Did a Secret Military Experiment Cause the 2003 Blackout?

by Anonymous

On August 14, 2003, just a few minutes after the stock market closed for the day, a nine-minute 'event' had brought the entire Northeastern power grid down. It is believed that over fifty million people lost power that afternoon. Since this unprecedented event, blame games have flown back and forth, but no real answers have been provided. It is believed that the event originated in an area in the power grid where there is a bottleneck of power transmission between the eastern U.S. and the Midwest. But what has caused this mess? Outdated equipment, irresponsible power companies, and politicians have all been blamed without any solid evidence to support the accusations. What hasn't been suggested is the possibility that this was a secret government test that served the purpose of fulfilling requirements for sophisticated warfare and security response mechanisms.

Here are the facts. The power grid that was affected was the northeast grid. Not the vulnerable California grid, or the southeastern grid that Washington DC relies upon, and not that strangely isolated Texas oil grid. It was the grid that the northeast U.S. and southeast Canada rely on. A region that a large-scale outage would not have a really devastating effect on the economy or military control centers. The event conveniently began a few minutes after the closing bell on Wall Street as to not effect the days trading, but while power usage in the northeast on that hot day was still at peak. The event began in a bottleneck region where only a few percent increase in power flow could cause such a critical failure of the entire grid. The physical cause of the event such as the classic squirrel shorting out a transformer, has not been found; there were no indications of any lightning being present; nor was there any significant solar activity to cause an unexpected surge in the grid. Finally, the HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project) was turned on just after 4:00 PM EST on that fateful day.

The question is 'Could a secret HAARP experiment have caused the blackout?'

Interesting ionospheric effects occurred on 8/14/2003 that would have made the conditions for such a secret military test ideal, including a widespread, highly reflective ionospheric layer being expected (and was likely created by the electron event seen in figure 1), which would allow ideal conditions for signal propagation over long distances. Unfortunately, the ionosonde data that would help show where the effects of HAARP were directed by providing a picture of the ionosphere was not posted on the day of the blackout. The Gakona Ionosonde data is frequently not posted when classified HAARP experiments take place. What we do know is that HAARP was turned on at or just after 4:00 pm EST; it would take a few minutes for the target area to respond (say around 4:05 pm) which would allow a nine-minute event to knock the power out at 4:14 pm EST.

HAARP, Ionospheric Warfare, and Potential Applications

Those of us who work in ionospheric research, and who are concerned with environment risks associated with ionospheric warfare are familiar with HAARP. The basic concept that HAARP relies upon is based on work by N. Tesla when he was attempting to devise a method for the wireless transmission of electrical power, and subsequently picked up in the early twentieth century for the purpose of finding a way to modify the weather. It is thought that this technology was used by world leaders such as Stalin, whom during important outdoor events may have used such technology to prevent unwanted rain or fog. These claims were often associated with widespread reports of people feeling mysteriously ill. One of the leading researchers in this field is Dr. Bernard Eastlund, whom to this day accepts money from organizations such the European Space Agency to research potential weather modification applications including the possibility of stopping tornadoes with this type of technology.

(Chart Omitted) Satellite environment shows that an enhanced flux of high energy electrons which would create preferable reflection conditions for HAARP were present at the time of the event, and geomagnetic activity that could cause problems with the power-grid were non-existent

HAARP is a phased-array ionospheric heater that is capable of focusing large quantities of electromagnetic energy into very localized regions that are very far away from the source. It is entirely possible that the HAARP heaters were directed at the power grid's bottleneck while the grid was operating near peak capacity. The sudden presence of electromagnetic energy could easily force an unexpected increase in the power flow which could in-turn cause a critical failure such as the one seen on august 14, 2003.

Despite the claims of HAARP advocates, ionospheric heaters can use the ionosphere to reflect their energy at distances several thousand miles away by using the ionosphere as a 'mirror' much the same way as AM radio signals travel over vast distances. Unlike an AM radio, HAARP can use phase interference to focus its energy on a localized area (such as the weak point on the power grid). The only requirement to achieve geographic precision is that geomagnetic activity is minimal such as it was on the day of the blackout. Also, there was a short duration test about 20 minutes before the hour. Such a test would serve the purpose of showing the researchers exactly where the beam would focus itself given the current conditions, and would be a necessary step before executing such an experiment.

So why would the government do this to us? Well, first of all, HAARP is sponsored primarily by the Air Force Weather Agency and 'other agencies', and is known to be an ionospheric warfare tool. This would be an ideal way to test possible military applications of the instrument. It would be of great military value if we could cause an entire region to lose electricity almost instantly without dropping a single bomb. Of course, this would need to be tested in a controlled environment where the effects could be thoroughly analyzed (such as on our own soil). It would be done in an area that could most easily handle such a large-scale power outage (such as the northeast US). Also, being in a new age of terrorism, this was an excellent homeland security response test. By having a blackout that covered one quarter of the county we can now see how people would respond, what the strengths and weaknesses of our emergency response systems are, and how quickly we could restore our systems to operating capacity. If this were a military experiment it would certainly have served multiple purposes. I also believe it would have been a strong temptation for anyone with the power to conduct such an experiment to do so.

Conspiracy Theories and Reality

The blame games that have gone on since the blackout have no hard evidence to back them up. Although it may sound like an episode of the X-files, the facts are clear; HAARP is an ionospheric warfare tool, it is capable of focusing it's electromagnetic energy at long distances, it was turned on right at the time the event began, and such a scenario would serve multiple national security interests simultaneously with minimal economic impact. So we must ask ourselves, is considering HAARP as a potential source of the blackout a ridiculous conspiracy theory, or is it the most reasonable explanation given the facts?

I am a concerned ionospheric physicist whom has worked with HAARP. I am concerned with the unknown environmental and military implications of this device, and the potential abuses thereof. I am not a conspiracy nut, and I do believe that HAARP is a useful tool that needs to be put into responsible hands where it is not abused and where the public has full access to it's experimental capabilities and data. It is an instrument that is paid for by taxpayer's dollars and is currently not in the hands of people who have earned or deserve our confidence and trust.

(Chart Omitted)The waterfall chart indicates HAARP was turned on just after 4:00 pm EST on 8/14/2003. The chart shows that frequencies of 5, 10, 15, and 29 Megahertz are present for nearly an hour. The 5 MHz broadcast frequency is the strongest, and the others are likely to be resulting harmonics So what really happened on August 14? I'm really not sure, but we must ask ourselves what the most likely scenario's are without ruling out any possibilities; even those that sound like they have no place other than the sci-fi channel. ``The Truth is out There'', so I leave it for you to decide.

Anonymous

Regretfully, because I am a research scientist, and because I face the possibility of certain repercussions in my field of work for revealing this information to the public, I cannot reveal my true identity. I believe the facts I have presented herein are sufficient to speak for themselves and should convince the public that oversight is needed when experimenting with aspects of the atmosphere that are not well known.

The data that is presented was accessed from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration website at www.sec.noaa.gov, and from the HAARP homepage at www.haarp.alaska.edu

(A response from a Mr. Livingstone)
Dear Concerned Ionospheric Physicist
By Zuerrnnovahh-Starr Livingstone
http://educate-yourself.org/zsl/dearionosphericphysicist07sep03.shtml
Sept. 7, 2003

Re: Did a Secret Military Experiment Cause the 2003 Blackout?

Dear Concerned Ionospheric Physicist,

Thank you for the research you did regarding HAARP. There are reasons for concern. The use of phased-array broadcasts as ionospheric heaters against people and property is a crime and your letter shows how incensed you are. I do not know if a billion watts at 5 megahertz will induce an electromagnetic pulse in electrical transmission lines. I have a difficult time believing that HAARP could generate a 800 megawatt current reversal as that would mean 80% efficency of conversion of EM pulse into A/C electricity...a technical miracle of the highest order. I suspect 5 mHz would heat metals including the transformers and power lines increasing electrical resistance and decreasing current loads. In such situations circuit breakers would trip in a well understood way. This type of shutdown was not reported.

There are indications that anomalous events happened at many locations of the New York/Ohio/Ontario electrical grid. This means that HAARP had to be re-targeted many times in a period of a few minutes in order to shut down the transmission system and the generators. Phased-array radars are very flexible systems as proven by the Aegis Class of Missile Destroyers which use such solid state systems. Is phased-array HAARP just as flexible? The fly in the ointment on this argument is the ionosphere itself. You wrote that a weaker acquisition signal was broadcast minutes before the outage to test the "firmness" of the ionosphere. Once it was determined that the signal was going where it was intended then someone hit the "maximum-fry-switch". The complexity of sending a high energy signal from Alaska to Ohio and targeting a nexus of powerlines is mind boggling. The signal would bounce from the ground to the ionosphere three to six times depending on the initial angle of broadcast. The ionosphere is not a perfect mirror, neither is the ground. It would be amazing if one/one hundredth of the signal reached Ohio. HAARP has proven that it can heat clouds because pilots can accurately lay chemtrails but a laser-like targeting of a small part of Ohio less than a square mile in area would be another technical miracle. It would be easier to aim masers at the powerlines from a mile away.

As you have written, HAARP has proven itself, especially this year in preventing tornados. There have been few tornados in the places that normally get them.

There are three components to the creation of a tornado: A cold wet low pressure cyclonic system; a hot high pressure front; and the jet stream. When all three come together a tornado results. HAARP has been steering the jet stream remarkably well. Chemtrail spraying of 5 micron aluminum particles at 15 to 20,000 feet below a jet stream (33,000 feet) and then zapping the cloud with HAARP causes an updraft which can push the jet stream in desired directions. Also by steering the jet stream, weather fronts can be moved. The computer programs regarding HAARP and tornados must be accurate and detailed. As an ionospheric physicist you must be proud of this achievement...but at what cost?

Virtually unreported during this success over tornados, the west coast of Canada has seen no rain since May. 2002 was a horrible year for forest fires in Montana. 2003 has been the worst year for forest fires in British Columbia. British Columbia is where the effort to steer the jet streams starts. BC has had over 2000 fires this year. At this moment there are over 700 still burning. The town of Louis Creek has been totally destroyed. The nearby town of Barriere lost 80 homes. 15,000 were evacuated for two weeks. At the end of August Kelowna a town of 100,000 had one/third of its citizens evacuated. Over 250 homes were destroyed. These fires are not measured in acres but in square kilometers. The Kelowna fire is over 200 square kilometers and still burning. Cranbrook faced a major fire. Chase, Kamloops, Williams Lake, Oliver, and many more towns are threatened and are still threatened. I am not blaming HAARP for the lack of rain as weather is a complex subject but someone high up in the command structure of HAARP thinks that BC's problems are caused by HAARP! How do I determined this?

Among other reasons, THERE HAS BEEN NO REPORTAGE OF THIS IN THE US MEDIA! NADA!

It has been reported in Europe and Asia but not in America. Odd? Pecular? Fodder for conspiracy theories? YES! Some people who are bouncing billions of watts of power off the ionosphere do not want Americans to know about a problem north of the border.

If a chunk of Antarctic ice the size of Rhode Island or Delaware has set sail for Argentina and the whole world knows. Sections of BC forest covering an area about the size of Los Angeles Basin have burnt and it is not reported? Very Strange!

You may believe that stopping tornados is a marvelous achievement, I do not think it is. Especially when there are hundred foot walls of flame destroying houses. HAARP may have prevented $100 million of tornado damage in the midwest this year but the damage to BC is over $2 billion and counting. HAARP is an abomination.

Continue this messing with the weather and you may lose Oregon or Washington to one massive forest fire. The loss of Seattle could be counted in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What do you know about the mind control aspect of HAARP? What about chemtrails? Chemtrails are a big part of HAARP weather control.

You wrote that the ionosphere is an unsteady mirror for HAARP radiation...what is the radiation doing to the ionosphere? Are we going to suffer more holes in the ozone because of certain frequencies and their harmonic overtones?

New Yorkers should sue HAARP, they had a miserable summer.

Zuerrnnovahh-Starr Livingstone.

A response by the anonymous scientist to Mr. Livingstone's article:

I wrote the letter posted on your website. I am trying to spread awareness of HAARP because as an ionospheric physicist who has worked with the instrument I believe the atmospheric sciences community needs unrestricted access to this instrument and I am trying to convince the public of this. I have read the critique of Zuerrnnavahh-Starr Livingstone and wanted to address his comments. Basically, if you have someone who is not a physicist attempt to debunk physics given by a real physicist, you will have problems. He is off base on nearly every point he has made and I would appreciate if you would forward this to him.

-First of all, HAARP doesn't operate at exactly 1GW, but can operate well over that capacity. Given the strength of the return from 8/14/03 I would guess it was operating at close to 2GW. Also, yes, HAARP can easily focus its energy with efficiency exceeding 50%. This would easily give the power needed to cause the event referred to. Also, the energy would not just be absorbed by everything in the area being heated. Rather the energy would in fact be almost entirely absorbed by the transmission line. This is because the power line would serve as an antennae to absorb the radiation as it has a wavelength greater than 1/4 the wavelength of the incident radiation generated by HAARP. This effect is much like what happens if you put a fork in a microwave... The fork acts as an antennae and results in a heavy energy sink. Also, the ability to polarize the radiation would make it easy to align with the power line and maximize efficiency. Also things would not heat up in the area because the power would go into accelerate electrons already in the power line. It would make them move faster and hence increase the current (I=n*e*v). The location of the event could be isolated by the power companies (as it has been), but no physical evidence of the cause would be seen (as it has not been).

-Also, AC current dominates DC in power transmission because it has low resistance. The reason for this is because electrons move short distances before reversing direction. This results in a low frequency of collisions within the conductive material, hence low resistance. A 10-20 percent increase in current is not going to have much effect on this. Besides the grids are designed so that the transmission lines conduct well at currents well above what would cause the breakers to trip (this is a no-brainer because it is cheaper to flip a switch than replace miles of expensive high-tension lines)

-Also, NO, you wouldn't have to move it around. Mr. Livingstone did not do any study on the problems with the California grid. One of the major issues was that a really small event somewhere in the power grid would cause a massive cascade effect and knock out huge areas. One common cause was the squirrel stealing insulation from the capacitors until his body causes a massive short. This is why there are squirrel cages at all transformers. Any electrician will tell you that it only takes something happening at one location in your system to cause the entire thing to crash.

-HAARP is not phase array radar! It is a phase array heater. The basic physics is the same, but the practical applications are totally different, so they really should not be compared from a cause/effect standpoint.

-HAARP has not been used to prevent tornadoes!!! See Eastlund Scientific Incorporated report to European Space Agency (I can forward URL if you need it). Eastlund's conclusions were that a Terawatt heater would be needed to stop even a small tornado. He refers to the ARCO NSGP heater on the north slope of Alaska as existing (although it does not officially exist) and complains that the US government will not allow access to it. That is not to say they have not tried to stop a tornado, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that it has ever been tried in practice.

-HAARP is not believed to be able to cause large-scale weather modification. A couple of Giga watts simply aren't enough energy for a direct modification of macro scale weather. Stalin supposedly used similar technology to prevent light rain and fog during outdoor events, but this is only on a very small scale geographically. HAARP may be being used to cause breaking of tropospheric jet stream over Alaska. We have observed the operation of HAARP during strange unexpected breaking patterns that have resulted in anomalous weather in the northwest US, but do not have any direct physical evidence to back this up.

-Livingstone also asked about chemtrails and mind-control

Because HAARP can generate fundamental frequencies which have an integer number of wavelengths equal the circumference of the ionosphere (such as 8Hz), and because biological organisms probably evolved in accordance with such fundamental frequencies, there seems to be some aspects of the human psyche that response at the same frequencies that are generated by HAARP (such as the medulla, which is the emotion sensor, responds at 8Hz). Some conspiracy theorists believe that HAARP can generate wavelengths that can excite the medulla and result in people not wanting to engage in certain activities (like fighting an invading army). This is a pretty wild theory and is not likely.... although there are probably certain biological responses to alterations made in the ionosphere, most likely in regions within the Auroral oval where geomagnetic field lines perpendicular to the earth's surface can allow low frequency waves to propagate toward the ground.

-HAARP cannot cause chemtrails because HAARP does not have the ability to deposit material in the atmosphere. It is possible, however that HAARP can cause changes in the composition of the atmosphere near the mesopause through electromagnetic dissociation of molecules. This can have an effect on all kinds of things such as the ozone hole. These effects, however, have not been studied because the scientists using HAARP have blocked these studies. The reason for this is because any environmental implications would need to be thoroughly reviewed and this could result in the world community shutting down HAARP operations indefinitely. So the guys in charge won't allow such research to take place.

In Fairbanks, we do have chemtrails, but they are not caused by HAARP. They are military experiments and fall into two main categories. 1) Toxic plume dispersal experiments which is where dust is dropped from planes or generated by fires, and the dispersal is studied. This will tell them what might happen say during a chemical weapon attack. 2) Radar ducting experiments. The military has certain radar ducting problems (i.e.: why we don't want to station fighters in Kuwait). They drop metallic dust such as aluminum and perform radar experiments with the cloud. These can be seen regularly from the Pedro Dome radar, which is available via www.arh.noaa.gov

I hope this clears up some of the science. I am available for questions through this e-mail address. I am not a conspiracy theorist; I am only a scientist trying to help the world community get better access to important experimental equipment. We must refrain from making up science because this is bad practice.

Thank you for posting my paper.