MOSCOW: It is claimed to be a highly sophisticated research device designed for studying the upper atmosphere. But the strange collection of tall pylons and masts now being built in the wilds of Alaska could turn out to be an instrument of global catastrophe.
This is the stark, and startling, view of Russian scientists whose political leaders last week demanded America cease construction of its High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project (Haarp) transmitter near Gakon.
Two hundred members of the Russian parliament, the Duma, called on President Vladimir Putin to confront President George Bush over the project after receiving a letter from one of their space defence chiefs, General Vladimir Popovkin.
Popovkin warns that powerful high-frequency energy waves, fired from the instrument into the ionosphere, could heat the upper atmosphere, trigger chaotic changes to weather patterns, and cause permanent environmental damage.
Russian MPs have asked the United Nations to mount global opposition to Haarp which, they say, is aimed at ‘upsetting radio communications’ and ‘disabling electronic equipment on aeroplanes, rockets and ground systems’.
The MPs claim the instrument could ‘negatively influence the mental and physical health of people across regions, lead to a new arms race, and undermine the strategic stability of the world’. Not bad for a machine that is merely supposed to aid research into the behaviour of particles in the upper atmosphere.
Haarp - designed to fire a burst of short-wave radiation into the ionosphere - is scheduled to go online next year, although researchers have already begun experiments.
The ionosphere, which begins 50 miles above our heads, is made up of fluxes of plasma and particles emanating from the Sun and may be crucial in determining our climate, say scientists. They want to use Haarp’s beams to heat and lift the ionosphere directly above the transmitter into order to study conditions there.
Such research does not explain the interest of US military chiefs who have picked up the bill for most of Haarp’s construction. They want to use the ionosphere to communicate with submarines, remotely sense underground structures such as tunnels or oil deposits, prolong the life of satellites, boost over-the-horizon radar — and possibly block incoming nuclear warheads.
By creating a wall of electromagnetic energy high into the atmosphere over Alaska, missiles bound for the United States could be disorientated and prevented from reaching their targets. In the same way, instruments on communications satellites could be blanked out, blinding the eyes and ears of America’s enemies, i.e the Russians.
Scientists believe it may be possible to use energy beams to tune auroral jets in the upper atmosphere, so that they produce waves of long-wave radiation that can be picked up by submarines.
The Duma has also claimed that the US intends to build another such facility in Greenland next year, capable of three times the output of Haarp. Putin’s representative to the Duma said the Kremlin was aware of the dangers posed by Haarp, but said confrontation should be avoided.
Others are not so sanguine. As one Alaskan protester put it: “They just want to give the ionosphere a great big kick to see what happens.”
Haarp scientists claim the machine cannot give bursts powerful enough to have a sustained effect on conditions up there. “I would need a million Haarps and all the energy from the world’s electricity for a year to affect a thunderstorm this way,” said one.
The Russians disagree. Popovkin says in his letter: “This project raises the possibility of creating a weapon on the basis of artificial modification of the environment around the Earth with unpredictable consequences for the planet.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.