T he fresh snow drifts outside HAARP’s operations room sparkled under the cold early-December sun. The Director of Gakona, Dr Nathaniel B. Hershey, was very solidly built. In his younger days, the nuclear physicist had played quarterback for the Washington Redskins, and he still worked out every day, but not today. Today he was providing a personal briefing on the capabilities of HAARP to the vice chiefs of the navy, army and air force, as well as the assistant commandant of the Marines, the CIA and a brace of high-powered civilians from the Pentagon.
‘Here at HAARP, we’re at the cutting edge of science,’ Dr Hershey began. ‘Within a few short years we’ve got to the stage where we can generate 3.6 million watts on the ground, and because we have very large phased-array antennae that cover nearly fifteen hectares, we can direct that energy into a narrow beam wherever we want to aim it, blasting the ionosphere with over three gigawatts, or three billion watts, of electromagnetic power.’
Ellen Rodriguez’ eyes widened. Rodriguez was not only fluent in Spanish and German; as a teenager, she had graduated summa cum laude from a little-known college in the Bronx and won a scholarship to Columbia University, where she’d majored in environmental physics. She had done as much research on HAARP as she could in the short time before she left Langley, and she had already reached the conclusion that messing with the earth’s delicate balance was madness.
Dr Hershey flashed up a display of the ionosphere, the upper part of the atmosphere that stretched from eighty to 1000 kilometres above the earth and consisted of electrons and charged particles or ions. ‘As most of you are aware, the ionosphere plays an important part in communications, acting as a mirror for radio waves, enabling us to communicate over long distances. What is not so well understood is the effect that it might have on intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from Russia, China, or, in the future, from rogue states like North Korea or Iran.’
‘Can it be used to deflect them?’ asked the nuggetty little four-star commandant from the Marine Corps.
‘That’s one of the things we’re aiming to find out, General,’ Dr Hershey replied, flashing up another PowerPoint slide. ‘By aiming three billion watts at a single point in the ionosphere, we believe we can actually lift it by up to eighty kilometres at a particular point, and it’s quite possible that could be used to deflect any incoming missiles off course.’
‘If you blast the ionosphere with three billion watts, Dr Hershey, and hold a piece of it eighty kilometres out to space, all that energy has to go somewhere, and that somewhere will be into the particles that make up the ionosphere itself, am I right?’ Rodriguez was up the back of the small briefing room, but her voice held an authority that turned the heads of those far more senior in the front row.
‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this,’ Hershey countered, his blue-grey eyes suddenly steely. He had answered questions like this on open days, but he hadn’t expected one in the middle of a top-secret briefing.
‘If I’m right, three billion watts of energy will throw huge amounts of heat into the ionosphere, way past the normal balance. Isn’t there a chance that all of that energy might discharge back? Much the same way as a lightning bolt discharges energy, only in this case, hundreds of times more powerful?’
Dr Hershey smiled through pursed lips. ‘I would draw the analogy of putting your finger in a bucket of water; you take your finger out, and the hole is repaired immediately.’ Hershey glared at Tyler Jackson, the CIA’s most senior scientist at HAARP, silently asking how someone like Officer Rodriguez had been allowed into the briefing.
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Dr Hershey,’ the Marine Corps general drawled. ‘Now, if the handbag brigade up the back doesn’t mind, I’d like to hear the rest of what you’ve got to say.’
Hershey smirked. ‘Thank you, General. As part of this program, we intend to conduct three major experiments. The first, which I’ve briefly outlined, will involve a ten-minute burst of extremely high energy aimed at a point above the northern Pacific. Prior to the beam firing, the air force will launch a long-range missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which we will then deflect off course, towards the Arctic Ocean.’
The Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force nodded enthusiastically. ‘In the past, as part of the National Missile Defense program, we’ve launched interceptor missiles from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, but they haven’t been one hundred per cent effective. This will add another string to our bow.’
Rodriguez shook her head, convinced that no one in the room had any idea what they were playing with.
‘The second experiment will involve the generation of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic waves, or ELF,’ Hershey continued, pointing to the screen showing layers of the earth’s atmosphere. ‘At altitudes of between a hundred and 150 kilometres above the earth, we have what are known as electrojets. Essentially these are rivers of electrons or electricity running through the ionosphere above the earth. We intend to blast beams of extremely high energy into them, which will change the nature of the electrojets and generate beams of ELF that can be used to communicate with our submarines over very long distances.’ It was the Vice Chief of the Navy’s turn to nod his approval.
‘ELF waves can also be used to effectively X-ray the earth, and this, we hope, will assist us to find tunnels in countries like Iran, which is burying its nuclear plants so deep even our satellite-based sensors are having difficulty picking them up.’ Hershey paused to let HAARP’s potential sink in. Rodriguez seized her chance to get the people in the room to think beyond the parade ground.
‘Seismic tomography has long been in use, Dr Hershey, to search for oil and gas deposits, for example,’ she began, ‘and for the benefit of those in this room who may not be familiar with the technique, crude oil and natural gas will return sounds at different frequencies that enable geologists to identify the substance and its location. But those techniques employ energy in the range of thirty to forty watts, which is more than sufficient to get through solid rock. We’re talking here about pounding the earth’s surface with three billion watts. Do we have any idea what might happen to the earth’s delicate balance if you unleash that sort of energy?’
Dr Hershey took a deep breath and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘That’s why we do experiments, Dr Rodriguez – to find out,’ he replied icily. ‘And if you think the Russians, the Indians and the Chinese haven’t built research stations similar to this one, think again.’ He grabbed the remote and thumbed through a number of slides, stopping at a satellite image of an aerial array in the province of Nizhny Novgorod in central Russia. ‘Taken from one of our KeyHole satellites just last month,’ Hershey explained. ‘We’ve got resolution down to half a metre, and you can clearly see the streets and buildings in the small town of Vasilsursk on the River Volga, close to which is the Russian ionospheric heating facility, Sura… here.’ Hershey glared at Rodriguez and aimed his laser pointer at the screen showing a crossed dipole array of 144 antennae in a 300-metre square grid. ‘That station was set up in 1981, well before this facility, and has an effective radiated power of 190 million watts.’
‘Well, that’s all right, then,’ Rodriguez muttered under her breath.
‘The Chinese aren’t sitting on the sidelines, either,’ Hershey continued, flicking the remote. ‘This image was taken only last week, above the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region, which is China’s most western and largest province, and strategically one of the most important.’ Hershey again focused his laser pointer. ‘It’s bigger than Western Europe and borders Tibet to the south, Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, and India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan to the west. And this next image clearly shows the antennae array of the Xinjiang ionospheric laboratory, located at 40° 24’ North and 93° 38’ East.’
‘We know the Russians are working on controlling the weather, but how much do we know about Chinese capability?’ the Vice Chief of Naval Operations asked.
‘Not as much as we’d like, sir, but I’m assured the CIA is working on that problem as we speak.’
‘Whoever controls the weather controls the world, Dr Hershey,’ the admiral observed. ‘The Russians have already made some progress using explosive devices to bend the jet stream above Siberia, which will reduce the severity of their winter, and I’ve also seen reports that they’re working on controlling hurricanes and cyclones.’
‘Absolutely right, Admiral, which brings me to an outline of our third major experiment,’ Dr Hershey responded, glancing at Rodriguez. ‘The research is not yet complete, but based on our findings to date, we’ve every reason to believe that hurricanes, tornados, volcanoes and earthquakes can all be controlled and initiated at will. It’s a form of weather warfare we intend to perfect before the Russians and the Chinese beat us to it.’
Neither Jackson nor Rodriguez was surprised when they were excluded from the informal discussions over lunch, and the two dined together in the canteen.
‘Your concerns are absolutely valid,’ Jackson said as they shared a barely passable coffee at the end of their meal. ‘We’re able to generate ELF with the power to identify deep underground tunnels, and blast them with heat waves, but there’s a problem with accuracy.’
‘Can that be overcome?’
‘In theory. Using the ionosphere as a lens to reflect the waves back to a target is too imprecise, so they’re planning to use a Minuteman missile which can be manoeuvred into a known position. The outer casing will be specifically configured to act as the reflecting lens.’
Rodriguez handed Jackson a card. ‘That cell’s clean… the system won’t pick it up. If things get worse, call me. I used to work at the White House, and my former boss, Andrew Reed, is now the President’s Chief of Staff.’