US ionospheric research facility to close ... Unless a new patron emerges, HAARP will be dismantled
US ionospheric research facility to close
Unless a new patron emerges, HAARP will be dismantled in June.
The world’s most advanced ionospheric research facility has in its lifetime faced allegations of being a 'military death beam', a weapon of weather control and even a top-secret mind-control project. Now, the US government’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is threatened with closure.
HAARP, near Gakona, Alaska, comprises radio transmitters and antennas that are used to heat up the ionosphere — the uppermost region of the atmosphere — creating a laboratory in the sky for scientists.The facility has been used to produce an artificial aurora and to study how charged particles behave in the ionosphere, at a total cost of more than US$250 million to build and operate.
Its bizarre backstory rivals that of a blockbuster Hollywood film. A powerful US senator from Alaska, Republican Ted Stevens, helped win approval for the facility in the early 1990s. But to justify HAARP’s price, the Pentagon had to dream up exotic military applications, sparking conspiracy theories.
In 2008, Stevens was voted out of office barely a week after being convicted of corruption (the conviction was tossed out in 2009 amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, and Stevens died in a plane crash the following year). He was replaced by Democrat Mark Begich, whose brother has been an outspoken advocate for the idea that HAARP is a secret military weapons project.
http://www.nature.com/news/us-ionospheric-research-facility-to-close-1.15243
