CONSPIRACY: Project HAARP

Deep in the wilderness of Gakona, Alaska, lies a research facility that was owned and operated by the U. S. government from 1993 to 2015. The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, was established to study radio waves and other seemingly innocuous fields. But some believe the program ran deeper and had the power to control the weather and maybe even human minds.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables. It's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 0:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  Growing up in Hawaii, we had some pretty unpredictable weather at times. Hurricanes, torrential rain, tsunami warnings, and even flooding and mudslides. It can definitely be scary and frustrating if you have plans. But some months out of the year, you just sort of have to plan around it. Does it suck to have your wedding day ruined by a random spell of rain or a flight delayed because of a tropical storm? Of course. But that's Mother Nature at her best, right? If there's one thing we cannot control in this world, it's the weather. At least, that's what we were always told.

• 1:13Yvette Gentile?

  But apparently, between 1993 to 2015, the US military owned and operated a facility in Gakona, Alaska, known as HARP. It stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. And what they supposedly did there was mind-blowing. Some said they were trying to control and weaponize the weather. But apparently, they're trying to control human minds, too. It's one of those conspiracies that has us thinking. If this is true, and we really do have a leg up on Mother Nature,

• 1:57Yvette Gentile?

  then that means we can essentially play God. And with great power comes great responsibility. So the real question is, are we ready for that sort of thing? I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 2:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecoraro. Welcome back to another episode of So Supernatural.

• 2:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's amazing how much technology has progressed in our own lifetimes. Thanks to smartphones and Wi-Fi, we can now access the internet from almost anywhere 24/7. And believe me, I do. Advanced DNA testing means we can find our distant relatives and solve decades-old cold cases. I mean, it helped us solve the mystery of who our mother's biological father truly was. But one technological advancement people might not know about has to do with climate science and the ways we can manipulate it.

• 3:33Yvette Gentile?

  Take cloud seeding, for example. Just the name alone sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, right? But for 80 years now, we've known how to spray certain chemicals on clouds and produce more rain than we'd get otherwise.

• 3:50Rasha Pecoraro?

  And people are looking for new ways to modify the weather even today. In August of 2025, a group of University of Washington researchers announced that they had plans to try and stop global warming. It's complicated, but here's the gist. Those scientists wanted to spray liquefied salt into clouds. The idea was that the chemical reactions would cause clouds to become thicker and brighter, allowing rays from the sun to be reflected back into space. Once the local town council caught wind of this scheme, though, they

• 4:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  shut it down really fast. And I can't blame them. An experiment like this could have some huge unforeseen consequences.

• 4:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  But they weren't the only ones interested in studying Earth's atmospheric conditions, far from it, actually. Back in 1993, even the government wanted to understand these issues better.

• 4:56Yvette Gentile?

  Specifically, they wanted to see how atmospheric conditions could affect radio waves. And to explain why they're so invested in this topic, we're going to need to cover some complicated science. Speaking in very general terms, one of the highest parts of the Earth's atmosphere is called the ionosphere. And at its lowest point, the ionosphere is about 50 miles above sea level, and it stretches to 400 miles or so up from there. It's full of electrically charged particles. All of these charged particles, called ions, may contribute to the beautiful light show known as the aurora borealis.

• 5:41Yvette Gentile?

  By bouncing radio waves off of these charged particles in the ionosphere, we can send radio waves thousands of miles away on Earth. But when radio waves travel through the ionosphere, the particles there can actually change the waves. This can allow for cross-modulation, where a radio is getting two different frequencies that have merged together on the same station.

• 6:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  So scientists first realized this back in the 1930s. A Dutch scientist kept trying to listen to radio transmissions from Switzerland. But in the background, he was also picking up signals from a station in Luxembourg, which was supposed to be broadcasting on an entirely different channel. He realized the strong signal from the Luxembourg station was bouncing through the ionosphere, which excited the particles there, causing the two different stations to be heard simultaneously back on Earth.

• 6:41Yvette Gentile?

  Soon enough, military scientists discover this might actually solve a problem we've been having: communicating with submarines underwater. They've been looking for solutions on how to get a signal deep under the ocean. In very simple terms, the scientists think a radio frequency can get through the water if the frequency is low enough. So they wonder, if we take the signals and bounce them off the ionosphere first, maybe that will make the frequency lower. Create a kind of waterproof broadcast, if you will. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

• 7:22Yvette Gentile?

  In theory, understanding the ionosphere can be a gateway to a huge technological revolution.

• 7:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  So, in 1993, a group of US government agencies team up to explore all of these possibilities. This includes the Air Force, the Navy, and a Department of Defense research organization called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as DARPA. They form the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HARP. And right away, they begin construction on a facility in Gakona, Alaska.

• 8:03Yvette Gentile?

  This is the perfect place for the complex because of the particular way energy moves through the ionosphere above this region. Again, the science is complicated, but all you need to know is that the same factors that make the aurora borealis appear in Alaska also make this an ideal place for HARP to work.

• 8:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  The complex is modest in size, covering about 33 acres total, but over the life of the project, it costs an estimated $300 million to construct. They install a massive array of satellites, about 180 in total.

• 8:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  It takes a long time to get everything set up and working properly, years in fact. So while construction starts in 1993, HARP gets built in stages with an initial rollout in 1994 and another set of antennae coming online in 1999, though it isn't fully operational until the year 2007. And for the next several years, up until 2014, they conduct countless studies on radio waves and the ionosphere. Most of their research involves shooting different kinds of transmissions into the sky. Among their experiments, the scientists tried to manipulate the ionosphere to send

• 9:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  radio waves to hard-to-reach places, like submarines, as we mentioned earlier.

• 9:39Yvette Gentile?

  And it doesn't take long for scientists to start exploring other kinds of phenomena. For example, in 1958, an astrophysicist at the University of Iowa named James Van Allen identified an obstacle that could create trouble for satellites. The phenomenon comes to be known as the Van Allen Belt. It's two rings of naturally occurring radiation that wrap all the way around the Earth. The Van Allen Belt works a bit like a shield. It traps really harmful space radiation and prevents it from reaching the surface of the Earth.

• 10:18Yvette Gentile?

  So basically, every living creature on our planet owes its life to it. But, of course, the belt has its downsides, too. It can still interfere with satellites' equipment, and it can pose hazards to any spaceships headed to space. So the Department of Defense asked DARPA to find a way to weaken the radiation in the Van Allen Belt.

• 10:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  HARP supposedly runs 20 different tests over the course of seven years to see if they could ever get rid of some of the radiation. Just enough that a ship's equipment can still operate normally, but not so much that there's any danger to the people on Earth. Though some have doubts about the legitimacy of these experiments.

• 11:07Yvette Gentile?

  Other studies at HARP have involved firing radio waves at Jupiter to learn more about how they interact with Jupiter's atmosphere, and using radio waves to analyze asteroids in our solar system, so we can get a warning if anything's on a collision course with Earth. HARP might even be able to create light shows in the sky, because when it's disturbing charged particles in the ionosphere, it seems to produce an effect that looks an awful lot like the aurora borealis. In October of 2023, they teamed up with civilians

• 11:46Yvette Gentile?

  to try and control the color and the intensity of these man-made auroras. And guess what? It worked.

• 11:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  All to say, HARP researchers learned a lot about our own atmosphere, radio waves, and outer space. They expanded our understanding of the universe. Except since its founding, HARP had mostly been doing its work in complete secrecy. The facility in Galcono was entirely gated, and the fences were covered all over in no trespassing signs. I mean, it could have basically been Area 51.

• 12:28Yvette Gentile?

  But for the few who did manage to get a peek inside, they said there was a strict ban on photography. The staff even wore buttons that said "No photos, please", to make sure you knew you were not allowed to record anything.

• 12:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which seemed pretty intense for a facility that was supposedly doing harmless scientific studies. Especially because there's some evidence that suggests HARP wasn't an ordinary research lab. People can't help but notice that after the facility came online, strange things started happening all around the world. Climate change seems to kick into overdrive, with natural disasters happening much more frequently than they had before. And from 2000 to 2010, there was also a sharp increase in major earthquakes all across the world.

• 13:29Yvette Gentile?

  During a similar time period, beginning around the year 1999 or 2000, more and more people across the globe were diagnosed with mental health conditions, as though something was making people more depressed, anxious, and unhappy.

• 13:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  I have to interject as someone who suffers from anxiety, depression, and PTSD. I'm not sure about all that, but let's just say some critics think that there's a lot more to this story and that HARP may even be responsible. And perhaps HARP serves a darker purpose than the ones they've publicly admitted to.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  And I'm Brett. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into, from lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm going to walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  And I'm going to have the answers because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're going to stay focused on the facts.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:18Yvette Gentile?

  HARP was founded in 1993 and rolled out operations in phases in 1994, 1999, and 2007. It was initially designed to study a layer of the atmosphere called the ionosphere. But as the years went on, it also began researching outer space, the aurora borealis, and techniques to get rid of radiation at the outer edges of our atmosphere.

• 15:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  But HARP operated in almost total secrecy. The facility was completely off limits to the public, and only a small handful of people worked there. Everything was very hush-hush, even though the government claimed they were just doing regular research. Naturally, that led some people to question what was really going on at the Alaska facility. See, there are a ton of wild conspiracy theories about HARP, suggesting the facility was behind many of the world's problems. One of the most popular and widely accepted claims was that its antenna technology

• 16:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  could control the weather. It was confirmed that each time scientists fired a radio beam into the ionosphere, it made the electrical particles there heat up, which is a pretty scary thought, considering global warming is currently a very real threat.

• 16:51Yvette Gentile?

  Beyond that, author Ilana Freeland made a big allegation in her book, "Kim Trails: HARP and the Full-Spectrum Dominance of Planet Earth." After gathering a lot of news articles, speaking to climate experts, and reviewing HARP's publications, she concluded that climate change wasn't happening due to pollution. She suspected that ever since 1995, which was when a bunch of anonymous tipsters and whistleblowers came forward to warn that HARP had a dark, dangerous purpose. Now, the problem with anonymous tipsters is

• 17:33Yvette Gentile?

  that you have no idea if they're credible or not. But Ilana dove into the research, trying to learn what the program's real purpose was and who it really served. Because she suspected the facility wasn't just heating the ionosphere a little, it was causing global warming all across the world. And in Elana's mind, it seemed like HARP scientists were doing it on purpose.

• 18:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  Other people have suggested that HARP's technology could create clouds or even change the way the winds were blowing. That meant the program's scientists may have been able to generate storms and then even send them to particular regions.

• 18:21Yvette Gentile?

  Elana figured if that was possible, it's not too big of a leap to think they used their capabilities to tweak things to their liking. A little rain to break up a drought, a massive storm to harass one of the United States' enemies, that sort of thing. And she thinks this might explain certain weather patterns that make no sense otherwise.

• 18:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Take Hurricane Katrina, which battered the Gulf of Mexico, particularly Louisiana and the heart of New Orleans. It happened in August of 2005. Many meteorologists failed to anticipate Katrina until right before it hit land. The weather conditions just weren't right for a major hurricane, and this is what Elana claimed, though both the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center predicted a massive hurricane. Keep in mind that at this time, the internet was full of websites tracking weather patterns, storms, temperature, wind speeds, humidity, so much more.

• 19:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  One reporter who checked these sites religiously was named Trobridge Ford. He wasn't an expert in meteorology, but Ford was a professor who taught political science. He also wrote a popular blog on history and government cover-ups, and he worked for a local paper on the side. So needless to say, he was well-educated and widely respected.

• 19:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  In the summer of 2005, he saw that Katrina was just a minor category one hurricane. You know, the sort of thing you'd barely pay attention to because it isn't big enough to cause much damage. Well, the next day, Ford goes back online to check out weather conditions in the Gulf, and he sees that virtually overnight Katrina has blown up to a massive category five hurricane. He thinks there's no possible way this could happen naturally. Instead, Ford believes someone must have powered the hurricane up to make it stronger and deadlier. And that someone might have been HARP.

• 20:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Though I will say, with full disclosure, there's no hard evidence. He also noted that a day or two after Katrina got stronger, all of the weather data showing the sudden change mysteriously disappeared from the internet. Like someone or some entity, a very powerful entity, scrubbed the data completely. If that's not evidence of a cover up, I mean, I don't know what is.

• 21:09Yvette Gentile?

  It definitely does sound like a cover up, and it does make you think that, you know, the higher ups doing something. Because when you think about what happened in New Orleans, it was such massive destruction in some of the poorest areas. You know what I mean? So you think about land grab and just things that you can't even fathom that people would do. The problem is that if HARP really could control the weather, you've got to wonder what motivated the military scientists who worked there. It just, I mean, it doesn't make sense to attack your own people with hurricanes, tornadoes, and other deadly disasters.

• 21:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  I sincerely hope it isn't true, but some people say the government might be manufacturing a climate crisis just to seize power. Author and researcher Ilana Freeland notes that if superstorms, droughts, and famines get bad enough, federal officials might impose martial law or grant themselves special emergency powers. They could also raise taxes in the name of researching climate solutions. And if the federal government already knows they can stop global warming at any time, they don't actually need to fund that research. Instead, they can just pocket the money and become rich.

• 22:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  Another possibility is that the weather manipulation all comes down to corporate interests. Anytime a tragedy happens, whether it's a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, or even a crime wave, people will buy products to keep themselves safe. Think medicines to treat illnesses or new furniture to replace what was lost in a flood or a fire. I mean, Yvette, you and I grew up with tsunami warning after tsunami warning and hurricanes, and we'd always... What's the first thing we would do?

• 23:12Yvette Gentile?

  We'd run to the store.

• 23:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  Go to the store.

• 23:14Yvette Gentile?

  And there's a line. I mean, we're not talking like 10, 15 people. We're talking hundreds of people in line to go buy all these different products, you know, in case of an emergency.

• 23:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, all the essentials. Toilet paper, all the way to Pop-Tarts, right? Well, in her book, Ilana Freeland notes that lots of business people make money on real estate after major storms. If a hurricane or a flood wipes out a neighborhood, developers will swoop in to buy the land at a deep discount and then build property on it. And this is also something that has been happening in our beloved Hawaii with the fires in Lahaina. And thank goodness, people have been trying to stop it. But just think about it.

• 24:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  There are a lot of politicians who are friends with real estate moguls and wealthy CEOs or who depend on donations from large corporations to run their campaigns. So it's possible our political leaders could be using HARP to create climate change and major storms just to enrich the opportunist who swoop in after tragedies.

• 24:30Yvette Gentile?

  That's just disgusting. It's heartbreaking disgusting.

• 24:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  Absolutely, it is.

• 24:37Yvette Gentile?

  Listen to this. So in 2015, a company even came forward to say they found a whole new way to profit off the weather. A British company called Oliver's Travels offered a service that guarantees sunny skies during your wedding, or any other special day for that matter, in exchange for a hundred thousand pounds. Adjusted for inflation and converted into US dollars, that breaks down to about a hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars. The company's model is built around a technique called cloud bursting. So basically, they

• 25:21Yvette Gentile?

  place silver iodide in clouds, which causes water to freeze around these particles. Any water that does fall tends to evaporate before it hits the ground and before the customer's big day comes around. But cloud bursting isn't an exact science, and even this company's contract says their guarantee isn't a real guarantee. It still might rain on your wedding day, but they'll do their very best to keep it dry.

• 25:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's just crazy.

• 25:55Yvette Gentile?

  I just have to say for me, I would not mess with Mother Nature, rain or shine. But let's just say, for giggles, if I did drop six figures on weather modification, and it still ended up with a drizzle, y'all, I would be pretty annoyed, to say the least. And yes, I would be like, refund, please, right now.

• 26:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  But there's that clause in the contract, so no refund for you.

• 26:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  Still, you have to wonder, maybe companies with access to more reliable technology might one day be able to perfect this business model. And maybe some of those companies will have connections to the scientists working at HARP. Though, as we mentioned, it's not just the weather they seem to be controlling. Some believe HARP could manipulate the ionosphere to release intense electromagnetic waves. And if these waves bounced back to the ground and hit fault lines, they could trigger massive tremors. Then, those earthquakes could potentially be used as weapons against America's enemies.

• 27:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  According to some theorists, the government has been using this technology for well over a decade now. A newspaper called Pakistan Live pointed to a series of odd events that started happening in 2010. The article said it all began on the night of February 27, when strange lights allegedly appeared in the sky above Chile. Though it's worth mentioning that no other papers reported on these lights and no photos exist. They looked exactly like the aurora borealis, even though the northern lights rarely ever appeared in Chile.

• 27:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Still, they were so bright and so unexpected, they woke people up at 3 o'clock in the morning. Locals all headed out to the streets to look at the inexplicable shimmering colors. And that's when a massive 8.8 earthquake struck. Now, it's hard to say if the lights and the earthquake were related, but the coincidence was way too weird for people not to notice. Especially because history seemed to repeat itself about a month and a half later, but this time in China. On the night of April 14, according to Ilana Freeland, the aurora borealis was visible

• 28:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  for about 20 to 30 minutes in the region near Tibet. After the lights died down, a massive 6.9 earthquake struck the area, killing approximately 3,000 people.

• 28:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  Usually, there's no correlation between the northern lights appearing and earthquakes occurring. However, the Pakistan Live article notes that there was one technology that could create lights like this: at HARP. It seemed clear to the author that the scientists were manipulating the skies above Chile and China to create the lights and the earthquakes.

• 29:14Yvette Gentile?

  Except the scientists and executives who ran HARP said this was all impossible. The weather modification, the man-made earthquakes, all of it. The beams of energy HARP released into the ionosphere aren't that powerful. It's about 3.6 megawatts, about enough to power a single diesel locomotive. Given how many signals are bombarding the atmosphere from our phones, the GPS, TV, and radio broadcasts constantly, it's hard to imagine the minuscule blast from HARP having any impact at all.

• 29:58Yvette Gentile?

  In fact, HARP's entire antenna array produces about 0.001% as much heat and light as the sun does on a typical day. Plus, when the researchers were conducting studies, they focused all of that energy on a very small portion of the sky. So the effects were highly contained and very limited. According to scientists, there just wasn't enough juice to create big hurricanes or rainstorms, or even make sure you got sunny days during your outdoor birthday bash. And more importantly, HARP was designed to interact with air particles in the ionosphere.

• 30:43Yvette Gentile?

  But that's not an atmosphere layer that can influence weather patterns. It's too high up. If the facility wanted to change the climate, they'd have to work with the lowest atmospheric layers instead. And their equipment just wasn't set up to do that. The antennae also didn't generate enough energy to trigger seismic activity.

• 31:10Yvette Gentile?

  While it's theoretically possible to create shock waves in the ionosphere that make the Earth tremble, it would take a lot more power than HARP had at its disposal. If someone wanted to cause an earthquake on purpose, it would be a lot more efficient to blast energy directly into the ground, rather than to fire it into the atmosphere and wait for a shock wave to bounce back.

• 31:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay, so it sounds like HARP didn't have what it took to create storms or sunshine, and most of the employees laughed off all of these claims entirely. But maybe that's because their goals were entirely different. HARP may not have anything to do with earthquakes or the weather, but there was one study from 2014 that suggested another nefarious operation: that HARP experimented with a frequency said to have intense effects on people's thoughts and emotions.

• 32:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which is why many people think the technology at HARP might actually be used for mind control.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables, it's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 33:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  In 1993, the military founded a program called HARP. Officially, it was established to study the ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere that can modify radio signals. But practically from the day it opened, wild conspiracy theories began flying. Many said HARP had a different, more sinister purpose. And in December of 2014, HARP's own researchers may have accidentally shared a clue about their real goals. That's when their team admitted they'd recently done some tests that involved firing beams into the ionosphere.

• 34:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  And the ionosphere responded by releasing its own radio signals at a frequency of 7.8 Hz. To put it simply, because I had to look this up, I didn't know what it meant, Hz is the SI unit of measurement for frequency, which is the number of cycles or events that occur in one second. 7.8 Hz is known as the lowest of the Schumann resonances. It's the absolute lowest frequency at which the ionosphere and Earth's surface produce radio waves.

• 35:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is what all of those military officers were hoping for back when they first founded HARP in 1993. A way to create powerful, low-frequency radio waves that can cut through water and reach submarines. In a way, the researchers had finally accomplished what they set out to do.

• 35:39Yvette Gentile?

  But there's another reason why this frequency is important. See, our nervous system uses electricity to communicate. And according to some people, when we're relaxed or asleep, our neurons also vibrate at the Schumann resonance. So every daydream, actual dream, or warm memory you have allegedly comes through at 7.8 Hz. And it's said that when people are exposed to the Schumann resonance, it can actually change their mood in a pretty dramatic way.

• 36:19Yvette Gentile?

  In the right circumstances, properly calibrated radio waves might make someone's depression better or worse. It could even affect our physical health in minor ways. Say, by giving someone dry skin or acne. Please, give me just combination skin.

• 36:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  You have combination skin.

• 36:40Yvette Gentile?

  I do. I'd better throw that in.

• 36:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  It basically means that in theory, you could change the way someone thinks or feels by exposing them to the Schumann resonance. Some people believe you could even plant a notion into a person's mind that wasn't there previously, just by blasting them with the right sound frequency. Which makes this December 2014 publication really terrifying. Because the US government just admitted they can use their HARP antennae to broadcast the Schumann resonance anywhere they want. In other words, HARP could very well be a mind-control machine.

• 37:28Yvette Gentile?

  According to a viral news article from 2013, one of the biggest advocates of this mind control theory is Edward Snowden. That name might ring a bell. He's a former intelligence contractor. That same year, he made headlines by blowing the whistle on an illegal NSA surveillance program. Basically, the US government was spying on its own citizens and violating their constitutional rights. In his federal job, Edward learned about the illegal activity and leaked the information to the press.

• 38:09Yvette Gentile?

  In return, the authorities charged him with espionage. Edward fled to Russia to escape prosecution, which is where he lives to this day.

• 38:21Rasha Pecoraro?

  All to say, if anyone had access to state secrets in 2013 and was willing to share them, it was Edward Snowden. So imagine how shocked and upset people must have felt when a website called The Internet Chronicle posted a news statement from Edward on July 10, 2013. It said Edward knew for a fact that HARP had mind control possibilities. He said he was going to release government documents proving as much, but as of this episode that we're recording right now, he hasn't shown the paperwork to anyone that we know of.

• 39:02Yvette Gentile?

  The problem is that The Internet Chronicle, the website that broke the story, is satire. Similar to The Onion, there's no evidence that Edward ever said anything publicly about HARP or mind control.

• 39:19Yvette Gentile?

  But that didn't stop other news websites from repeating the Internet Chronicle's claims as fact. And beyond that, there's no concrete evidence that our brains process information at 7.8 hertz. It's just a theory. And the allegation we shared earlier about how these sound waves can cause or cure depression? It's not based on any scientific research or studies. Which means, we have no idea if the Schumann resonance can change someone's way of thinking or control their mind. Or any other radio frequency, for that matter.

• 40:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  Even if HARP wasn't practicing mind control, there are a lot of other theories about what the program was really up to. So many, in fact, that we don't have time to explore all of them in depth here. But I do want to briefly highlight some of the major theories that stood out in our research. Like HARP was actually serving a demonic entity, and the equipment could be used to steal people's souls. Or that one of their upper atmosphere experiments had something to do with the destruction of the Columbia Space Shuttle in 2003.

• 40:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Or that the facility had the ability to reverse the Earth's magnetic poles, which would destroy our electrical grid, ruin migratory animals' ability to navigate, and weaken the magnetic field retaining the Van Allen belt so badly, it wouldn't be able to shield us from deadly radiation anymore. So it's not clear why the military would want to do something like that. I've even read that the false aurora borealis HARP created was poisonous, and toxins rained down on the Earth every time it appeared in the sky.

• 41:19Yvette Gentile?

  Y'all, we could go on and on, but I do need to share a few details that debunk all of those possibilities. First, the United States has never run HARP alone. The whole time it was in operation, the scientists partnered with researchers in the UK, Japan, Finland, Norway, and Greenland. HARP even cooperated with the Russians. If the facility really was a superweapon or something demonic, we probably wouldn't share the equipment or our findings, especially not with the countries that we've had contentious

• 42:02Yvette Gentile?

  relationships with in the past, like Russia. It's also worth mentioning that after that big study on the Schumann resonance in 2014, the US military decided to wrap up its research. Apparently, the Air Force was going through budget cuts, and they just couldn't afford to keep funding HARP. And without the Air Force's financing, DARPA and the Navy didn't have the resources to keep running HARP on their own. So in August of 2015, the military officially gave the facility to the University of Alaska.

• 42:43Yvette Gentile?

  That's a public university, so HARP and its research are still technically government-funded. But now, the studies are run by professors and educators instead of the military.

• 42:58Yvette Gentile?

  These days, climate researchers continue running studies on the ionosphere, and the existing equipment doesn't go to waste. But the university does foot some of the bill. And if the facility really did have a deep, dark secret, you wouldn't expect government officials to hand their technology over to civilians.

• 43:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's assuming the University of Alaska really is getting access to all of their equipment, data, and old research notes. I mean, for all we know, the Air Force, the Navy, and DARPA might have gathered all of the most damning materials before the handoff. I mean, governments do that, let's just be real.

• 43:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  Either way, the new employees at HARP have been trying for years to shut the conspiracy theories down and convince people to trust them. They've removed the fences and the no trespassing signs, and they've even hosted public events. They've also encouraged locals to come and see the work that they've been doing. To be clear, you're still not allowed to photograph anything in the facility, but the officials say it's not because they're doing anything secret or sensitive, it's just to protect employees' privacy. Apparently, a lot of researchers get harassed or even threatened by people who believe they're these evil mad scientists.

• 44:29Yvette Gentile?

  And still, some employees have a sense of humor about the whole situation. In June of 2025, one staffer poked fun at the conspiracy theorist by standing outside of the facility while holding a sign that said, "I, HARP, HARP." Cute. But the real attention-grabber was the hat that he was wearing. Can you guess what it was made of? Of course, tinfoil.

• 44:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  So on-brand for so supernatural. That's exactly what I'd expect the employees to do if they're covering up a dark conspiracy: poke fun and dismiss all of the allegations against them. But this is also what you'd do if you were an ordinary scientist just trying to shut down misinformation. Ultimately, we might never know exactly what HARP is supposed to do. But one thing is undeniable: scientists are using the technology to test the limits of what we know about our planet.

• 45:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  They're expanding our base of scientific knowledge. And given that the universe is so cool, and there's so much left to learn, it's hard not to get captivated about projects like this one, even if they do come with things we cannot comprehend.

• 46:09Yvette Gentile?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at SoSupernaturalPodcast.com. Join Rasha and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 46:30Yvette Gentile?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful, you never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.