Air Force Prepares to Dismantle HAARP 178
First time accepted submitter registrations_suck (1075251) writes in with news about the dismantling of the HAARP project. The U.S. Air Force gave official notice to Congress Wednesday that it intends to dismantle the $300 million High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona this summer. The shutdown of HAARP, a project created by the late Sen. Ted Stevens when he wielded great control over the U.S. defense budget, will start after a final research experiment takes place in mid-June, the Air Force said in a letter to Congress Tuesday. While the University of Alaska has expressed interest in taking over the research site, which is off the Tok Cutoff, in an area where black spruce was cleared a quarter-century ago for the Air Force Backscatter radar project that was never completed. But the school has not volunteered to pay $5 million a year to run HAARP. Responding to questions from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski during a Senate hearing Wednesday, David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology and Engineering, said this is 'not an area that we have any need for in the future' and it would not be a good use of Air Force research funds to keep HAARP going. 'We're moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do,' he said. 'To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed.' Comments of that sort have given rise to endless conspiracy theories, portraying HAARP as a super weapon capable of mind control or weather control, with enough juice to trigger hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes."
Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
What excuse will all the conspiracy theory lunatics use to explain rainbows now?
Warning - watching these may cause severe face-palming [google.co.uk]
The 2nd one is my favourite, a rainbow from a sprinkler - the horror.
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Now they're taking away rainbows?? This administration has gone too far.
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why would they need to do that? The summery says they have other ways to "manage" the ionosphere now.
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Yeah, the new stuff is smaller. And they managed to put it on the Internet so it doesn't have be located way the hell out there in Alaska. That's what Ms. Murkowski's staffer told her anyway.
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Everyone's heard of the dark site of the moon. It won't be a secret for long.
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And they'll be right! Actually, "other ways to manage" probably means they've found a way to dramatically cost-reduce (and miniaturize) the ionosphere-controlling device. Something to fit on one of the big ships. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
Humans are incapable of accomplishing anything, but there is plenty of alien tech to make up for our scientific incompetence.
Cameras are too easy to use now (Score:3, Insightful)
Even conspiracy theory morons can figure them out and this is the result. There should be a mandatory IQ test before anyone is allowed to use any technology or access the internet.
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Especially YouTube.
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Even conspiracy theory morons can figure them out and this is the result. There should be a mandatory IQ test before anyone is allowed to use any technology or access the internet.
Eh... maybe before they're allowed to post anything. I'm for free speech and all, but at some point, it's just noise. Bring me reasoned dissent all day long but spare me the videos of enclosed rail cars designed for hauling new automobiles that speculate on some dark government conspiracy and "FEMA prison trains".
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Hey now, I've played Deus Ex. We all know that those secret camps are real, and they're called RX-84. /conspiracy nut mode
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Uh huh. Listen , why not go off and have a beer with your loser buddies and argue about how they faked the moon landings from behind the grassy knoll.
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
What excuse will all the conspiracy theory lunatics use to explain rainbows now?
Military Unicorns.
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Funny)
What excuse will all the conspiracy theory lunatics use to explain rainbows now?
Military Unicorns.
Only North Korea has militarized unicorns.
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Funny)
Well the US better get its ass in gear then, gentlemen!
We can't allow a Unicorn Gap!
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Of course, the whole point of a Military Unicorn is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world!?
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Com on, this is N. Korea we are talking about. They are nothing more than spray painted horses with a fake horn screwed to their skulls.
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, the government is way beyond HAARP now. Some of the chemtrails that they spew out are probably seeded with quantum nano transmitters that inject negative frequencies directly into the ionosphere...
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quantum nano transmitters
I sell a room air filter that removes quantum nano transmitters. $300 special this month - contact me.
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Sure would like to git me some of them quantum nano-thingys and their negative frequencies! (Um. uh, just whut is a negative frequency?)
Well, the government and the scientific establishment want you to think that it's merely a mathematical concept used in frequency analysis...
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I'm just wondering what the heck iAnnotates in our water supply
What the heck is in our oxygen supply
That creates a rainbow effect in sprinklers?
What is oozing out of our ground
That allows this type of effect to happen?
It's not just around our sun and our moon any more
Everywhere we look, the visible spectrum, is rainbows
This cannot be natural
We as a nation have got to ask ourselves
What the hell is going on?
What is oozing out of our ground?
I love it. One of my favorites of all time.
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Terrible summary (Score:2)
Sage for an a summary which blabs on and on and on without explaining what HARP is.
I don't care that "Lisa Murkowski during a Senate hearing Wednesday, David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology and Engineering"
Learn some editing skills and tell me what it is!
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From the summary:
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
They even had a link....
Terrible summary (Score:1)
And here at Slashdot we all know what HAARP is.
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I think he meant HARTZ flea dip.
Weather control (Score:1)
It is possible to control the weather through manipulating the ionosphere. Cloud seeding is certainly done, China are quite open about it but in the west it's considered a conspiracy theory
Re:Weather control (Score:4)
Cloud seeding doesn't manipulate the ionosphere.
Re:Weather control (Score:5, Informative)
No, it isn't. Weather occurs in the troposphere [windows2universe.org], the layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth, extending up to between 7 - 20 km above ground level. About 80% of the mass of the atmosphere is here.
The ionosphere [windows2universe.org] is about 0.1% of the mass of the atmosphere, starting from about 90 km above ground level and continuing to between 500 - 1,000 km above ground level.
Educate yourself a little. [youtube.com] Science is a beautiful thing.
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Excellent! You've established that the ionosphere is higher than the troposphere where the weather develops and occurs.
Now, imagine think of the ionosphere as the lens between the sun and the earth and HAARP as a tool to control the focal point of this lens.
Think about that for more than a minute, you're a smart cracker!
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> No, it isn't. Weather occurs in the troposphere [windows2universe.org], the layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth, extending up to between 7 - 20 km above ground level. About 80% of the mass of the atmosphere is here.
That's what they want you to think. ;)
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
It's saddening that people really think this is a "death ray" or some other BS. It's the same sort of person who thinks that contrails = chemtrails, that the oil industry has bought patents to cars that "run on water" to ke
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Weatherwarfare dot worldatwar dot info? Seems legit.
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You understand that the people that blog is citing as evidence for the conspiracy theory, are the originators of the conspiracy theory, yes?
Re: Weather control (Score:1)
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The silence for the Whales will be deafening (Score:3)
About time...
I've always thought with all the evidence of HAARP damaging the Whales many heredity traits, they should of been shut down a very long time ago.
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Wow, those must be really high flying whales. When they fall from up there, it would very likely be very damaging.
Re:The silence for the Whales will be deafening (Score:5, Funny)
And wow! Hey! Whatâ(TM)s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ⦠ow ⦠ound ⦠round ⦠ground! Thatâ(TM)s it! Thatâ(TM)s a good name â" ground!
I wonder if it will be friends with me?
And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.
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I almost shit myself laughing when I read this--thank you, sir, thank you :-)
I'm glad I could add some humor to your day, but yes I got the acronym wrong, and with such authority :)
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Meanwhile:
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
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Too many idiots posting these days to tell if you're being silly, or one of them.
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That's a real problem, and I am not kidding.
Brought to you by CURE (Score:2)
Shows how slow our government is on these things.
After the , it ONLY took the government 30 years to shut down? [wikipedia.org]
Way to go Remo!
What happened to HAARP being essential? (Score:2)
Due to their broadcasting of magnetometer data and other measurements used by military and civillians throughout the world ?
Re:What happened to HAARP being essential? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember that this was the turf of Alaska US Senator Ted Stevens. He was the longest serving Republican Senator in US history, being in the senate from 1978 to 2008. He died in a plane crash in 2010. He was also involved with the infamous freeway to nowhere.
That's why HAARP lasted so long. Even dieing is not sufficient grounds for ending a major pork event. A big time pork wrangler has to be gone and in the ground for a few years before anyone is willing to interfere with with the money flow. (Note: this is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue. The "Big Dig" in Boston was a monument to the pork prowess of Ted Kennedy.)
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Minor correction, it was the bridge, not highway. And, according to wikipedia, some are still pushing for it...sigh.
Funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" has continued as of March 2, 2011, in the passing of H.R. 662: Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011[4][5][6] by the House of Representatives.
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There was a bridge and an approach highway. The money for the bridge was re-assignable, so it was used for another project. The money for the highway could not be used for another project, so it was built anyway rather than give up the money.
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There is a rumor up here in Alaska that suggests one of the reasons they want to shut down HAARP and a few other expensive but useless projects [wikipedia.org] is to funnel money into the Ted Stevens Resurrection Effort. Initial experiments were hopeful: They scraped some stuff off the crash site and managed to grow a bunch of confused mosquitos and one pissed off moose. Then the funding ran out.
Life here has just not been the same since Uncle Teddy left us.
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And to be a bit pedantic, Stevens was involved in a bunch of 'things to nowhere'. Bridges, roads, airports, train tracks, more roads and a couple of random military installations. Of course, in Alaska, it's pretty easy to make things that go to various bits of nowhere since there is an enormous amount of nowhere just about everywhere.
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Having Ted back, that would be awesome. "The Internet isn't a truck, it's a series of
BRAIIIIINNNNNNSSSSSS!"
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Due to their broadcasting of magnetometer data and other measurements used by military and
civillians throughout the world ?
They have something better now. The conspiracy minded folks should be chiming in here and saying the same thing.
They have something better. My guess is that they are using quantum entanglement communication tech for long range covert comms.
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Truth is HAARP is no longer needed (Score:3, Interesting)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program
In the Wiki article, the claim that it is 'open research' meaning the public can find out from public records, including Scientific Journals what is being conducted. Several Universities are involved, it is open [I believe once a year] to the public to tour.
However it is as open as they make it seem, not when compared to other federally ran projects, Jesse Ventura tried to get access to the site and was denied. However Scientists do
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Being turned away at the gate because you turned up without any paperwork would be pretty normal procedure at any laboratory, public or private; they don't just let strangers in to wander around you know.
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Jesse Ventura is not a random crazy person. He's a special crazy person (and didn't make a bad governor of Minnesota, either, particularly compared with some of the ones we've had recently).
Project done? (Score:3)
If the military don't want something any more, it usually means 1 of 3 things.
- 1. They are no longer interested as they have something better.
- 2. They have finished their research and have succeeded in weaponising/miniaturising it.
- 3. The people that set it up and were milking the cash have all gone and the new guys can't work out what it does or how it works any more.
Re:Project done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or:
- 4. Didn't turn out to be all that useful for routine military applications, despite earlier hopes.
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I disagree with your overly-pessimistic comments.
1. Perhaps, but more likely because this is basic research it also can simply have shown to have not panned out.
2. For research at this level, it is never really "finished." There are always avenues to explore and interesting things to look into. The hard part is convincing a funding agency to let you go down those rat holes. The leap between basic research and "weaponizing" is bigger than the leap between basic research and commercializing. In other
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4. It was a waste of time and money from the beginning and the sponsoring politician is now dead
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What gets me is that Stevens has been dead for *four years* and only now are they finally able to close this boondoggle up.
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You missed one other important one.
4. It was forced upon them by Congress.
Simple example of this is that nearly all branches of the service have bases or forts in every state. Is it necessary for the defense of the nation? Hell no. Is it necessary for each state to get it's "share" of the business? Obviously.
typical (Score:1)
no matter what conspiracy turns out to be true it seems they always have to attach fringe theories like mind control to the subject so researchers are not only still considered wrong but still considered nut jobs as well.
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HAARP isn't a conspiracy theory; its existence, functioning and purpose were never secret. (No doubt the military had its own applications for the results, of course.) The idea that HAARP is responsible for mind control is a conspiracy theory.
What does this mean? (Score:2)
So, what does that statement mean then? In what ways are we "managing" th
Re:What does this mean? (Score:4)
"Does anyone here know how and for what purposes we manage the ionosphere?"
Yes but if they told you they would have to kill you.....
Actually it is simple, RF propagation.
For communications, sigint, comint, and radar. Yes the radar would have to use lower bands than the typical microwave but HF and even VHF radar is nothing new and is returning to popularity thanks to stealth.
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How well it bounces depends on the state of the ionosphere. When it is in the right state even signals that do not usually bounce off it will. In a different state next to nothing will bounce off it. So in theory if you wanted to detect an incoming attack from over the horizon then you might want to get tine ionosphere in the right state to have your radar work.
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well known to hams, and those who listen to shortwave, and those who try to listen to stations far away that normally can't be heard (used to be called DXers, maybe they still are) the ionospheres properties change by day and night, by seasons, by geomagnetic and solar activity.
HAARP explored those changes and propagation, and also changes by injecting RF into ionsphere (on a tiny, tiny scale compared to natural forces)
Re:What does this mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Better mind control (Score:1)
They have the New York Times, MSNBC and Fox News now, so HAARP is redundant.
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No, that would be the Air Force in this case. :)
I think the research part is what is costing $300 Million; just to maintain the grounds/buildings would most likely be the $5 million per year.
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And in the case of a University, the labor is mostly free. Free as in grad and postgrad students working there.
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"Slightly different" in this case being the difference between a large outdoor facility countless miles away in Alaska, and literally clamping a mains-powered instrument to the side of your skull.
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Mind control, huh? Can you point me towards anything that resembles mind control, just a tiny bit? I don't want something where they stimulated a region of the brain and the subject felt pain or pleasure. You know mind control as in the subject does something specific without noticing / without control. Even the mind reading is far far from any piratical application.
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Well obviously under your very limited definition of "resembles mind control", this doesn't count. My point is that even the best way we have of manipulating the brain "remotely" - transcranial magnetic stimulation - involves wiring something into the mains and pressing it against your skull. Not firing a bunch of radio waves at the upper atmosphere.
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Well, a person from Alaska controlled my mind for a while back in 2008, not that I was swayed over to her cause. But it was definitely on my mind for months at a stretch. "You've got to be kidding. From a helicopter?"
Re:Wow, Republicans are stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Mind control, huh? Can you point me towards anything that resembles mind control, just a tiny bit?
Be afraid [wikipedia.org]. Be very afraid.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
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Ignoring the known effects of certain drugs, there is more than I expected: specifically with toxoplasmosis and increased risk of car accidents for humans. Mind control is a fact for some insects and rodents, how much more exists is an interesting question. This entertaining talk goes into it a good deal.
https://www.ted.com/talks/ed_y... [ted.com]
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Re:Climate Science Defector Forced to Resign (Score:4, Insightful)
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If I wandered into a programming-language-of-the-week thread and started posting about Syrian refugees, I'd rightly be chastised and modded down. In no way is that the appropriate forum to air my grievances.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that "no reasonable person" would think it's appropriate. So, yeah. Insane. Unable to grasp or understand social norms.
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That has to be the most innovative musical instrument ever. I wonder what kind of sound it makes.
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That has to be the most innovative musical instrument ever. I wonder what kind of sound it makes.
"Ahhh Ahhh Ah Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
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Slashdot needs a +1 Satire mod.
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