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PARIS: Conspiracy theories a couple of US analysis station have resurged, with social media customers falsely blaming it for the Turkiye-Syria earthquakes, following debunked claims it causes climate disasters and spreads the coronavirus.
Scientists have for years been refuting claims that the Excessive-frequency Energetic Auroral Analysis Program (HAARP), with its Alaska facility boasting 180 radio antennae, is a US government-backed program to weaponize the ambiance and subjugate the inhabitants.
The collection of earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria on February 6, killing tens of hundreds of individuals, gave rise to a brand new variant of the speculation on social media in numerous languages.
It has been dismissed by consultants as science fiction.
Some customers cited flashes of sunshine earlier than the quake as proof they have been artificially generated by HAARP.
Some claimed it was to punish Turkiye for resisting the admission of latest member nations to NATO.
“That is so loopy. It’s like asking if the earthquake was brought on by Bugs Bunny digging for carrots,” stated David Keith, professor of utilized physics on the Harvard Faculty of Engineering and Utilized Sciences.
“There may be merely no identified mechanism for something remotely like HAARP to have any impression on earthquakes.”
HAARP sends radio waves to warmth electrons within the ionosphere, the highest layer of Earth’s ambiance, to check their results on communications techniques.
Its waves are usually not sufficiently big to achieve Turkiye.
Quakes are brought on by actions of the Earth’s crust.
Consultants advised AFP lights are generally seen throughout earthquakes.
Theories range about their origin. In some instances, they arrive from energy traces or electrical energy stations shaken by the quake.
HAARP was run by the USA Air Power and Navy earlier than being handed over in 2015 to the College of Alaska Fairbanks.
Michael Lockwood, professor of area surroundings physics on the College of Studying, stated claims about HAARP getting used as a weapon might have stemmed from this system initially utilizing radio waves to speak with submarines — a operate that grew to become out of date after the Chilly Battle.
This historical past “acquired blown up into the farcical concept that HAARP is a few type of a weapon,” Lockwood stated.
“Some type of social thoughts management is the same old favourite however producing earthquakes is one which I hadn’t heard earlier than.”
Quite a few social media posts have claimed HAARP is used to engineer storms and heatwaves.
Some current ones urged the intention is to create local weather change in order that authorities can limit folks’s actions and even cut back the inhabitants.
Some cited a patent for a proposed system to warmth components of the ionosphere for protection functions.
Filed in 1985 on the top of the Chilly Battle, the doc claims the know-how might be used for “missile or plane destruction” or “climate modification.”
However the patent has since expired and there’s no proof the know-how in it was developed.
HAARP’s transmitters ship radio waves from 80 kilometers to greater than 500 km (50-310 miles) above the Earth’s floor — far too excessive for such alerts to have an effect on climate or local weather.
“The concept that know-how can one way or the other result in these excessive occasions is unnecessary,” Ella Gilbert, a meteorologist on the British Antarctic Survey, advised AFP.
“It’s technically extraordinarily tough to affect such a big, advanced and chaotic system because the climate.”
Different posts declare alerts from HAARP can hit Earth, disrupting communications and energy, and even harming folks’s well being.
David Hysell, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell College, stated HAARP was no extra harmful than some other electrical or radio station.
Researchers have recognized similarities between the HAARP claims and a wave of conspiracy theories about 5G telecommunications that emerged through the Covid pandemic.
Tens of millions of individuals considered Fb posts claiming to point out spacecraft from HAARP “emitting 5G radiation which incorporates the coronavirus.”
The posts confirmed a photograph of a flying object leaving contrails. An evaluation by AFP Truth Verify indicated the picture was a montage.
“I don’t know the place the conspiracy theories surrounding HAARP come from,” stated Hysell.
“I feel folks confuse the analysis function of HAARP, which is to check naturally occurring hazards in area, with the operations of the power itself.”
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