Showing posts sorted by date for query HAARP. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query HAARP. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, February 15, 2026

 From Greenland to the Great Lakes, Secession is Our Best Hope for Escaping Tyranny



February 13, 2026



“We will have everything we want; we’re getting everything we want, at no cost!” the President of Babylon barked triumphantly over his latest diplomatic conquest in Greenland. After weeks of mounting tensions between our dear leader and his on-again-off-again rivals in the EU over which member of the country club should get to stick their flag in that rapidly thawing colony, a beautiful “framework” was announced from some bulletproof ski lodge in Davos. Trump declared the agreement to be a complete and total success for his open conspiracy to conquer the Arctic and as usual our cut-rate Bonaparte was completely full of shit but also kind of right.

The grand framework he keeps belching about was a deal offered to him by NATO Secretary Mark Rutte that promises to give the US total sovereignty over small but expandable portions of Greenland for the purpose of building Arctic military bases. This is indeed a sickening gift to the American war machine, but it was one already given to us back in 1951 with a bilateral defense agreement that pretty much gave America the divine right to build bases wherever the fuck they wanted on that desolate island and use them for pretty much anything we wanted to do, and I do mean anything. The US spent most of the Cold War stashing thermonuclear warheads in Greenland without any of the local’s knowledge or consent. But I digress

Long story short, a bunch of nervous NATO Eurocrats gave the Donald the slip by regifting him a 75-year-old deal and Trump grabbed this silly hand-me-down trophy and took a victory lap while chanting “I am not a pedophile!” over and over again to his dwindling MAGA faithful. All stupidity aside though, a far sadder reality here lost on most international observers is that Donald Trump didn’t need to colonize Greenland because Europe had already colonized it for him.

Denmark stole that Inuit territory back in the 16th century and America helped them hold on to it when the Danes were briefly colonized by the Nazis in the early 1940s. As one of the founding charter members of NATO, the tiny Nordic Kingdom then allowed the American empire to turn the island into a gigantic military base that once housed as many as 6,000 American troops at a time when Greenland’s native population was only about 20,0000, forcibly displacing entire villages to make way for their doomsday devices in the process.

The people of Greenland have been fighting for their sovereignty from both Europe and their NATO-American overlords for generations, finally achieving home rule in 1979, voting to withdraw from the EU in 1985, and expanding home rule to a self-government agreement with a window to complete independence in 2009. This is what the actual people of Greenland overwhelmingly support; to be free of pompous white assholes from both sides of the Atlantic along with their toxic waste and petty pissing matches.

But Denmark, dear tolerant socialist Denmark, continues to hold Greenland’s local government hostage with a 5 billion Kroner block grant that funds nearly all of their public services with the unspoken threat being that full independence would mean economic devastation.

And these are the fine gangsters draping themselves in Greenland’s flag and singing “hands off” from the bougie boulevards of Copenhagen. The truth only spoken between verses is that the Danes welcome any white men with guns to the island, so long as they don’t make a big show about it, because any sane native would cut the first deal they could get from China to be rid of them all. And as America sinks deeper and deeper into our own debt besotted Chinese money-pit, we have increasingly been reduced to little more than white men with guns.

Greenland’s seemingly inescapable fate, to be reduced to the polluted military playground of an increasingly belligerent American empire is tragic but perhaps the most tragic thing about the whole predicament is that this diplomatically toxic arrangement isn’t even particularly unusual. As grotesque as Donald Trump may be, he is far from the first American strongman to rape internationally ill-defined soil with climate torching military hardware. It’s actually kind of an American tradition and it didn’t stop with Geronimo either. Manifest Destiny aside, this is how our nation acquired its 49th and 50th states.

Like Greenland, both Hawaii and Alaska are overwhelmingly indigenous territories who have been fighting losing battles to free themselves from a hellish existence as glorified military bases for generations.

America bought Alaska from its previous conquistadors across the Bearing Strait in Tsarist Russia in 1867 and immediately placed its people under military rule for over a decade, during which the US Army and Navy were used to shell Tlingit villages, like Angoon in 1882, when they refused to be assimilated by bayonets alone. The end result wasn’t just Alaska’s forced statehood; it’s the ongoing military occupation of sacred northern indigenous lands by over 22,000 American troops along with the ecological devastation of this soil by massive imperial infrastructure projects like HAARP and the Alaska-Canada Military Highway.

America couldn’t quite buy off the Kingdom of Hawaii, so we orchestrated a coup in 1893 followed by annexation in 1898 instead, with turning Pearl Harbor into the tip of the spear for expanding Manifest Destiny to the Pacific Ocean as the primary goal. Now, the US Military occupies over 200,000 acres of “ceded lands” on the islands including 22% of the Island of Oahu. As if mere conquest weren’t enough, the ecological devastation done by our forces and their allies in the fruit plantation industry has turned large swaths of paradise into an open-air fire trap primed for climate change facilitated devastation the likes of which we all bore witness to in Maui just a few years back.

Sadly, this kind of post-colonial ecocidal devastation didn’t end in 1959 and wasn’t limited to one hemisphere either. The American Military has also similarly taken over raping and pillaging duties from Japan in the former Ryukyu Kingdom more commonly known as Okinawa.

Japan has been savaging these people since the Satsuma Clan invaded in 1609, but the US took charge after the Battle of Okinawa in which over 200,000 were slaughtered by both sides including a sizable population of civilian human shields that neither side seemed particularly shy about torching alive. With the former Empire of Japan’s consent, the US seized 25% of Ryukyu’s territory for military bases, forcibly displacing about 250,000 locals in the process in order to house over 26,000 US Military personnel who quickly busied themselves raping teenagers, running over children with their trucks, and devastating the Islands’ ancient fishing and farming industries.

In all of these lands the natives continue to struggle for self-rule but remain unrecognized by a world governed by globalist superstructures like the US, the EU, NATO, and the UN who define sovereignty based exclusively on the propertarian rule of the Westphalian system; a Eurocentric construct extended globally through colonialism in which only western style nation states with rigid borders and legally codified hierarchies are granted sovereignty. This leviathan continues to expand to this day, with the so-called “international community” waging war against regions like Somalia and New Guinea for the simple reason that they remain unruled by any single monopoly on the use of force.

And as the Western World continues its Spenglerian decline these colonialist tactics are increasingly being turned inward on modern city states like Minneapolis and Barcelona that simply refuse to forfeit local sovereignty to governments that their communities did not vote for and to a federal rule which they do not consent to.

I strongly believe that the solution for all of us is to embrace a framework that recognizes communities as sovereign organisms regardless of borders and recognizes secession as a basic human right. In order to achieve this, we will likely require a coalition similar to that of the Non-Aligned Movement formed by former colonies that found themselves with increased autonomy after the collapse of the old European empires in the Second World War.

Their goal was similar to that of the unrecognized nations of Greenland, Alaska, Ryukyu, and Hawaii; to remain independent and neutral during a time of violently shifting global alliances. They also share the same hidden strength held by all colonized people. They occupy space of strategic importance which is the reason why they were colonized in the first place. Alone, territories like Greenland and Ryukyu seem insignificant but they have been carefully developed into geostrategic chokepoints necessary for global governance and if they can cooperate with each other then they can quite easily hamstring American primacy while it reaches the apex of its decline.

Can you imagine an American empire with zero ability to command over the Indo-Pacific or the Arctic? I can and it’s a crippled fiefdom stretched too thin to govern Minneapolis or Portland or my girlfriend’s trailer park for that matter. It’s a recipe for a new world order freed from the restraints of the Westphalian trap and it’s one I welcome for my own obscure corner of the map and yours.

How about you?

Nicky Reid is an agoraphobic anarcho-genderqueer gonzo blogger from Central Pennsylvania and assistant editor for Attack the System. You can find her online at Exile in Happy Valley.

Friday, January 31, 2025

CONTRAILS BY ANY OTHER NAME

Chemtrail conspiracy theorists sway Republicans to support ban on geoengineering


Screenshot via ACTV/azleg.gov
Jodi Brackett speaks to the House Regulatory Oversight Committee on Jan. 28, 2025, alongside pictures of contrails she believes are evidence of “chemtrails” in Arizona.
Jerod Macdonald-Evoy, Arizona MirrorJanuary 29, 2025


Conspiracy theorists came out in force Tuesday afternoon to support a Republican bill that aims to ban “geoengineering,” citing the long debunked “chemtrails” conspiracy theory as evidence that nefarious actors are already turning Arizona’s skies into a laboratory and treating its unsuspecting residents as guinea pigs.

“This started when I noticed lines in the sky that did not look normal,” Jodi Brackett told the House Regulatory Oversight Committee.



As Brackett stood at the podium in the legislative hearing room, a man held a collage of photos of contrails taken in Arizona. Brackett said she brought the issue to freshman GOP legislator Lisa Fink’s attention.

Claims that Arizona has seen an increase in contrails left behind by airliners was a major theme among many of the speakers who came to support the bill.

“Whether you know it or not, your body is part of their laboratory,” Crystal Hansen told the committee claiming that the vapor trails left behind by airliners are “not condensation,” citing a website that has posted altered videos and photos as “evidence” of the conspiracy.

The geography of the Phoenix metropolitan area, where many of those who spoke in favor of Fink’s House Bill 2056 said they reside, plays a role in those long-hanging contrails that many see as “proof” of a larger conspiracy. The region sits basically in a bowl surrounded by mountains, with an inversion above that bowl that traps the air below it. That results in high ozone and other pollutant levels — as well as contrails that linger in the air longer than they do in most other places.

“We, the people, are extremely concerned with all the trails in our skies,” Melissa Price said to the committee, adding that she wants lawmakers to send the bill to the ballot for voters to decide on.

But Price did concede that “even with all the weather modification” she claimed was happening, the state is “not seeing any rain” and remains facing the effects of a historic drought.

Fink’s bill would ban geoengineering in Arizona. In simple terms, geoengineering is the practice of intentionally attempting to modify the atmosphere. In recent years, it has been explored as a possible way to combat the increasingly extreme effects of climate change.

The field is largely theoretical with only small projects taking place, some of which have faced backlash from local communities. Geoengineering has recently become the focus of groups that have previously pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about vaccines.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration currently monitors the planet’s atmosphere for signs of geoengineering programs by other nations or by small venture capitalist backed groups.

The emerging field has caused fierce debate among scientists, some of whom see it as a way to combat mankind’s impact on the planet, while others see it as another way to create climate chaos.

Many refer to the practice as climate intervention, and some scientists have been studying it as a means of combating climate change. These efforts have included studying things like solar radiation modification, a process that aims to decrease surface temperatures by reflecting sunlight away from the planet.

Last year, Tennessee lawmakers passed a law that banned geoengineering, with lawmakers during debate alluding to the debunked “chemtrails” conspiracy theory. Online conspiracy theorists have long pointed to the condensation left behind by airliners as being part of a larger conspiracy to modify the weather or poison the populace, though no evidence of such programs exist and the contrails planes sometimes leave behind are little more than water vapor that has frozen into ice crystals.

Other speakers also saw the bill as a way to combat other bogus geoengineering conspiracy theories that have long had a place in the fringes of conspiracy culture.

Leslie Forster told the committee that the bill would help protect Arizonans from the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, also known as HAARP, which studies the planet’s upper atmosphere. The research project has been accused of causing a litany of weather-related events, despite its inability to impact the weather.

Speakers also confused sulfur iodide with sodium iodide, a chemical commonly used in cloud seeding. Cloud seeding eventually became a focus of the committee, as Fareed Bailey, a lobbyist representing the Salt River Project, said the utility was concerned about the bill’s ban on it.

Fink’s HB2056 bill would ban a litany of geoengineering practices, including cloud seeding, deploying aerosol particles in the stratosphere, releasing chaff into the atmosphere, solar radiation modification or any other attempts to modify the weather. Her legislation is similar to several others filed in other states this year.

Bailey said SRP has been studying cloud seeding as a possible way to help with the state’s water woes, but all research has been theoretical in computer models. SRP has not flown any aircraft to conduct cloud seeding tests, Bailey said.

“We do not want to close the door to this promising technology,” he said, adding that silver iodide, the main chemical used in cloud seeding, has been found to be largely non-toxic. Bailey’s claim was met with boos and jeers from many in the audience.

The bill initially was written to bar any government agency, research project, university, “public or private organization” or “military force” from engaging in geoengineering, with violators facing a $500,000 fine and a felony, with up to three years of prison; the the director of the Department of Water Resources would have been tasked with investigating any claim of geoengineering.

But the GOP-led committee amended the proposal to remove those penalties and the responsibility of the head of the water agency, instead allow citizens to bring any geoengineering claims to court, where they’d be awarded injunctive relief if they proved their case. The amendment also adds a ban on universities funding any research into solar radiation modification.

One attendee felt the amendment lacked “teeth” and suggested that the punishment for geoengineering be treason — which is punishable by death — eliciting cheers from the attendees.

Others asked members of the committee to “get on Instagram” to see the evidence of geoengineering that is allegedly happening out of Sky Harbor International Airport. Many cited increased issues with asthma as proof of the geoengineering plot.

With the increase in population and heat, the Phoenix metro area has seen a marked increase in the number of high pollution days, which leads to more adverse reactions to those with asthma and other breathing complications.

Some in attendance also appeared to believe in other conspiracy theories, sporting t-shirts supporting election reforms based on election fraud falsities and sharing with the committee their belief that a large number of children are being sex trafficked, a core component of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Local election conspiracy theorist Gail Golec also came out to support the bill Tuesday afternoon.

The formal GOP platform makes no mention of climate change, greenhouse gases, the environment, pollution, clean air or clean water. It makes a brief mention of conservation in a section on restoring “American Beauty.” And although there is broad scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change, and that its effects are becoming more extreme, Arizona Republicans largely reject that it is happening at all.

Last year, state Senate Republicans backed a bill to bar state government and universities from spending money to reduce greenhouse gases or research climate change, deeming them both “Marxist” ideas that are “anti-God.”

Democratic committee members voiced concern that they did not hear from any experts, such as physicians or scientists. When the minority lawmakers said they didn’t see evidence of what the bill’s proponents were saying, many in attendance booed, leading Republican Committee Chair Joseph Chaplik to threaten bringing in security if outbursts continued.

Rep. Rachel Keshel, R-Tucson, who is married to conspiracy theorist Seth Keshel, said she has seen “adequate research” that the alleged chemicals involved in the fictional geoengineering leads to increased Azlhiemers.

And Chaplik said his inability to see individual airplanes flying more than 20,000 feet above Phoenix that are leaving contrails in the sky was concerning enough to support changing Arizona law to ban geoengineering.

“You’re seeing these in the sky at nighttime or early morning, you’re really not seeing the planes fully flying around the air,” he said, adding that he has been talking with Fink about the issue for “a few months.”

The bill passed out of the committee along party lines, with Republicans voting in favor and Democrats opposing. The bill heads next to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Supercharged hurricanes trigger ‘perfect storm’ for disinformation


By AFP
October 11, 2024


False accusations of the US government waging 'weather warfare' spread in the run-up to Hurricane Milton slamming into Florida, fueling a spate of tornadoes 
- Copyright AFP/File CHANDAN KHANNA

Manon JACOB

Monster hurricanes slamming the United States in recent weeks have triggered a torrent of misinformation, with politicians and social media users reviving conspiracy theories about weather manipulation ahead of the November 5 presidential election.

False accusations of the government waging “weather warfare” spread online with social media posts claiming the storms were “deliberately deployed against red states” likely to vote for Republican Donald Trump.

“We are in a geoengineering ‘meltdown’ perpetrated by Globalists who want to ‘control’ the whole of humanity,” said one post on X.

Rumors also focused on the Alaska-based High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which was formerly run by the US military, and cloud seeding, despite a lack of evidence linking the technologies to the formation of large storms.

The wave of falsehoods emerged after Helene became the deadliest hurricane to hit the US mainland since 2005’s Katrina, and Milton quickly followed, making landfall in Florida on October 9.

Both storms ravaged entire neighborhoods, forcing widespread evacuations and causing massive power outages.

Ethan Porter, a professor and researcher at The George Washington University Misinformation/Disinformation Lab, said some people are using misinformation “as a convenient way to express their political beliefs.”

He said the focus is less on the details, but rather the underlying message — “that neither science nor government should be trusted, that climate change isn’t real, and that somehow, Democrats are responsible for the unfolding catastrophe.”

Pro-Trump Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has repeatedly told her followers that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration authorizes programs that “control the weather.”

Methods such as cloud seeding can help increase rain and snow in localized areas, but they cannot create storms like Helene.

Experts told AFP it is concerning that politicians are engaging with such narratives.

“This is coming at a time of real political tension,” said Callum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

“The social media landscape is a friendlier place for hate and disinformation than it has been in a long time, particularly on X.”

University of Miami professor Joseph Uscinski, who researches why people believe in conspiracy theories, agreed: “We have members of Congress who are pushing ideas that this is real, when, in fact, it’s not.”



– ‘Scary world’ –



The situation highlighted the sharp divide over climate change, as scientists warned that supercharged storms were the result of warmer ocean temperatures.

Storms, also amplified by warmer air, show a potential to impact inland areas as well as coastal regions that have historically been in the path of destruction.

“Hurricane Helene showed us that it is not (only) the coast we have to worry about. A hurricane with a lot of moisture passing through a mountainous area — such as Asheville — is a bad combination,” Jayantha Obeysekera, director of the Sea Level Solutions Center at Florida International University, told AFP.

Nature Conservancy chief scientist Katharine Hayhoe said weather control narratives help defer the responsibility of curbing emissions.

She worries such logic brings a false sense of security and comfort for people trying “to make sense of what is rapidly becoming a very scary world.”

These conditions create “a ‘perfect storm'” for disinformation, Hayhoe said, highlighting how disbelief can further delay action on the ground or prevent proper resilience and mitigation plans against a warming climate.

“It moves us in exactly the opposite direction from where we need to be going,” she said.

Tuesday, October 01, 2024

 

Posts falsely blame HAARP research project for Hurricane Helene

An aerial view of damaged houses are seen after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Horseshoe Beach, Florida on September 28, 2024 ( AFP / CHANDAN KHANNA)


As a massive hurricane thrashed the southeastern United States in late September 2024, social media posts claimed Democrats used the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) to create the storm to prevent Republicans from voting in the upcoming presidential election. This is false; scientists have repeatedly refuted the notion that the atmospheric research initiative can manipulate the weather. 

"They are using HAARP to ensure that HURRICANE HELENE devastates the largest Republican stronghold area in Florida. This hurricane will destroy homes, displace thousands and ensure much less participation in the presidential election in November," says a September 26, 2024 Facebook post.


Screenshot of a Facebook post taken September 30, 2024


Screenshots of the claim spread elsewhere on social media. The X user who originally aired the allegation admitted September 28 that it was a "troll post," only to share a similar claim two days later.

Helene made landfall September 26 on the Florida Panhandle as a massive Category 4 hurricane, stranding residents, destroying homes and knocking out power for millions of people. The National Weather Service warned of "catastrophic and potentially life-threatening" flooding as the storm headed inland, and the death toll climbed to at least 130 on October 1.

The disaster electrified an already tense election campaign, just five weeks from the final match-up between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump quickly accused the Biden administration of inaction, alleging political bias.

"He's lying," President Joe Biden responded September 30, citing the White House's ongoing response to the devastating storm (archived here).

HAARP uses the world's most powerful high-frequency transmitter to study the physical processes at work in the highest regions of the atmosphere. It has long been the subject of conspiracy theories -- including claims that it can manipulate the weather.

The latest allegations are similarly baseless.

"The tragic loss of life and widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene serve as a solemn reminder of the immense power of natural disasters. The research equipment at the HAARP facility is not capable of generating or amplifying such events," HAARP Director Jessica Matthews (archived here) said in an October 1 email.

Howard Diamond, director of the Atmospheric Sciences and Modeling Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Air Resources Laboratory (archived here), concurred.

"HAARP had absolutely no connection to the formation of Hurricane Helene, the formation of any other hurricane, or the genesis of any other natural weather event for that matter," he said in a September 30 email.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks has operated the program since 2015, when it was transferred from the US Air Force (archived here).

"Radio waves in the frequency ranges that HAARP transmits are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere -- the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth's weather," the initiative says on its FAQ page (archived here).

"Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather."

How hurricanes form

Global weather patterns are responsible for large-scale storms such as blizzards and hurricanes, which require specific atmospheric conditions to form.

"The genesis of Hurricane Helene, as is the case for any hurricane, formed on its own given the right conditions of sea surface temperature and upper atmospheric winds," Diamond said.

Image
Graphic explaining the formation of hurricanes

(AFP / Cléa PÉCULIER, Sophie RAMIS)

Ella Gilbert, a meteorologist at the British Antarctic Survey (archived here), previously told AFP that "heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods are all caused by a variety of different conditions in the atmosphere and are often the result of the random combination of weather events."

She said it "makes no sense" to raise the idea that technology is bringing about such extreme events.

Although the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season has been less busy than predicted (archived here), scientists say climate change and warmer-than-average ocean temperatures have likely played a role in the rapid intensification of storms.

Florida voters affected by Helene

The Florida Department of State told AFP it is working with county election officials to address damage to infrastructure and polling places, poll worker safety and availability, and mail-in ballots.

"The Florida Department of State will continue to follow up with supervisors throughout this time as their needs evolve," an agency spokesperson said in a September 30 email.

The state has taken steps to ensure ballot access after past storms.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an emergency executive order following Hurricane Ian to change election procedures and expand voting options for those displaced or otherwise affected ahead of the 2022 midterms (archived herehere and here).

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the 2024 US election is available here.

Monday, May 20, 2024

HAARP research facility was not behind recent UK Northern Lights sightings

20 MAY 2024
WHAT WAS CLAIMED

The Northern Lights seen in many parts of the world recently were not a natural occurrence, but generated by the HAARP facility in Alaska.

OUR VERDICT

The Northern Lights were caused by a severe geomagnetic storm produced by the sun and were in no way caused by research carried out by HAARP.

Several posts circulating on Facebook and Threads claim that the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, seen in many parts of the world between 10 and 12 May 2024, were actually created by a research facility in Alaska.

Although the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) did run a “research campaign” from 8-10 May, this was in no way linked to the solar storm or high auroral activity globally.

Scientists at HAARP said they scheduled the May campaign on 16 March 2024, about a month and a half before the geomagnetic storm. In an FAQ posted online, they said: “The timing was purely coincidental; geomagnetic storms are unpredictable, with lead times before a solar event measured in minutes, not months.”

Some posts linking HAARP’s activity to the aurora borealis included notices HAARP published about the May campaign. HAARP said these are released with all campaigns to “promote citizen science collaborations” and highlighted that the May campaign “supported research proposals studying mechanisms for the detection of orbiting space debris” not creating aurora borealis. 

HAARP explained the Northern Lights seen that weekend were “produced solely by a severe geomagnetic storm that was produced by our sun” and not by its research.

HAARP also highlighted that coronal mass ejections, like the one associated with the recent geomagnetic storm, “typically release more than 10^24 Joules of energy”. By comparison, the high- frequency transmitter at HAARP is only a ~3 megawatt transmitter and “would take HAARP over 10 billion years to produce enough energy to affect this naturally occurring phenomenon”. 


What is the aurora borealis?

Jim Wild, Professor of Space Physics in the Physics Department at Lancaster University, explained to Full Fact that the Northern Lights are caused by the electromagnetic connection between the sun and earth. 

He explained that a stream of magnetised and electrically charged subatomic particles is constantly being carried from the sun by the ‘solar wind’ and when these particles leak into the earth’s magnetosphere—the region of space dominated by the earth’s magnetic field—some of this energy accelerates particles towards the earth. Energy is passed from the incoming particles to the earth’s oxygen and nitrogen particles, making them excited but unstable. The atoms de-excite by releasing photons of light, which is what creates the aurora.

Professor Wild explained: “Earth’s magnetic field normally funnels the sub-atomic particles from space into the polar regions, which is why the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, are typically seen in the Arctic. During the months of the year when there are dark nights, it is not unusual to see some auroral activity every night at high latitude.”

Why were the Northern Lights visible in more places than usual?

Professor Wild told us that to see the Northern Lights at lower latitudes, the conditions that drive them need to be dialled up much higher. 

He said: “Typically, this happens when an explosion of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), engulfs the Earth. This can trigger a geomagnetic storm that pushes the aurora equatorward. Typically, this happens a couple of times a year, but the sun has a natural 11-year cycle of activity and CMEs are more common around the maximum activity part of the cycle. 

“As it happens, that’s where we are now and over the last week, an active region on the solar surface has been firing one CME out after another.”

How is HAARP different?

HAARP can generate artificial aurora using high powered radio waves

“Instead of atmospheric gas atoms being excited by the impact of an electron raining down from space, they are excited when energy transfers from the HAARP radio wave to the atoms,” Professor Wild explained. “They then release light as they de-excite.”

He noted that the energy naturally poured into Earth’s atmosphere during a large geomagnetic storm that results in auroral displays like the recent one is estimated to be 5,000 gigawatts (5,000 billion watts). And although HAARP is a powerful radio transmitter, it can’t transmit nearly as much energy as that.

Of HAARP’s ability to generate artificial aurora, he said: “this produces very faint optical emissions, usually not bright enough to see. Also, the nature of its antennas means that the beam required to focus that energy into a small region of the sky can only be steered very slightly around the sky, and always above the transmitter site.”

HAARP has previously successfully run experiments that produce artificial “airglow”. But an FAQ on HAARP’s website stresses that the energy the facility generates is not strong enough to produce the optical display seen during a natural aurora.

Full Fact corroborated this with other scientists including Dr Ciaran Beggan at the British Geological Society, who explained “it is simply not feasible to generate that amount of energy on the ground and transmit it into [the] atmosphere in order to cover a large fraction of the northern hemisphere”.

Professor Don Pollacco, a physicist at the University of Warwick also noted “there is no way what we saw at the weekend was produced by HAARP—it is not capable enough,” while Dr Darren Baskill, lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Sussex, also highlighted the huge amount of energy required to generate the displays across the globe needs “a far greater amount of power that is available to the small HAARP project”. 

We’ve written about HAARP before and how it isn’t responsible for peculiar clouds. Other false claims that have previously spread about the facility include that it caused natural disasters after being “tested on” specific countries. People have been making similarly false claims for over a decade.

Image courtesy of Stein Egil Liland