But it was a certain US meteorologist Scott Stevens who went one better than all of them and said that the Hurricane Katrina that struck the USA at the end of summer was made by Russian military experts using a secret "weather weapon" based on the principle of the electromagnetic generator. According to Stevens, there are some secret installations in Russia "kept over from the Soviet epoch" that are capable of exerting catastrophic effects on the weather at any place in the world.
The Russian research facility "Sura" has been named as the most likely place from where hurricanes are being sent to the USA. That "weather complex" does exist and is located in mid-Russia at 150 km from Nizhny Novgorod. Built as early as the beginning of the 1980s, the "Sura" facility belongs to the Radio-Physics Scientific Research Institute (RPSRI), once a leading research institution of the USSR.
According to Russian journalists who visited the facility, "Sura" is a somewhat rusty research complex, battered by the obvious lack of funds, but still functional. On a bush-overgrown field of about 9 hectares in area are rows of 20-meter-high flagpole antennas. In the center of the antenna field is a relatively powerful emitter the size of a village cottage, designed to study the acoustic processes in the atmosphere.
The "Sura" facility serves to conduct limited research in the correlation of natural disasters and disturbances in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. The facility also comprises the building of the radio-transmitting complex, transformer substation, laboratory and utility buildings. Nowadays "Sura" is active for only 100 hours a year as the institute is short of money to pay the electricity bills for heat-consuming experiments. In short, "Sura" is obviously not up to the image of a sinister source of man-made natural disasters.
Yet, apart from "Sura", there are two more large "weather" facilities in the world: EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter Radar site) in Norway, in vicinity of the town of Tromse, run by several countries of the European Union, and the HAARP facility in the USA, or, more precisely, in Alaska. In addition, there are several smaller research centers engaged in the study of the problems of the ionosphere – in the USA (in Puerto Rico and again in Alaska, near Fairbanks), in Russia (near the town of Apatity), as well as in Peru, Ukraine and Tajikistan.
However, the US facility HAARP deserves a special mention. The acronym stands for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. The facility differs in principle from the Russian "Sura" project both in respect of its priority listing on the national scale and, accordingly, its funding, and capabilities. For instance, HAARP provides for 2000 hours of experimental studies annually, that is 20 times more than the Russian "Sura".
Besides, unlike its Russian counterpart situated geographically in the middle latitudes, HAARP is built in the Polar circle, where the stress lines of the Earth's magnetosphere converge. Acting on these lines, it is possible to actively influence the condition of the magnetosphere. Experts believe that it allows at least for artificially initiating northern lights, and - in a wider range of applications – disabling the electronic systems of satellites and other devices, interfering with the functioning of ground engineering systems, etc.
The HAARP facility was built jointly by the US Navy and Air Force at the Gakona military base at 400 km from the city of Anchorage. A huge chunk of tundra is studded with 180 dipole antennas, each 25-meter-high, arranged in rectangles. The central element of the complex, the so-called IRI (Ionospheric Research Instrument) is a powerful high-frequency transmitter of up to 3.6 million watts designed for temporarily exciting a limited area of the ionosphere. The emitted signal acts upon the ionospheric layer at the altitude of from 100 to 350 km.
The military base where HAARP is located is a closed zone. It is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and provided with electronic security systems on the perimeter. It is guarded by marines, and the air space above it is closed not only to civilian, but also military aircraft. It is noteworthy that after September 11, 2001, the HAARP site was urgently ringed around with "Patriot" missile air-defense complexes.
Open sources claim that the facility is used to actively influence the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere. For its turn, it may produce most varied results. For instance, HAARP may cause artificial northern lights, block up radars used for early detection of ballistic missile launches and even detect enemy secret underground complexes. Officially НААRР is termed a research laboratory intended to improve civilian and military communications systems. But, supposedly, the military component of the program has a top priority.
A number of independent analysts believe that the military experts employed at HAARP have developed certain technologies of acting on the atmosphere that cause climatic disasters. As a result, the USA has either directly come to the point of adopting a geophysical weapon, or HAARP is already being used by the Pentagon to artificially cause natural disasters – torrents, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes.
Rumors of the US military wielding a "hurricane gun" have been circulating for a long time. There is an opinion among adherents of the conspiracy theory – conspirologists that the USA has once tried to provoke hurricanes in the Caribbean basin to strike Cuba and Nicaragua. Incidentally, according to one of the versions, the series of hurricanes that struck the USA across the recent years is an aftermath of the secret US weather experiments that went out of control. After the devastating floods in Europe in 2002 the world media and some European parliamentarians voiced their concern that a US geophysical weapon may have been used with a view to undermine the economies of the EU countries competing with the USA.
Some conspirologists and independent observers also believe that the Pentagon is conducting research into artificially provoking earthquakes on territories of countries – adversaries of the USA. They point out a whole series of destructive earthquakes in Iran. True, Turkey, an ally of the USA, has also been victimized. It has also been suggested that the latest catastrophic earthquake in Pakistan that, according to official data, led to the death of at least 45,000 people, may also have had "an American connection".
The US are having a hard time doing away with its main enemy Usama ben Laden, and lo and behold the earthquake epicenter is right in the heart of the mountainous border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan where, as US intelligence claims, Usama and other Al-Qaeda leaders are hiding. Curiously, right after the earthquake the US and European press published reports of a possible death of "Terrorist No. 1".
It is hard to judge objectively to what extent these accusations leveled against the USA are justified as evidence is inconclusive, hypotheses prevail over facts, and the Pentagon just refuses to give any comment. However, most authoritative Russian and foreign specialists believe that the HAARP project is something very serious. The reticence of the US politicians and generals and the attempts made in the USA to shift the blame onto Russia or other countries lead one to think that the conspirologists' suspicions about Washington's involvement in the matter may not be altogether groundless.
For the moment, it can be stated that from the end of the 1970s the USSR and the USA have been conducting, almost on parallel courses, fundamental studies of the means to actively influence the weather and climate through a high-power radio transmission and plasma generators. However, the Soviet program was actually closed with the collapse of the USSR, while the American program continued to develop briskly and have possibly advanced far ahead during the past 15 years.
