The claim: HAARP is responsible for recent disasters in Turkey, Haiti and New Zealand
A Feb. 21 Facebook post (direct link, archived link) shows a TikTok video containing a compilation of footage of various natural disasters.
“HAARP just been tested on Turkey, Haiti and New Zealand,” reads text included in the video.
The video’s caption claims the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, also known as HAARP, is “used to destroy countries.”
The post was shared more than 14,000 times in two weeks.
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Our rating: False
Researchers at HAARP say the technology does not have the ability to manipulate the weather or create natural disasters. Furthermore, seismologists and climate experts say humans cannot artificially create earthquakes and large-scale weather events.
HAARP cannot create severe weather and natural disasters, experts say
More than 41,000 people died after earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6, USA TODAY reported. Some social media users were quick to connect the disaster to HAARP, echoing a long-running and baseless conspiracy theory about the program.
But seismologists previously told USA TODAY the quake was natural and “not induced” by any kind of human activity.
Furthermore, the research equipment at HAARP “cannot create or amplify natural disasters,” HAARP program manager Jessica Matthews told USA TODAY in an email.
The program utilizes an array of high-frequency transmitters to conduct various experiments in the ionosphere, an upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientists typically utilize HAARP two to four times a year for “research campaigns” that can last up to two weeks. Researchers last used the HAARP site on Dec. 27, 2022.
The post also references New Zealand, where Cyclone Gabrielle caused major flooding and damage in mid-February.
But meteorologists and climate experts previously told USA TODAY there’s no way for humans to manufacture weather patterns and events at the scale of a cyclone or hurricane.
Furthermore, the radio frequencies HAARP transmits “are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere – the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth’s weather,” Matthews previously told USA TODAY. “Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather.”
False claims and conspiracy theories about HAARP’s purported ability to influence the weather and create natural disasters have persisted for over a decade.
The Facebook video includes footage of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez claiming that the 2010 Haiti earthquake was triggered by a U.S.-made “tectonic weapon.”
Seismologists confirmed the quake was caused by the slippage of a previously unmapped fault, but conspiracy theorists quickly jumped on Chavez’s statement and claimed the weapon in question to be HAARP.
Conspiracy theorists online have attempted to link many natural disasters in recent years to HAARP. However, those claims have been repeatedly disproven by USA TODAY and other fact-checkers.
Fact check: High-frequency research program studies ionosphere, can’t create hurricanes
USA TODAY reached out to the social media user for comment.
Lead Stories also debunked this post.
Our fact-check sources:
- USA TODAY, Feb. 24, Fact check: Bizarre cloud formation in Turkey not connected to HAARP, earthquakes
- USA TODAY, Feb. 15, Fact check: False claim HAARP is responsible for the earthquake in Turkey
- USA TODAY, Feb. 14, Miracle rescues a week after quakes in Turkey, Syria; Assad to allow more aid into rebel land; death toll surpasses 36,000: Updates
- USA TODAY, Feb. 14, Cyclone Gabrielle hits New Zealand, emergency declared
- USA TODAY, Jan. 25, Fact check: False claim ‘chemtrails’ and HAARP are used to manipulate the weather
- USA TODAY, Oct. 28, 2022, Fact check: High-frequency research program studies ionosphere, can’t create hurricanes
- HAARP, accessed March 6, About HAARP
- HAARP, accessed March 6, FAQ
- HAARP, accessed March 6, Research Campaigns
- Jessica Matthews, March 3, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- NASA Solar System Exploration, Dec. 10, 2019, 10 Things to Know About the Ionosphere
- Live Science, Jan. 29, 2010, Chavez: US ‘Tectonic Weapon’ Caused Haiti Quake
- Africa Check, April 14, 2022, No, HAARP not a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ that can