The most powerful hurricane Irma, which struck the Atlantic coast of the United States, awakened not only emergency services, but also conspiracy theorists who saw in this natural disaster the “hand of the Kremlin”. So, the American edition of The Liberty Beacon recently reported that the hurricane was the work of gloomy geniuses from the Russian company Rostec, and the order to use the secret weapon was personally given by the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko.
Despite the absurdity of this statement, the publication provoked hysteria on American social networks. To be fair, it should be noted that similar accusations are regularly brought forward in Russia. So in July 2017, Senator Yekaterina Lakhova said that the cause of the bad weather was the climatic weapon, with the help of which some forces are trying to undermine the country's economy.
However, such statements do not arise from scratch - many myths have been formed around the topic of climate weapons. The editorial staff of the Moscow 24 portal decided to recall the main ones.
HAARP: PRO and nothing but PRO
The most important proof of the existence of climate weapons, conspiracy theorists call the now closed (according to some information, frozen) American research project for the study of the ionosphere and auroral lights HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program). As part of the project, in the 90s, a laboratory was built in Alaska with powerful emitters that influenced the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere and the brains of conspiracy theorists.
Photo: AP / Mark Farmer
So, in particular, HAARP was accused of the fact that it was its emitters that inspired the largest hurricanes in recent years, including the infamous Katrina, which struck the United States itself. The defeated Russian spacecraft Phobos-Grunt and the undermined psyche of millions of people "who became victims of American psychotronic weapons" were also recorded on the combat account of HAAPR.
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Meanwhile, experts are very skeptical about the possibilities of HAARP. The main goal of the project was the creation of artificial plasmoids in the ionosphere, which would disable the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles. It is symptomatic that the project was carried out by the agency for advanced defense research DARPA - and this structure is more involved in checking the feasibility of certain ideas than directly developing new types of weapons. The closure of the project suggests that something went wrong with the creation of plasmoids in the high layers of the atmosphere.
Sura Object: Link Attack
Russian scientists have also been repeatedly accused of trying to create and use climate weapons. These projects include the Sura facility, built in 1981 near Nizhny Novgorod.
Photo: portal Moscow 24 / Nikita Simonov
By the way, here, as in the case of HAARP, research was carried out in the field of creating plasma generators and their impact on the Earth's ionosphere. True, the objectives of the impact were somewhat different - creating interference with the enemy's navigation and radio communication systems. Today the facility is in disrepair, the antenna complex is turned on only once a year for several hours.
In general, according to experts, the main obstacle to the creation of climate weapons capable of unleashing typhoons and hurricanes on the enemy is the very high energy intensity of the process. Thus, it is estimated that the energy of one typhoon is enough to supply energy to such an industrialized country as Japan for 50 years. Accordingly, even more energy is required to control the typhoon. But where to get it?
Mercury-18: contrary to the laws of physics
Tectonic weapons are another tempting tool for inflicting damage on the enemy under the guise of the elements. Accusations of creating man-made earthquakes are heard regularly, and at the highest level. For example, in 2010, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, citing a report by the headquarters of the Russian Northern Fleet, accused the United States of the fact that the earthquake in Haiti, which killed 200 thousand people, was a result of tests of American tectonic weapons.
Photo: TASS / Logan Abassi / FA Bobo / PIXSELL / PA Images
It is known that in the Soviet Union, research on the creation of tectonic weapons was carried out. In particular, the program "Mercury-18" is mentioned, during which scientists allegedly managed to create a "lateral channel of energy transfer." However, modern scientists reject this possibility. The fact is that waves in an elastic medium, which is the earth's solid, propagate equally in all directions. And it is impossible to direct the explosion energy to any point without dispersing it.
Tsunami Sakharov: proven inefficiency
The first to think about the possibility of creating an artificial tsunami were American and New Zealand scientists during the Second World War. The man-made waves were supposed to be directed at Japanese naval bases and cities. During the work on the Seal project, several underwater explosions were made. The military reportedly managed to create a 10-meter wave. However, oddly enough, these tsunamis were never used in combat. Apparently, in reality, the results of the experiments were not so impressive. In the mid-60s, the Americans officially abandoned the project. Research has shown that it is almost impossible to create a destructive wave even with the help of nuclear explosions.
Photo: TASS / Stephen Shaver
In the Soviet Union, the idea of creating artificial tsunamis was proposed by Andrei Sakharov. According to calculations, a series of underwater thermonuclear explosions fired off the east and west coasts of the United States could cause a tsunami up to 300 meters high. It would have buried cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Annapolis, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Within the framework of the project, the development of the T-15 nuclear super torpedo was carried out. However, in 1954 the work was stopped. In the course of detailed modeling with the involvement of hydrologists and oceanographers, it turned out that the bottom topography off the American coast is such that it will extinguish the lion's share of the wave energy. Meanwhile, rumors that Russia still possesses such weapons regularly arise on different sides of the ocean.
Operation Popeye: a failed experiment
The only reliable case of the use of climate weapons was the "Operation Popeye", which the United States carried out in Vietnam from 1967 to 1972.
Photo: TASS / Vna / ZUMAPRESS.com
During the rainy season, transport planes scattered silver iodide in the clouds, resulting in heavy rainfall that flooded the guerrilla fortifications. It is believed that the operation caused serious damage to the Viet Cong forces, but in fact, as the American military themselves admit, the operation was only an experiment, as a result of which the further use of such tactics was deemed inappropriate.