People have always dreamed of using the full power of weather disasters to achieve military goals. In the second half of the twentieth century, these dreams almost became reality. Back in the 1950s, scientists realized that cloud supercooling could cause precipitation.
During the Vietnam War, the US military tested this theory in practice: as part of Operation Popeye, between 1967 and 1972, 5,400 tons of silver iodide and lead iodide were sprayed over the jungle. As a result, a threefold increase in precipitation was recorded: the rainy season in the upper Mekong extended from 30 to 45 days. There is evidence that the terrible flood of 1971, which affected 10% of the country, was caused by this impact.
Operation Popeye clearly demonstrates the dangers and difficulties of using “climate weapons.” The goal in front of her was quite local: blurring the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” the routes along which the Vietnamese partisans received supplies. It was not possible to implement it, despite the colossal funds spent and the threat created to the entire peninsula.
The start was controversial, but experiments on climate change did not stop with Vietnam. Until 1983, research within the framework of the Stormfury project was in full swing in the depths of American laboratories. This time, scientists wanted to subdue hurricanes and typhoons.
At first, the purpose of the experiments seemed noble, because thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people suffer from such winds every year. But given the destructive power of typhoons, the temptation to use them for military purposes was too great... According to some (however, not very reliable) reports, some success was achieved, and in 1969 the United States “redirected” the hurricane to Panama, whose relations with the White the house was then more than cool. However, since then, despite the devastating Katrina and other typhoons, the use of these technologies has somehow ceased... Popeye was only part of the program to combat Vietnamese guerrillas. The air operation on the ground was supplemented by the US military from Jungle Eaters - a unit with special Rome Plow D7E bulldozers. These machines were used to remove the top layer of soil. Thus, the areas became unsuitable for vegetation for a long time and - not without the help of silver iodide - turned into real swamps.
The weather is Soviet!
The Soviet Union did not want to lag behind the United States in matters of advanced weapons. Therefore, in the 1980s, the USSR, together with Cuba, began developing its own program designed to influence the behavior of winds. The 1977 treaty, which prohibited any use of such weapons, did not become an obstacle: after all, in our country everything is created exclusively for peaceful purposes.
However, before the creation of weather control systems, there were problems more serious than interstate obligations. The main one is energy. The energy of a typical rain cloud is comparable to the energy contained in an average nuclear warhead. To simply heat one cubic kilometer of air space, a huge power plant will be needed. Meanwhile, to seriously talk about the global impact on the weather, you need to learn how to influence thousands and thousands of kilometers of the atmosphere.
Tesla's research and experiments with weather
Although for some all talk about climate experiments belongs to the realm of science fiction, it is enough to familiarize yourself with Tesla’s work to change your mind. The greatest inventor of the 20th century, Nikola Tesla, created many devices that, according to eyewitnesses, could influence the weather. Some believe that climate weapons were used against Russia in 1908, although this was just an unsuccessful result of Tesla's experiments. Of course, it is unlikely that the fall of the Tunguska meteorite is related to the physicist’s tests, but such a possibility is not completely ruled out.
Having his own research center, the scientist could cause lightning, while saying that resonance could be caused in the atmosphere. It was Tesla who developed the theory of an energy dome that could protect vast areas from any influence. Although the scientist died at the age of 87, presumably from old age, many still blame American financial tycoons for his death, for whom Tesla's revolutionary developments only suffered huge losses.
This is the scary word HAARP
However, when talking about climate weapons, such “little things” as the Popeye project or Stormfury are rarely remembered. Everyone sees something that can bring the whole world to its knees - and, of course, connected with some kind of conspiracy theory.
Among the developments that are allegedly used or have been used to influence the climate, the American HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) takes honorable first place. The first developments on the project appeared back in the 1960s, and in 1997, HAARP was officially launched.
Located in Alaska, the complex consists of antennas, laser locators, magnetometers, incoherent radiation radar and processing equipment. From the outside it looks like a huge number of television antennas pointing into the sky. HAARP cost $250 million to build and cost about $2.5 million a year to maintain until its closure in 2014.
HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) / ©Alamy
But why is the HAARP complex credited with fantastic abilities? There is no direct evidence on this matter - except perhaps the location on a military training ground and the corresponding security. However, it is claimed that HAARP antennas are capable of forming and moving them anywhere on Earth, causing floods, typhoons, hurricanes, extreme heat or other disasters... In recent years, there has not been a single natural disaster for which HAARP was not blamed. Even the terrible earthquake in Haiti in 2010 is attributed to the Americans, and if a natural disaster occurred in China or Russia, America is definitely to blame.
However, even in theory, HAARP could not be used as a weapon due to objective facts. The power of its radiation (3.6 MW) is clearly not enough to decide the fate of the world. This potential is not enough for even minor atmospheric impacts. Finally, the closure of the project in the summer of 2014 can finally dispel the myth of a secret climate weapon. If the Americans had really created something outstanding that could be used to control the weather, would they have stopped the project?..
The official purpose of creating HAARP was to study the behavior of the ionosphere and auroras. Indeed, the antennas could influence local areas of the ionosphere, allowing scientists to conduct the necessary experiments. For example, using HAARP they studied the behavior of charged particles in the ionosphere. But hardly anything more. Unfortunately, the results of the complex remain classified. More open similar projects, such as EISCAT, SPEAR, or Soviet analogues, can provide some hints.
EISCAT Project / ©Getty Images
What is the Haarp project really?
Although the Haarp project is secret, some information about it is in the public domain. Haarp includes the following devices:
- Antennas;
- Radar emitters;
- Magnetometers;
- Laser locators;
- Powerful computers capable of managing the entire complex and processing incoming signals;
- Gas power plant that powers the entire system and 6 diesel generators.
The complex is located near the town of Gakon, where the phenomenon known as the northern lights often occurs.
Numerous antennas of the complex are capable of creating a narrowly directed beam of waves of incredible power. It is believed that by concentrating radio waves, the installation is capable of creating optical phenomena in the atmosphere, called spectra or lenses. These phenomena can reach sizes of several tens of kilometers, and they can be located almost anywhere in the world. If this is true, then no country in the world can feel completely safe, especially if it has poor relations with the United States of America.
The problem with using climate weapons is that storms and disasters that occur in one part of the world will certainly cause similar disasters in other parts of the world. Some scientists who have conducted research on global natural disasters over the past 15 years prove the involvement of the Haarp complex in this. The US military does not provide any refuting data, causing the world community to worry even more.
Our "Sura"
Experiments with the study of the ionosphere were also carried out in the USSR. Back in the 1950s, construction of such a station began near the city of Zmiev (Ukraine, Kharkov region). Since 1954, employees of this complex have conducted studies of fluctuations in electron concentration in the ionosphere. The unusual appearance - a huge plate hanging in the air - gave rise to a lot of different rumors around the station. But the Sura complex for studying the ionosphere, located in the Nizhny Novgorod region, has become even more famous. It includes 144 antennas with a total transmitted power of 750 kW.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Sura has been suffering from lack of money - about 40 thousand dollars a year are allocated for its maintenance. This is only enough for basic expenses, although to some extent the complex remains in working order today. Research is carried out here in a variety of areas. On the official website, these include “a study of the patterns of generation of artificial turbulence and artificial electromagnetic radiation of ionospheric plasma in various ranges (HF, microwave, optical glow) when exposed to powerful radio waves.”
Complex for studying the ionosphere “Sura” / ©mikekosch.com
Judging by this jaw-dropping phrase, the theory about work on climate weapons may not be without foundation. Another evidence in favor of the “military” version is the fact that funding for this project in the Soviet years was carried out through the Ministry of Defense. But even if there were such experiments, it is appropriate to talk here only about basic, fundamental work for the creation of climate weapons in the future. The radiation power of "Sura" - several times less than even HAARP - is clearly not enough to seriously talk about a real weapon. US climate weapons are an indispensable part of the populist arsenal. For example, the country's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced its use against Iran in the fall of 2012. Vladimir Zhirinovsky made similar statements in connection with floods in Sochi and the Far East in 2013.
METEOROLOGICAL WEAPONS
METEOROLOGICAL WEAPONS
Zbigniew knows everything
Back in the 70s of the last century, the former head of the American Security Council, Zbigniew Brzezinski, predicted in his book “At the Turn of Two Centuries”: “Technology will give the leaders of great powers methods of waging secret wars, which will not require special forces... technologies for influencing the weather will be able to cause long-term drought or hurricanes…” Brzezinski knew what he was talking about, because entire civilizations died out during climate disasters.
Crop failures and climatic anomalies during the “Godunov hard times” cost the lives of 3/4 of the population of the Muscovite kingdom. The Grand Duchy of Moscow, which reached unprecedented prosperity under Ivan the Terrible, became depopulated, was invaded and almost disappeared from the map along with the Russian nation itself. The climate “cold” that weakens states has always been followed by complications - wars and, as a consequence, epidemics...
“It has been proven that by changing the electric charge of the air, it is possible to cause the desired weather in a given area” - this quote is from a newspaper article promoting the achievements of scientists from the Obninsk Institute of Applied Geophysics in the struggle for the harvest. But if scientists can provide good weather for peasants in a “given territory”: sunshine during the day, light rain at night, then with the same success they can turn drought or heavy rains, large hail or a strong hurricane on an unfriendly country, which leads to economic disorganization state and its inability to wage war. There are very real reasons for this - theoretical and experimental studies in the field of the dynamics of interaction of aerosol particles. Aerosol particles located in a gaseous environment, under the influence of various types of vibrations (acoustic, etc.), take part in different types of movement. It is by regulating the movement of aerosol particles in a gaseous medium (atmosphere) that the atmospheric electric charge can be changed, causing the necessary weather.
Currently, means of controlling weather and climate are no longer something fantastic; they have been developed for quite a long time based on the achievements of physics and atmospheric chemistry, as well as other sciences about the Earth’s shells. And it is no coincidence that meteorological weapons appeared, based on the use of means that cause natural disasters, such as the destruction of the ozone layer of the atmosphere, provoking frosts or droughts, heavy rains by various means, in a word, influencing for military purposes the processes occurring in solid, liquid and gaseous shells of the Earth. It has three components: meteorological itself, ozone and climate.
Of particular interest are states of unstable equilibrium, when a relatively small shock in an atmospheric layer with a height of 10 to 60 km can cause the enemy to be exposed to powerful destructive forces of nature (the so-called trigger effect) and the catastrophic consequences of this impact.
World-renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Burtell confirms that “American military experts have long considered weather systems as a possible weapon. Techniques include creating storms and hurricanes, and manipulating atmospheric moisture flows to cause floods or droughts.”
According to Marc Filterman, a former French officer, already at the turn of the 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union had weapons that could create severe weather anomalies. The impact on atmospheric processes was carried out by radio waves in the decimeter range.
A report on potential military applications of weather control techniques, commissioned by the US Air Force, states: “...weather manipulation techniques provide extensive opportunities to defeat and coerce the enemy. Therefore, for the United States, weather modification technologies are likely to become an integral part of national security policy, including both domestic and international aspects. And the government, based on our interests, should pursue such a policy at all levels.”
Random outcome of the experiment
The year of birth of meteorological weapons can be considered 1958, in August of which the Americans carried out the first nuclear explosion near the lower boundary of the ionosphere.
This top-secret experiment was carried out in a remote point of the Pacific Ocean - on Johnston Atoll. According to the original plan, the electromagnetic pulse of the explosion was supposed to burn all electronics within a radius of several hundred kilometers - quite a worthy start to breaking through the B-52 armada with hydrogen bombs through Soviet air defenses.
But something unusual happened - a cosmic nuclear explosion caused a stable ionospheric disturbance, which disrupted radio communications for a long time at a distance of many thousands of kilometers. And in the Southern Hemisphere, on the Samoa archipelago, 3.5 thousand kilometers from the explosion site, a bright aurora flashed in the tropical sky.
Samoa and Johnston are so-called magnetically conjugate regions, connected by a single geomagnetic field line. Charged particles generated by the nuclear explosion rushed along the magnetic line to the opposite hemisphere and burned a hole in the ionosphere.
The next nuclear tests, Argus (three explosions at different altitudes in the South Atlantic) and Starfish, involved extensive satellite and meteorological measurements. It turned out that nuclear explosions not only create ionospheric anomalies that disrupt radio communications and last for years, but also actively affect the climate. In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, the USA, USSR and England signed the Moscow Treaty banning nuclear tests in three environments. The root cause was a sharp increase in radioactive contamination of the atmosphere as a result of tests of record-breaking hydrogen bombs.
The famous “Report of the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation” (1962) officially stated that the levels of radioactive cesium-137, strontium-90 and iodine-131 in soil and food products increased several times compared to natural levels.
However, perhaps more important than radiation, the reason that forced the participants in the nuclear race to sit down at the negotiating table was the climatic consequences of record-breaking thermonuclear tests, which were hidden from non-nuclear powers, since the lion’s share of information was controlled by the “nuclear club.” But it did not go unnoticed that in five years - from July 1958 to January 1963 - the average temperature over the Northern Hemisphere fell by about 0.6 °C.
The direct result of the “small thermonuclear winter” was a noticeable increase in snow and ice cover, the area of which in the Northern Hemisphere from 1950 to 1973 increased from 33 to 39 million sq. km. The effect of nuclear weapons on temperature became known only in the 1980s.
But the global consequences of nuclear strikes on the ionosphere, the “weather kitchen” and the electromagnetic shield from cosmic rays, remain a “zone of silence” to this day.
In the late 1950s, superimposing thermonuclear tests on an active solar year (1957 was the International Meteorological Year - the "year of the active solar") caused unique magnetic anomalies. During the famous magnetic storm of February 11, 1957 in Sweden, not only wired communication lines failed, but also power wiring, railway signaling was interrupted, fuses and even transformers burned. One can only guess how many heart patients and hypertensive patients this cost their lives! The northern lights were no less unique in intensity.
And again the tsunami
The ban on nuclear testing in space served as an impetus for a new direction of research - radio frequency effects on the ionosphere, since by that time all the technical and scientific prerequisites had matured.
Even earlier, it was noticed that with high transmitter power, radio waves are not simply reflected from the upper, ionized layers of the atmosphere, but themselves create ionospheric anomalies that affect radio communications at other frequencies.
Clots of ionospheric plasma heated by radio rays were first used as reflectors for long-distance radio communications, but it turned out that this significantly changed the circulation of the upper, rarefied layers of the atmosphere, which were extremely sensitive to any influences, for example, to changes in the “solar wind”; they, in turn, influence processes in the lower atmosphere and geomagnetic phenomena (magnetic storms).
Even after the end of World War II, research began to be intensively conducted in the United States to study the processes occurring in the atmosphere under the influence of external influences: “Skyfire” (the possibility of lightning formation), “Prime Argus” (methods of causing earthquakes), “Stormfury” (controlling hurricanes) . The results of this work have not been widely reported. It is known, however, that in 1961, American scientists conducted an experiment to throw more than 350 thousand two-centimeter copper needles into the atmosphere, which changed the thermal balance of the ionosphere. It is believed that it was as a result of this that an 8.5 magnitude earthquake occurred in Alaska, and part of the coast of Chile slid into the ocean. A sharp change in thermal processes occurring in the atmosphere can also cause the formation of powerful tsunamis.
The danger posed by tsunamis hitting coastal areas is illustrated by the tragedy in the states of New Orleans and Louisiana, which were affected by the Katrina tsunami in September 2005. The Americans tried to stop Katrina, but it didn’t work.
It should be noted that satellite images showed that the hurricane changed direction several times and either weakened or regained its previous strength. Theoretically, it can be assumed that by “seeding” from an airplane with various substances the “eye” of a typhoon, its rear or front part, it is possible, by creating a difference in pressure and temperature, to make it walk “in a circle”, or simply stand still. But this is only theoretical. Although the United States began trying to extinguish hurricanes back in the mid-60s of the last century, more on that below.
A decrease in agricultural production in the territory of a potential enemy, a deterioration in food supplies, and disruption of the implementation of socio-economic programs is another goal of meteorological (climate) weapons. In a country where certain climatic conditions are artificially created, political and economic changes can be achieved without the use of traditional weapons.
Stealing the Rain
Experts believe that a decrease of just 1 degree in the average annual temperature in the mid-latitude region, where the bulk of grain is produced, can have catastrophic consequences. The use of climate weapons could cause the extinction of entire countries. However, given the common meteorological space, the possible damage to neighboring countries, including the country that will use such weapons, their use can only be targeted, in certain regions of the world.
For several years, farmers in one of the Spanish provinces were convinced that a small plane that regularly appeared in the sky was stealing the clouds. As soon as the clouds gathered in the sky, this same airplane appeared, spun and spun in the clouds for a while and disappeared. The clouds also disappeared. The peasants believed that their province was being artificially turned into a desert. They demanded that the authorities stop flights in this region. However, authorities could not find the rain thieves. Military radar installations were used, but also without much success. Someone immediately put forward the theory that troubles for Spain began immediately after the country joined the EEC in 1985. After all, “ghost planes”, or “rain pirates”, began to appear a few months after farmers were announced a reduction in grain sales quotas.
The authorities stubbornly refused to believe in the existence of cloud-destroying substances, and careful checks of local airports and military bases did not find any unusual aircraft. But one day, a local journalist managed to photograph a small plane and a strange foggy trail from it, which may have contained a reagent that destroyed the cloud. Real weapons. The possibility of using natural processes occurring on the planet in armed conflict has long been considered by strategists in various countries.
Methods of influencing clouds using silver iodide and carbon dioxide were proposed in the United States back in the early 1950s as part of the concept of meteorological warfare. In 1965, Dr. Richard Blasband conducted 38 rain-making sessions, of which 18 were successful. A CIA report published in 1977 stated that some states were already capable of controlling the weather for military purposes. The Americans were referring to their attempts to influence the climate in North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in order to try to make the movement of the Viet Cong as difficult as possible. So the most studied effect of weather weapons is to provoke rainstorms in certain areas. For this purpose, in particular, the dispersion of silver iodide or lead iodide in rain clouds was (and is) used. The purpose of such actions may be to impede the movement of troops, and especially heavy equipment and weapons, create floods and flood large areas.
Meteorological aids can also be used to disperse clouds in the area of the intended bombing to facilitate targeting, especially against point targets. A cloud of several thousand cubic kilometers in size, containing energy reserves of about 1 million kWh , can be in such an unstable state that about 1 kg of silver iodide is enough to dramatically change its state. Several aircraft, using hundreds of kilograms of this substance, are capable of dispersing clouds over an area of several thousand square kilometers, causing precipitation. In the USSR, developments were also carried out in this area, albeit for peaceful purposes: to ensure weather conditions in areas where agricultural work was carried out and various events were held.
On August 21, 1969, people on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which belongs to both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, saw a huge white cloud begin to expand to fantastic sizes and form concentric rings before finally dissipating.
It turned out that the Americans were implementing the “Stormfury” (“Furious Storm”) project in practice, the purpose of which was to “extinguish the hurricane” with silver iodide, lead iodide and dry ice. This chemical composition made the element amorphous and directed it towards Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras. This discovery showed that it is possible to control hurricanes or even interfere with the creation of global sea currents such as El Niño.
US Air Force analysts recently made a report: “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Mastering the Weather by 2025.” Answering the question why the military needs this, the authors develop the following picture: “Imagine that in 2025 the United States is fighting a wealthy South American drug cartel that has patrons among the leadership of several local countries. The United States does not plan or does not have the opportunity to start a full-scale war in this region.
The only way out is to destroy coca plantations and warehouses with finished products from the air. But through their political patrons, drug traffickers purchased decommissioned fighter jets from China and Russia, and missile tracking and interception systems from France. Of course, our aircraft (the authors mean American technology) are more advanced.
But for every US Air Force aircraft, there are 10 decommissioned, and therefore cheaper, Russian and Chinese aircraft. And it is not through skill, but through numbers that drug traffickers manage to protect their territory. What to do?" The authors proposed their own solution. According to long-term weather observations, in equatorial South America there is a high probability of heavy thunderstorms around noon throughout the year, and, according to the CIA, drug cartel pilots try not to take to the air at this time of day.
On the day of a planned operation, a US Air Force high-altitude stealth aircraft processes clouds over a given target to produce rain and thunderstorms.
Enemy aircraft remain in hangars, and American all-weather combat vehicles carry out retaliation. Just some kind of blockbuster.
More seriously, the document states that by 2025, weather modification tools should be created to regulate weather conditions in limited regions. Summoning storms, increasing cloud cover, thickening or dispersing fog with the help of directed energy and a variety of beam weapons - all this should improve the disposition of one's own troops and worsen the position of the enemy. “In 2025, US aerospace forces will be able to control the weather, turning the development of new technologies into valuable capital. Our capabilities will allow the military to shape the battlefield... In the United States, weather modification will likely soon become part of national security policy, with applications at home and abroad. At the same time, our government will proceed from its interests at different levels: unilateral actions; coalition; participation in security structures such as NATO or membership in international organizations such as the UN. Given that our national security strategy will include weather modification in 2025, we will continually improve in this area.” Analysts know what they are talking about.
When there's too much rain
During the Vietnam War, Americans caused torrential rains to destroy enemy communications, “bring out” the Viet Cong from underground shelters, etc.
Why else is artificial flooding interesting to the military and what disasters can it bring to people? Currently, Europe is increasingly being flooded; global warming has brought equally global problems. But historically, drainage systems have existed in Europe, but let’s take Australia. The central part of the country is a real desert, hot and lifeless. The more terrible are the floods and their consequences for these areas. It's like the cold in the Sahara...
In January 1974, a monsoon coming from the Timor Sea spread to the entire northern part of the continent, causing a real flood in the north-west of the country and in the Gulf of Carpentaria. In Western Australia in mid-January, 48 cm of rain fell within 17 hours, the cities of Broome and Darwin were partially flooded and evacuated. The flood covered the entire territory, from horizon to horizon, in the rear of these cities, where in normal times the hot sun shone over the dusty, dry river beds.
By January 20, water had risen above telegraph poles in North West Queensland. People in villages cut off from the rest of the world by rising waters waited in desperation for help. It was the largest flood the area had experienced in the present century and Australia's greatest national disaster. In western Queensland, six major cities were cut off. On January 31, heavy rainfall dropped 14.3 cm in far west Queensland. To preserve coal reserves, copper mining at half of Mount Isa's famous mines was stopped. The rivers through which water flowed to the Gulf of Carpentaria overflowed and connected with each other; water covered areas near the bay over a width of 150 km. Meanwhile, further south in New South Wales, the rain continued week after week, flooding large areas of the north-west, and flooded pastures littered with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of sheep. For residents of Alice Springs and other isolated communities in Central Australia and Queensland, food was dropped from airplanes.
At the end of January, the disaster continued to grow as the cyclones moved further along the Queensland coast. The Brisbane River, flowing through the city of Brisbane (with a population of 800 thousand people), the capital of the state of Queensland, overflowed its banks. By January 30, the usually quiet river was more than 3 km wide and had spread even wider in the university district of São Lucia, inundating industrial suburbs. Above Santa Lucia, towards the town of Ipswich, water flooded the floodplain for many kilometers. All sorts of debris and debris from homes, farms and industries rushed across the surface of the stream into the ocean.
The damage caused by flooding in Brisbane and Ipswich was enormous. In Ipswich, 1,200 houses were destroyed; The flood paralyzed the center of Brisbane, leaving 20 thousand people homeless there. At least 15 people died.
For all its severity, the 1974 flood is inferior to the rampant nature that led to the flood in 1893, when within three weeks 10 thousand (out of 90 thousand) Brisbane residents lost their homes, and it took many years to eliminate the consequences of the disaster. The devastating nature of the 1893 flood was due to prolonged heavy rainfall; as many as five cyclones passed along the coast of Queensland, the deluge affected areas around Brisbane and in the south-east of the state. The heaviest rains began on February 1, 1893, and by February 4, the water height in the city of Brisbane was 2.5 meters.
The seething flow of the flood of 1893 carried from Ipswich numerous remains of destroyed houses, fragments of all kinds of utensils, and animal corpses. On February 5, water washed away the Indooroopilly steel railway bridge, in front of which a mass of various debris had accumulated; ships and dredgers were torn from their anchors and dragged downstream. On February 6, the Victoria Bridge collapsed, its northern end plunging into the river. By February 11, the rain began to fall with renewed vigor. On February 17, a real water hurricane hit forests, houses and ships, causing severe destruction. A third wave of flooding swept through the Brisbane River valley and drove people from their homes, submerging them. By February 21, the flood had receded, taking with it 35 human lives.
Geological evidence and Aboriginal legends indicate that before European colonization of the Brisbane area there were even greater floods than those of 1893 and 1974. Today, the danger of such phenomena has intensified, since forests and meadows, which once could absorb water during heavy rainfalls, are now destroyed, rain no longer hits the ground, but hits road surfaces and roofs of houses, and water flows into streams at increased speed, ponds and ravines. Many stream valleys have been filled in, thereby increasing the load on others.
Natural disasters caused by the use of meteorological weapons will lead not only to human casualties, but also to the destruction of cultural and artistic treasures. You can see this in a clear example of the flooding of Florence. Italy is one of the world's treasure troves of art. "Firenze Bella" - beautiful Florence - is located on the Arno River in a place where the river, having left the Apennines, but not yet reaching the rich floodplain areas in front of Pisa, remains rather narrow. The river has flooded Florence many times, with the floods of 1333, 1557, 1844 and 1966 being particularly devastating.
On November 4, 1966, the stormy waters of the river flooded the great city of the Renaissance. The entire city was asleep - the residents were not warned and did not suspect the trouble, and the rapid flow had already risen above the marks that showed the highest water level during previous floods. At 7:26 a.m., electric clocks stopped throughout the city; violent waves washed away the San Niccolò bridge, and the narrow streets began to turn into thundering waterfalls, dragging boulders and cars.
In two days, November 3 and 4, about 1/3 of the average annual precipitation fell in the Arno River basin. At the same time, 750 villages and 5,000 km of roads were flooded in Northern Italy. In the area from the Po Valley to Tuscany, about 100 people and 50 thousand heads of livestock drowned. On the third of November, water was released from the large flood control reservoirs of Penna and Levane on the Arno River, and huge masses of water rushed down the valley.
The maximum flood level in the city was 6 m. The water brought a lot of debris and dirt, which severely damaged many churches and houses of architectural value. Historical documents of the State Archives (Archivo di Stato) and the Central National Library were damaged: they were saturated with oil floating on the surface of the water from the central heating system.
In Florence, in the State Library, Italy's largest book collection with more than 3 million volumes, more than 1.5 million books, many of them dating back to the Renaissance, were damaged. As the water levels dropped, volunteers, wearing gas masks (to protect against the stench of sewage and rotting leather book bindings), began to remove thousands of these priceless books from basements filled with black mud.
Among the lost masterpieces, the most famous are the Etruscan collections of the Archaeological Museum and the “Crucifixion” by the 13th century Florentine painter Cimabue from the collection of the Church of Santa Croce.
Anomalous zone
In northern Alaska, 320 km from Anchorage, at the foot of the mountains, there is a forest of 24-meter antennas, involuntarily attracting the attention of meteorologists and ecologists. The official name of the project is the High Freguency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Cosmonauts claim: this zone is clearly visible from space; when there is still snow around, the grass is already green there. But the Eskimos know that birds never sing in this grass.
At night, strange luminous objects appear and disappear over the enchanted place, either hanging motionless, or, violating the laws of physics, flying silently, instantly changing speed and direction... And the aurora lights up in the sky above the test site.
The anomalous zone is surrounded by barbed wire, but this precaution is unnecessary: all the locals know that not only electronic devices burn there...
However, HAARP (in Russian: “High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program”), a joint project of the US Navy and Air Force, was not created to combat migratory birds, vagabonds and ufologists.
This is a little-known part of the famous Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
The technology of focusing ultra-powerful radio beams makes it possible to heat up areas of the ionosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere consisting of ionized gases), concentrating the radiation. Some of the radio waves reflected from the heated plasma return back to the earth, irradiating everything living and dead.
In February 1998, the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security sent a formal request to Washington demanding an independent international examination of HAARP. But Washington responded with silence.
The Americans pass off HAARP as a regular program for studying the northern lights. However, official Pentagon documents state that the main goal of the project is “Use of the ionosphere for the benefit of the Department of Defense.” Another US Air Force document points to the use of “artificial ionospheric disturbances” as a means of controlling atmospheric processes and interfering with enemy radar and communications.
According to experts, HAARP is only part of an integrated weather weapon system that is potentially hazardous to the environment. Behind this lies five decades of intense and increasingly destructive experiments in controlling the upper atmosphere. HAARP is an integral part of the long history of military space programs. Its military applications, especially when combined with other similar technologies, are alarming. And the transmission of tens and hundreds of megawatts via radio beam to a space platform capable of precisely directing this enormous flow of energy, comparable to an atomic bomb, in the form of laser or other beams to any point on the Earth is simply frightening. This kind of project can be presented to the public in the form of another “space shield” from offensive weapons within the framework of the same SDI or as a means for restoring the ozone layer.
A natural question arises: if the Americans worked so long and hard on climate weapons, then the same developments should have been carried out here too? What is their fate? Can Russia respond blow to blow, fend off an attack, or at least detect and prove the fact of meteorological aggression?
The closest technical analogue of HAARP was the Krasnoyarsk radar station, destroyed by Gorbachev and Shevardnadze at the insistence of the Americans.
Then, at the turn of the 1990s, after the annulment of the Warsaw Pact, the liquidation of the most powerful offensive group in world history - the Western Group of Forces - and the mass destruction of hundreds and thousands of “unnecessary” ships, aircraft and tanks, the death of the Krasnoyarsk radar station, which never had time to join into operation, was noticed by few.
But even today, even fragmentary information about this object inspires respect for its creators and explains why the Americans were so eager to destroy it.
On the one hand, the Krasnoyarsk station, which was part of the Missile Attack Warning System (MAWS), could operate as a radar with unique characteristics. It had such radiation power that it could simply burn targets it sensed with a radio beam, that is, act as an air defense and anti-satellite weapon system with instant target destruction.
What was the maximum power of the Krasnoyarsk radar? They said that at the right moment, all the capacities of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric station were switched to it, and this is millions of kilowatts. At a critical moment, this station could burn the entire US satellite constellation in a day, deciding the outcome of the global conflict and throwing Americans out of space.
And then the Americans pressed the most primitive buttons in the psyche of our party bosses - through the efforts of “agents of influence” (hidden recruitment based on the interests) of Shevardnadze and Gorbachev, the station was destroyed.
Was it planned to use the Krasnoyarsk radar for a targeted influence on meteorological processes? Hardly. And as a radar and anti-satellite weapon, it paid for all costs.
Dangerous games
On January 22, 2001, Special Assistant to the US President for Defense and Arms Control Robert Bell officially announced that a Russian-American ionospheric experiment took place in Alaska, during which a plasma generator was exploded. On the American side, the experiment was carried out by the Baltimore Physical Research Laboratory. J. Hopkins, from Russian - Academy of Sciences.
R. Bell did not hide the fact that the experiment was carried out in the interests of the Pentagon and concerned the detection of ballistic missile heads during their entry into the atmosphere, that is, it was part of the program to create a US national missile defense system - the same one that includes HAARP. But aren't there too many geophysicists with no warheads to detect?
The expansion of joint research in the field of defense has led to the fact that a number of military research in the interests of the Pentagon, and primarily ionospheric research, is carried out by Russian institutions and on Russian territory - but at the same time, according to the concluded contracts, their results are strictly classified from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
By causing climate change by irradiating the atmosphere, HAARP has the potential to generate low-frequency, high-power acoustic vibrations that can affect the human psyche; the possibility of influencing tectonic movements (earthquakes) cannot be ruled out. It is capable of destroying the ozone layer over enemy territory to allow hard ultraviolet radiation from the Sun to penetrate to the surface of the Earth, which has a detrimental effect on the cells of living organisms.
But the most important thing is that the unpredictability of the results of the use of these weapons makes them dangerous not only for the country on which they affect, but also for the whole world. Even a trial use of HAARP can cause a “trigger” effect with irreversible consequences for the entire planet: earthquakes, rotation of the earth’s magnetic axis and sudden cooling comparable to the Ice Age.
One of Tesla’s students, Bernard Eastlund, who actually prepared the scientific basis for HAARP (in 1985 he patented his work under the ominous title “Method and mechanism for changing the region of the atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere of the Earth”), wrote that the antenna structure in Alaska is in fact a ray gun capable of destroying not only all communication networks, but also missiles, planes, satellites and much more. Its use inevitably entails side effects, including climate disasters around the world and the effects of deadly solar radiation.
Another expert on the subject, Eduard Albert Meyer, points out the following: “This project has turned into global vandalism due to the fact that an immense amount of energy with a gigawatt capacity was released into the outer spheres of the Earth. The present impact and future effects on this planet and all life forms cannot be assessed in any way. The destructive power of this weapon is thousands of times greater than that of an atomic bomb.”
Many natural disasters of recent years, including the catastrophic flood in southern Europe, cataclysms in Russia and Central Europe last year, and the New Year's tsunami in the Indian Ocean, are clearly associated by domestic experts with side (or planned) effects of testing new weapons.
It is not surprising that Americans are trying to hide everything related to the HAARP program from the public as much as possible, or at least present it as harmless research.
Something else is surprising and alarming: many politicians in our country are doing everything to prevent American developments from being made public. Both resolutions (on HAARP), under pressure from certain forces lobbying the interests of the United States in the State Duma, were repeatedly withdrawn from consideration.
Gels and lasers
Decades have passed since the use of silver iodide during the Vietnam War, and technology has not stood still. Modern projects to stimulate precipitation are much more effective. For example, Dyn-O-Gel is capable of absorbing and turning into a gel moisture in the depths of an incipient hurricane. True, in order to influence a front measuring 20x20 km, you will have to use 38 tons of substance, and even “throw” them dangerously close to the elements.
However, some experts note that with the help of such a substance - if you apply enough effort - you can cause a real flood. For heavy rain to fall over an area of 1 km2, you would need to use 10 tons of Dyn-O-Gel. Conversely, it can also bring drought: during testing in Miami, a transport plane poured 4 tons of Dyn-O-Gel onto a 1.6 km long thundercloud, and soon the cloud simply dissolved!
To date, the use of Dyn-O-Gel or other “climate” substances for military purposes has not been confirmed. But this does not prevent us from creating increasingly effective means of weather control. In 2014, information appeared about the development by the Americans of a laser device capable of causing thunderstorms and lightning.
“Double” laser / ©phys.org
But even here, military use is very doubtful: the energy of the laser beam quickly dissipates in the atmosphere, especially in thunderstorms, when humidity is high. Scientists propose to solve these problems by creating a double beam, in which a powerful laser beam “envelops” a beam of lower intensity, which protects and energizes it as much as possible.
Many technical aspects of this solution are still unknown, but the US military has already invested $7.5 million in the development of Arizona professor Demetrios Christodoulides. It may very well be that this particular technology will make it possible to create climate weapons in the form in which we know them from science fiction works. Experiments to create hydrosphere weapons began long before the Vietnam War. Back in the 1940s, Project Seal operated in the United States. Its essence was simple: a nuclear charge was exploded on the seabed, after which the behavior of the resulting sea wave was observed. Such experiments had mixed results, and were stopped after the signing of the document banning nuclear tests.
Hurricane Harvey - consequences of Russia's use of climate weapons?
Hurricane Harvey, which was considered the most powerful and destructive hurricane in the last 12 years, unexpectedly gave rise to a strange conspiracy theory. Since hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Katya have recently unleashed their might on the United States, many Americans are sure that the Russians are to blame for everything. Moreover, a certain publication “The Liberty Beacon” claims that these are not just tests carried out by the Russian Federation, but targeted attacks, which were approved by the Chairman of the Federation Council V. Matvienko.
In addition, this publication reports that tests of Russian climate weapons took place in Europe, and it was the Russians who caused powerful downpours that flooded Paris and Berlin. It is worth understanding that in the United States there is very high competition in the field of print media, and often unscrupulous journalists resort to such “sensations” in order to increase the overall ratings and sales of their publications.
A funny incident happened during Hurricane Irma in the USA. A video of clouds that have taken on a shape resembling Putin’s face has gone viral. Some simple-minded Americans perceived this accident as an act of cynicism by the Russians, who are not only openly harming America, but also sending them similar signs.
