HAARP has a full catastrophe of conspiracy theories associated with it, including that it is being developed to control weather, cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and even to control minds. However, the history behind HAARP reveals that the true conspiracies revolve more around politics and funding for scientific endeavors than these far-fetched creations of an over-active imagination. Wired Magazine published this article, “Strange New Air Force Facility Energizes Ionosphere, Fans Conspiracy,” on 07/20/09, which mostly details the history of the HAARP project. Turns out, the project’s funding history was only slightly less bizarre, but in a less apocalyptic way, as the conspiracy theories it spawned. The author of this article, Noah Shachtman, comments: “Bringing HAARP to fruition was, well, complicated. A group of scientists had to cozy up to a US senator, cut deals with an oil company, and convince the Pentagon that the project might revolutionize war. Oh, and along the way they sparked enough conspiracy theories to make the place sound like an arctic Area 51.”
Most of the conspiracy theories were invented by the scientists just trying to get funding for an experiment that was essentially to super charge that ionosphere and see what happens. But that’s not what they told the oil company (Arco) whose land and gas rights they wanted to use for this project. An Arco scientist, Bernard Eastland, told Arco that it “could fry Soviet missiles in midflight or maybe even nudge cyclones and other extreme weather toward enemies. That's right: weaponized hurricanes.” From Arco this idea was transferred along a line of political contacts up to the Pentagon’s advanced research arm, DARPA. The project even had a code name: Jason. All along this line, the claims for its military abilities were exaggerated and expanded, until it could brainwash people, provide x-ray visions of subterranean earth bunkers, etc.. Oh, and Ted Stevens, the Alaskan senator who built the $233 million “Bridge to Nowhere,” wrote the seed funding of $10 million dollars for HAARP as a pork barrel addition to a federal budget.
So, most of the conspiracy theories were grounded in what scientists had exaggerated about the project to get funding. Then along comes Nick Begich, who writes a book called “Angels Don’t Play this HAARP,” giving the conspiracy theories easy access and an enthusiastic leader. The interesting thing about Begich: his father was an Alaskan Congressional Representative who died in a plane crash in 1972 when Nick was only 13. The plane was never actually found, however, and Nick was obsessed with conspiracy theories and mysteries.
Wow! What an enlightening post. I had no idea that the conspiracy theories were spurned by the scientists themselves in order to achieve funding. It might be cool for you to try and look at the origins of all the conspiracy theories we're studying this quarter - see if you can find any more stories like this.
ReplyDeleteWhat people won't do for money. I think that scientists could have shot themselves in the foot with this though. Since HAARP is surrounded with conspiracy theories now, no one is sure about its actual purpose. By surrounding HAARP with questions, although they may have gained funding, scientists have failed in getting support from society.
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