HAARP (High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) is a high-powered radio transmission research facility jointly operated by the US Navy, Air Force and several universities.  Because of the high secrecy surrounding the government HAARP project, many theories have risen trying to explain what HAARP is and does.  Most of them are simply wild speculations, based on fears about what "they are doing up there."  It is the purpose of this article to provide sufficient technical expertise to dispel the mystery.

      The above HAARP signal was monitored on 3.39 MHZ and recorded in San Jose, California, about 5,000 miles from the transmitter in Gakona, eastern central Alaska.  At that distance and frequency, the signal can only be heard during the night after two F-layer ionospheric skips.  Some short-term signal fading over the signal path may be the cause for the variations in the smooth roll-off in the amplitude from 1 sec to the end of the pulse at 6.25 secs. These loud 6 second pulses are usually repeated with a quiet 15 or 30 second pause between pulses.

1. HAARP and ULF (Ultra Low Frequency) Waves

      The HAARP sound recording may seem full of static.  It is not.  The rushing roaring sound of a blow torch is the HAARP signal itself, as shown by the silence or background noise of the receiver at the end of the pulse, and by the clarity of the tones at the beginning.  If you wanted to see or hear the ULF (ultra low frequency) waves sent out by the HAARP transmitter, you will be disappointed here.

      My receiver is not equipped to record ULF waves in the region of 1 to 10 Hz, and has an audio roll-off in the range of about 30 Hz.  And besides, you can't hear or see a 0.9 or 1 Hz signal anyway.  It is way below the range of normal human hearing.  You need instruments to sense it.  A powerful 1 Hz sound would probably be "sensed" as a slow rolling earthquake or a slight rocking motion as on the ocean.  Nonetheless, a major component and purpose of the HAARP signal is an audio modulation at the frequency of about 0.9 Hz.  And what is that purpose?  I'll get to that in a moment.

2. HAARP Interaction with the Atmosphere

      The HAARP pulse is primarily divided into two components. The first part is the sections marked A and B on the chart and is the powerful "pre-heat" megawatt pulse aimed upward at the ionosphere just above the HAARP facility. As the radio waves travel up through the atmosphere they have no effect until they reach the ionosphere about 200 kilometers above the earth, which is far above the atmosphere. At that point the waves interact with the ions, which may be electrons, protons or ionized parts of atoms like oxygen, ozone or nitrogen.

      Normally the particles in the near vacuum of outer-space in the region of the ionosphere are simply moving randomly in all directions. Some particles may hit each other and re-combine into normal atoms of oxygen and nitrogen, thus simply becoming a part of the atmosphere. Other particles may drift off into space and others may move downward into the thicker atmosphere where they re-combine. Then along comes the HAARP signal.

      For about a quarter second during the part A and B of the pulse, the randomly moving ions are now forced to madly race back and forth in the direction of the radio waves at the speed of light or 300,000 kilometers per second, which is real fast. Many of them strike atoms in the upper atmosphere and cause the atoms to also become ionized. Thus the number of ions is suddenly increased. Since the neutral atoms in the atmosphere do not react to the radio waves, they remain more or less stationary, and become "sitting ducks" just waiting to be hit by one of the billions of racing ions all rushing back and forth in response to the HAARP waves.

      Even if the neutral atoms don't become ionized, many of them are struck by the fast ions and soon most of the atmospheric atoms high above the HAARP transmitter are also rushing in all directions but not back and forth as are the ions. This sudden increase in the motion of both the atoms and ions in the upper atmosphere is called "ionospheric heating." In fact, the HAARP facility, along with several similar research instruments in Europe and Russia, are in the category of Ionospheric Heaters. But its what HAARP does next during the part C of the pulse which makes HAARP unique.

3. Components of the HAARP Pulse

      In portion A of the pulse, identifier tones are sent at frequencies of 360, 1000 and 1700 Hz, with some harmonics at higher frequencies visible on the graph. In part B the tones are 650 Hz with a harmonic at 1300 Hz. On the chart the yellow color indicates a very strong signal, the green indicates a medium strength signal and the blue shows a weak signal.

      In part C of the signal there is a continuous tone at 2100 Hz which remains during the whole pulse and sometimes several seconds afterward. There is also a much weaker tone around 2500 Hz during all of the pulse. And then there is all that green/yellow stuff at the bottom, sloping upward to the right during all of part C. What the heck is that? To explain that we need to look at the HAARP antenna itself.

fig 2. HAARP Antenna Arrary. Showing the crossed beams of the circularly polarized antennas.

The HAARP "antenna farm" consists of 48 towers, soon to be 180, about 25 meters tall and each is topped with a pair of crossed beams in a north-south and east-west direction. The actual radiating parts of the antenna include those wires dangling from the ends of the beams.

By sloping the wires and hooking all the antennas together they act as one large single antenna covering 33 acres which can transmit in the north-south or east-west direction.

4. HAARP Circular Polarization

      If HAARP only used the north-south beams then the electrons and protons in the ionosphere would race madly in the north-south direction. And likewise if the radio waves move in the east-west direction, so would the ions. What HAARP does is on each portion of the transmitter cycle it switches from the east-west to the north-south beams and back again.

      If you could see the radio waves rising from the antenna they would appear to be spiraling or "cork-screwing" upward. This is called "circular polarization" of the radio signal. This is not uncommon, since all commercial FM stations use circular polarization to send horizontal signals to home roof antennas and vertical signals to automobile antennas.

      But HAARP is not broadcasting to homes or autos, nor is it switching on each cycle. No, the HAARP signal is corkscrewing upward at a rate of, TADA!, about 0.9 Hz. And why is that? By corkscrewing the signal, the ions in the upper atmosphere do not just race madly back and forth, instead they move in BIG circles. And you can get the most ions running around the "race course" just above HAARP if you make them have a "lap time" of about once per second.

5. Optimizing the HAARP Rotation

      What determines the optimum "lap time" is something called the plasma density and is related to the temperature, number of ions, number of neutral atoms in the ionosphere, and some other factors I won't mention here. (Note: For more information on plasma density consult any of the many graduate texts on plasma physics. Also, I have oversimplified the relation between the 0.9 Hz signal and the "lap time." It is not my purpose here to provide a complete description of ionospheric cyclotronic interactions.)

      By making the ions, both electrons and protons, move in big circles they each become little electromagnets with a north and south pole. At the latitude of HAARP in Gakona, Alaska the earth's magnetic field lines are nearly vertical. So if the HAARP circular polarization is either clockwise or counter-clockwise you can make the ions racing around at 0.9 Hz either be attracted to the earth's magnetic north pole or repelled. If the circling ions are attracted, then they would simply spiral downward toward the earth's north pole and run into the denser atmosphere and might produce a very weak aurora, hence the name High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. That's all very interesting but its not exactly the real purpose of HAARP.

6. HAARP as a "Particle Gun"

      If the HAARP signal rotates so the ions circle around with their north poles pointing downward, then they are repelled by the earth's magnetic north pole and are shot out into the vacuum of space at nearly the speed of light. Wow, you mean HAARP is a particle gun? You betcha! The largest one around, sorta.

      But its not really a "gun" because you can't aim it at anything. The particles simply shoot off into space. But they are still spiraling and are magnetic, and as a result they follow along the earth's magnetic field. In less than half a second they arrive at the earth's south pole. There, they don't even touch the atmosphere but are caused to spiral more tightly by the earth's converging magnetic field lines, until they are made to flip over and are shot right back to the north pole, all in less than a second. Thus HAARP is really a particle injector which fires billions of ions into the "magnetic bottle" of the earth's magnetosphere, where they remain trapped for a long time.

7. Uses of the HAARP Particle Injection Device

      So what can you do with a particle injector like HAARP? According to the original patent design, this device could be used to produce a thick blanket of fast particles in the region of the magnetosphere which would knock out any electronic controls on, or possibly completely destroy, any space vehicle which flew through it. This was most interesting in the 1980's when the patent was filed and even in 1990 when the US government decided to build HAARP. At that time the main nuclear threat was the USSR and any missile from Russia aimed at the US would need to pass through the magnetosphere over the north pole.