Chapter Twenty-one
RACE WITH THE RUSSIANS

"Similar, though less capable, research facilities exist today at many locations throughout the world and are operated routinely for the purpose of scientific investigation of the ionosphere...None of these existing systems, however, have the combination of frequency capability and beam steering agility required to perform the experiments planned for HAARP. "215

The program handlers continued to talk to the public as if this ionospheric heater were really no different than any others around the world. Yet, while promoting the project and in internal communications, they couldn't resist talking about HAARP as the biggest "heater" in the world - more powerful than anything in existence. This technology is more than just the level of effective-radiated-power, or frequency/wave-form variability, or steering capability. The biggest factor is that in combination with these abilities, the device focuses power in a way which yields many, many times more delivered power to the ionosphere than anything on Earth resembling this device.

This device is a jump ahead in technology, beyond anything else. It is a leap like comparing a squirt gun to an artillery piece, and the effects are, to a great extent, unknown once the energy is released beyond certain thresholds. Yet, in answer to Congressional inquiries, citizen complaints and interagency requests for information, project manager Heckscher, continuously denies that the system is any different from what he and other previously said was already operating. He delivers this information in the form of sophisticated word games, The government craft of bureaucratese reaches new highs with the HAARP promoters.

In a 1990-2-16 meeting that Heckscher attended, the record stated that,

"To date, (only) the Soviet Union has built such a powerful HF (high-frequency) heater. The highest ERPs (Effective Radiated Power) achieved by U.S. facilities is about one fourth of that. Presently, a heater in Norway, operated by the Max Planck Institute in the Federal Republic of Germany, is being reconfigured to provide 1 gigawatt of ERP at a single HF frequency. The HAARP is to ultimately have an HF heater with an ERP well above 1 gigawatt (on the order of 95-100 dbW); in short, the most powerful facility in the world..."217

215 HAARP fact sheet, Office of Naval Research, Phillips Laboratory, November 4, 1993.
216 HAARP HF Active Auroral Research Program, Joint Program Plans and Activities, AirForce Geophysics Laboratory, Navy Office of Naval Research, February 1990.
217 Ibid.

Was the race with the Soviets part of the picture and the justification for spending the money?

The Russians had been at the game a good deal longer and had a greater understanding of ionospheric heaters. Again, the emphasis on output size alone is not enough to describe the technology. It is the combination of size, focused power beaming, beam maneuverability, waveform generation and frequency - among a number of other unique capabilities - which make this system so powerful.

The issue of power has always been a bit on the confusing side to those trying to decipher exactly what this device would generate in output power through the antenna array and what it would take in input power to get there.

This issue was finally cleared up in a letter by John Heckscher where he said,

"There is a difference between 'total radiated power' and 'effective radiated power'. That difference is antenna gain, which in HAARP's case is a factor of nearly 1000 (at 10 MHz)."218

What was also new about this Eastlund invention is that it could focus the huge power levels onto a single point in the ionosphere. For the first time, the western military establishment could begin to use the new weapon capabilities.

The Soviets had been playing with their ELF and VLF toys for two decades by the time the HAARP transmitter was built. They had been testing their ideas and theories for use of radiofrequency in new weapon systems during those years. The Soviet radio frequency transmitters had been the source of much controversy throughout the West.

Some in the United States and Canada had blamed such things as weather manipulation, mind control, radio interference and other unexplainable atmospheric events219 on the Soviet transmitters which created what became known as the "woodpecker" signal 220.

218 Letter From John Heckscher, HAARP Program Manager, Department of the Air Force, Phillips Laboratory, to Dr. Arther Grey, Secretary, Spectrum planning Subcommittee, National Telecommunications Information Administration, United States Department of Commerce, November17, 1994.
219 Super-Memory : The Revolution, by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, pages 292-304.

220 Ibid.

The sales pitch for HAARP funding fell to the academics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and they had a friend in the powerful Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens. It is doubtful that Stevens had been fully informed by these professors; the record indicates that he may have been duped into being their voice in the halls of Congress. Senator Stevens was quoted in a news article as he defended the funding of the HAARP program.

It appears from the report that the Senator may have been left with incomplete information by the project promoters.
 

Harness the Aurora?

In mid-1990 Senator Stevens defended his project in a committee meeting when he said,

"I could tell you about the time when the University of Alaska came to me and said it might be possible to bring the aurora to Earth. We might be able to harness the energy in the aurora...".

He went on to say,

"No one in the Department of Defense, no one in the Department of Energy, no one in the executive branch was interested in pursuing it at alt. Why? Because it did not come from the good old boy network. So I did just what you say I should do. I got Congress to ear-mark the money, and the experiment is going on now. It will cost $10 million to $20 million. If it is successful, it will change the history of the world."

The actual direct costs of the first phase of HAARP was about $25 million with the second phase estimated at $150 million. This does not include the numerous other projects related to, or complimenting, the HAARP program.

Senator Stevens went to the floor of the Senate late in the summer of 1990 and declared,

"We have in Alaska what I consider to be one of the most exciting research projects that I have ever encountered," He went on to say, "It is the experiments that are going on trying to determine if it is possible to harness the energy of the electrojet for the use of mankind."

 

He said the project "has the potential of using a laser beam to be a conductor of this energy back to Earth... It is an experiment that, when I first heard about it, I thought someone had rewritten a new chapter of Jules Veme."221

"The research facility would be used to understand, stimulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems... Potential applications of the HAARP research include developing DoD technology for detecting cruise missiles and aircraft and for communicating with submarines. Although HAARP is being managed by the Air Force and Navy, it is purely a scientific research facility which represents no threat to potential adversaries and would therefore have no value as a military target. "222

Again it appears that what is really being said is that this is not an operational weapon system, only a proof-of-concept system. It is designed to provide a better understanding for future uses as a weapon system. This is an outrageous statement, which plays on the ignorance of readers of the HAARP records, and could be equated to the suggestion that the development centers for the atom bomb during World War II were not potential military targets.

"As the result of a competitive procurement, the Air Force and Navy have awarded a contract to ARCO Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI) for the design and construction of the IRI and associated support facilities."223

APTI, according to Eastlund, was set up to do one thing - develop his ideas into marketable technologies.

APTI was not set up as a construction company or an ionospheric research organization. It was set up to exploit energy in a way which maximized a return to one of the world's oil giants, Atlantic Richfield Company. What Eastlund did was put ARCO into the Star Wars business until a company more suited to the project could be located to buy out their interests. That company was E-Systems. E-Systems' history and controversy has been documented by CBS's, 60 Minutes as well as by the Washington Post, and is discussed in this book.

The original bidders on the HAARP project were Penn State University, Raytheon and APTI.224 The chain of corporate events has been discussed previously, In June, 1994, APTI was bought out by E-Systems, which in April, 1995, was bought out by Raytheon Corporation.

So, in the end, one of the project's losing bidders, Raytheon - one of the largest defense contractors in the world - came to own the technology and the contract.

221 "Porkpie in the Sky", Anchorage Daily News, We Alaskans , December 15,1991 pages 9-14.

222 HAARP Fact Sheet, Office of Naval Research, Phillips Laboratory, November 4, 1993.
223 Ibid.
224 Interview with John Heckscher, HAARP Program Manager and Jeane Manning, February 21, 1995.

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