidiary that was contracted to build HAARP, describe a similar
ionospheric heater invented by Bernard Eastlund that claimed the
ability to disrupt global communications, destroy enemy missiles and
change weather (see sidebar). One of ARCO's patents identifies Alaska
as a perfect site for a transmitter because "magnetic field lines...
which extend to desirable altitudes for this invention, intersect the
Earth in Alaska."
While HAARP officials deny any link to Eastlund's inventions, Eastlund
has told National Public Radio that a secret military project was
begun in the late-1980s to study and implement his work and, in the
May/June 1994 issue of Microwave News, Eastlund claimed that "The
HAARP project obviously looks a lot like the first step" toward his
vision of surrounding the entire planet with a "full, global ****eld"
of charged particles that could explode incoming enemy missiles.
The military implications of HAARP were further underscored in June,
when ARCO sold APTI to E-Systems, a defense contractor noted for its
work in counter-surveillance.
Electromagnetic Guinea Pigs
HAARP surfaced publicly in Alaska in the spring of 1993, when the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began advising commercial pilots
on how to avoid the large amounts of intentional (and some
unintentional) electromagnetic radiation that HAARP would generate.
Despite the protests of FAA engineers and Alaska bush pilots (for whom
reliable communications can be a matter of life or death) the Final
Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) gave HAARP the green light.
Ironically, the FEIS also concluded that the project's radio
interference would be too intense to allow HAARP to be located near
any military facilities.
On November 11, 1993, Inupiat tribal advisor Charles Etok Edwarden,
Jr., wrote to the White House on behalf of the Inupiat Community of
the Arctic Slope and the Kasigluk Elders Conference. "Many of us are
not happy with the prospect of ARCO altering the Earth's neutral
atmospheric properties," Edwardsen wrote. "We do not wish to be
anyone's testing grounds, as the Bikini Islanders have been...."
referring to Pacific Islanders subjected to radiation exposure from US
atomic bomb testing. Edwardsen has appealed to President Clinton to
deny further funding to HAARP.
In the past, the EPA has accused the USAF of "sidestepping" the
nonthermal hazards of electromagnetic pollution from powerful radar
transmitters. Over the past three decades, numerous US and European
studies have linked electromagnetic exposure to a range of health
problems including fatigue, irritability, sleepiness, memory loss,
cataracts, leukemia, birth defects and cancer. Electromagnetic
radiation can also alter blood sugar and cholesterol levels, heart-
rate and blood pressure, brain waves and brain chemistry.
Wildlife advocates also have cause to be concerned. The HAARP site
lies 140 miles north of the town of Cordova on Prince William Sound,
on the northwest tip of Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
Since ordinary radar is known to be deadly to low- flying birds,
HAARP's powerful radiation beam could pose a problem for migratory
birds because the transmitter stands in the path of the critical
Pacific Flyway. In addition, HAARP's ability to generate strong
magnetic fields could conceivably interfere with the migration of
birds, marine life and Arctic animals that are now known to rely on
the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate over long distances.
The HAARP fact sheet states that "most of the energy of the high-
power beam would be emitted upward rather than toward the horizon."
Later on, however, the fact sheet notes that care will have to be
taken "to reduce the percentage of time large signal levels would be
transmitted toward large cities." The closest large cities are
Fairbanks and Anchorage.
Even if HAARP's beam were to be directed primarily at the ionosphere,
people on the ground would still have reason to be concerned.
According to DoD consultant Robert Windsor, clear damp nights,
downdrafts and temperature inversions can cause "ducting" and "super-
refracting" that can send energy beams streaming back to Earth with "a
significant -- up to tenfold -- increase in field intensity."
In addition to their main beams, all electromagnetic transmitters
produce large swaths of "sidelobe" radiation along their flanks. US-
based PAVE PAWS over-the-horizon radars, for example, use
approximately one megawatt of power to send a 420-430-megahertz (MHz)
beam on a 3000-mile-long sweep. At the same time, the "incidental"
sidelobe radiation from these Pentagon radars can disable TVs, radios,
radar altimeters and satellite communications over a 250-mile range.
PAVE PAWS radiation can also disrupt cardiac pacemakers seven miles
away and cause the "inadvertent detonation" of electrically triggered
flares and bombs in passing aircraft. At peak power, the energy
driving HAARP could be more than a thousand times stronger than the
most powerful PAVE PAWS transmitter.
HAARP's High-Level Hazards
HAARP project manager John Heckscher, a scientist at the Department of
the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory, has called concerns about the
transmitter's impact "unfounded." "It's not unreasonable to expect
that something three times more powerful than anything that's
previously been built might have unforeseen effects," Heckscher told
Microwave News. "But that's why we do environmental impact
statements."
The July 1993 EIS does, in fact, admit that HAARP is expected to cause
"measurable changes in the ionosphere's electron density, temperature
and structure," but argues that these disruptions are insignificant
"when compared to changes induced by naturally occurring processes."
Subjecting the ionosphere to HF bombardment can ionize the neutral
particles in the upper atmosphere. The HAARP Fact Sheet notes that
"ionospheric disturbances at high altitudes also can act to induce
large currents in electric power grids" on the ground, causing massive
power blackouts. According to the 1990 Air Force- Navy do***ent, power
levels of one gigawatt and above "can drastically alter [the
ionosphere's] thermal, refractive, scattering and emission character."
While the ionosphere over the government's smaller HF transmitter in
Puerto Rico is relatively "stable," the do***ent notes that the
ionosphere above Alaska is "a dynamic entity" where added bursts of
electromagnetic energy could trigger exaggerated effects.
Writing in Physics and Society (the quarterly newsletter of the
American Physical Society), Dr. Richard Williams, a consultant to
Princeton University's David Sarnoff Laboratory, denounced ionospheric
heating tests as irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
"Trace [chemical] constituents in the upper atmosphere can have a
profound effect" on the formation of ozone molecules, Williams stated.
It is known that altering the temperature of the ionosphere can affect
the chemical reactions that produce ozone. Referring to the Montreal
Protocol (the international agreement to protect the ozone layer from
ozone-depleting chemicals), Williams warned that activating HAARP's
ionospheric heater "might undo all that we have accomplished with this
treaty."
"Look at the power levels that will be used -- 10**9 to 10**11 watts!"
Williams told the Journal in a recent interview. "This is equivalent
to the output of ten to 100 large power-generating stations. A ten-
billion-watt generator, running continuously for one hour, would
deliver a quantity of energy equal to that of a Hiro****ma-sized atomic
bomb."
"Of course," Williams added, "they will operate in a pulsed mode
[producing a series of short, powerful bursts], rather than
continuously." The HAARP fact sheet states that the HF beam, which
operates in the 2.8-10 MHz band, will only be used 4-5 times a year
for several weeks at a time over a 20-year period. Nonetheless,
Williams argued, to proceed without a full public discussion of
HAARP's potential impacts runs the risk of committing "an
irresponsible act of global vandalism. With experiments on this
scale," Williams concluded, "irreparable damage could be done in a
short time. The immediate need is for open discussion."
Dr. Daniel N. Baker, director of the University of Colorado's
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, offered a less- alarming
*****sment. "The natural input of energy to the magnetosphere from the
sun is very commonly 10**11 - 10**12 watts," Baker told the Journal.
"Thus, HAARP may be a small fraction of the energy that flows into the
region." Baker added that the ionosphere is, by nature, a "highly
dynamic and fluctuating" environment that is able to "flush" away
energy disturbances in a matter of hours or days.
Of course, in nature, one cannot simply "flush" something away without
anticipating potential "downstream" consequences. Caroline L.
Herzenberg, an environmental systems engineer at the Argonne National
Laboratory, has suggested that, by "changing the chemical composition
of the atmosphere; [and] trans****ting plumes of particulates or plasma
within the atmosphere," HAARP may violate the 1977 Environmental
Modification Convention, which bans all "military or any other hostile
use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-
lasting, or severe effects...." The US ratified the convention in
1979.
"X-Raying" the Earth?
On June 14, a Senate committee re****t noted that the Deputy Secretary
of Defense had called for increasing HAARP funding from $5 million to
$75 million in the 1996 defense budget. The sudden increase would be
used to promote a disturbing new mission for HAARP.
Instead of just pouring its vast energy into the skies, the
transmitter's power would be aimed back at the planet to "allow earth-
penetrating tomography over most of the northern hemisphere" -- in
effect, turning HAARP into the world's most powerful "X-ray machine"
capable of scanning regions hidden deep beneath the planet's surface.
According to the Senate re****t, this would "permit the detection and
precise location of tunnels... and other underground shelters. The
absence of such a capability has been... a serious weakness for [DoD]
plans for precision attacks on hardened targets...."
Meanwhile, construction on the larger HAARP facility -- with a
potential effective radiated power of 1.7 GW (1.7 billion watts) -- is
set to begin in 1995. This expanded version would require additional
funding from Congress. According to the 1990 project do***ent: "The
desired world-class facility... will cost on the order of $25-30
million." The Senate Committee's April re****t, however, predicts that
the cost "could be as much as $90 million."
What You Can Do
Write Congress to demand a review of HAARP's environmental impacts.
Request that the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration [NITA, c/o US Department of Commerce, Wa****ngton, DC
20230] reject the HAARP frequency/power request pending the outcome of
a Congressional inquiry. Queries and contributions may be sent to NO
HAARP c/o Jim Roderick, PO Box 916, Homer, AK 99603.
"Visibility is a crude criterion for *****sing environmental
damage.... An unprecedented amount of energy can produce an
unprecedented reaction. Experimenting with [the ionosphere] is a very
delicate thing. A localized event can spread around the Earth fairly
quickly." -- Prof. Dick Williams
Copyright 1995, Earth Island Journal. Articles may be freely reprinted
with prior permission. Please credit Earth Island Journal and send
samples.
Clare Zickuhr, a former ARCO employee and ham radio operator based in
Anchorage, is a founder of the NO HAARP campaign. Gar Smith is editor
of the editor of Earth Island Journal.
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