Russian Scholar Says US May Be Cooking Russia With Secret Ray

So now evil American scientists are apparently cooking the Russkies with our secret death ray. The US is not the only place that swims in the shallow waters of conspiracism, not by a long shot.

A June 30th article from Radio Free Europe, "Russian Scholar Warns Of 'Secret' U.S. Climate Change Weapon" by Ashley Cleek:

A Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.

In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, "At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries."

The article has been carried by publications throughout Russia, including "International Affairs," a journal published by the Foreign Ministry and by the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

In an telephone interview with RFE/RL, Areshev appeared to back off from claims he made in the article, saying that he was merely positing a theory.

"First of all, I would like to say that what I wrote in that article, even the citations, does not in any way claim to a be final truth. It is, if you will, speculation, in other words, the definition of an hypothesis," Areshev said.

Moscow is currently sweltering under record temperatures. On July 29 Moscow suffered its hottest day ever, with temperatures hitting 39 degrees.

[snip]

In the article, Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the U.S. Defense Department and the University of Alaska.

HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection.

Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction "in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries."

Areshev's article also references an unmanned spacecraft X-37B, an orbital test vehicle the Pentagon launched in April 2010. The Pentagon calls X-37B a prototype for a new "space plane" that could take people and equipment to and from space stations. Areshev, however, alleges that the X-378 carries "laser weaponry" and could be a key component in the Pentagon's climate-change arsenal.

The Pentagon was not immediately reachable for comment.

H.A.A.R.P. is the more manageable acronym for the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program facility near Gakona, Alaska. Constructed in the 1990’s, HAARP’s official purpose is to study the effects of electromagnetic energy on the ionosphere. The way it accomplishes this is to direct 3.6 million megawatts of electricity into a transmitter and pump it out of an antenna straight up into the atmosphere, and to take readings from satellites. The effect seems to be that the ionosphere gets toasted by the beam of energy, similar to the effects of solar flares, albeit in a very tiny way (since 3.6 million megawatts is a pinprick compared to the electromagnetic energy hitting the earth from the Sun). That’s the 10¢ explanation of the official mission.

Conspiracists say that the military designed HAARP with a far more sinister intent. It is claimed that the facility is a weapon being developed to knock out enemy satellite and radio communication by bombarding the atmosphere with massive electromagnetic waves. Or worse. Some have claimed that the 1993 power blackout in the northeast United States and Canada was triggered by a blast from HAARP.



In the 1980’s, physicist Bernard Eastland proposed technology similar to what was built at HAARP as part of the so-called “Star Wars” defense shield (known in military circles as the less Hollywood-ish Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI). Eastland built upon the theories of famed electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla and proposed a high frequency, electromagnetic “shield” that could be used to electronically jam incoming Soviet nuclear missiles and knock out enemy satellites. When the government actually built HAARP, they claimed Eastland’s patents were not used, in spite of the similarity of the basic principles.

That has not silenced critics who claim that HAARP is quietly sitting up in Alaska just waiting to be used by the military as a “death ray.” The belief is that the mild doses of electromagnetic pulses sent into the ionosphere are merely test firings, in anticipation of the really big jolt. A few of the very nervous have suggested that HAARP could direct its rays anywhere on Earth, and can be used to do anything from create major weather catastrophes on demand or cause earthquakes, to causing mass brain damage on a global scale by frying brain cells.

It should be noted that HAARP is not technically a U.S. military research site, and has a large complement of civilians working on the property. However, the project IS managed by a division of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Defense Department’s super high-tech “gee whiz” office that works with industry and universities to develop sophisticated technologies that might have a defense application (like the Internet, before Al Gore claimed it for himself).