Since the first days following the recent devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, posts and accounts on social media in several languages around the world have appeared claiming the responsibility of the American scientific program (HAARP) for this natural disaster.
But these claims, promoted by conspiracy theorists, have no scientific basis, according to experts polled by AFP.
After the catastrophe that befell large areas of southern Turkey and northern Syria at dawn on Monday, the sixth of February, and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands injured, and massive destruction, misleading publications circulated on social media, including conspiracy theories about the fabricated causes of this earthquake, which reached its magnitude. 7,8 degrees.
Among these theories was what was said about alleged evidence or indications that the earthquake was man-made, and soon fingers were pointed at the American “HAARP” program, which some publications called “HAARP weapon”.
These allegations appeared in the Arabic, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech and English languages, on pages for ordinary users, as well as for people claiming scientific qualifications, or presenting themselves as experts, which increased the spread of this rumor and other rumors and prophecies that raised anxiety among tens of thousands of users of social networking sites in the world. neighboring countries of Turkey and Syria.
What is HAARP?
This American scientific project is concerned with studying the properties and interactions of the upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, which separates the earth’s atmosphere from space, and it is called the “ionosphere”.
What is the story of the waves that HAARP releases?
This program was established in 1990 by a decision of the US Congress, and the Air Force and the Navy participated in supervising it.
The HAARP program – according to what is mentioned on its website – releases waves that are the strongest and highest frequency in the world, towards the “ionosphere”, which begins at an altitude of between 60 and 80 km from the Earth’s surface and reaches an altitude of 500 km.
The program’s official website says, “The aim of the research is to conduct a basic study of the physical mechanisms that occur in the upper layers of the atmosphere.”
To this end, this project uses radio waves to heat up electrons in the atmosphere, resulting in “small disturbances similar to those that naturally occur” in a way that allows scientists to monitor and study them.
The aim, according to the same source, is to understand these phenomena and try to benefit from them in developing military and civilian communications and monitoring systems.
The website states, “The goal is to study the physical and electrical properties of the ionosphere, which would affect military and civilian communications and navigation systems.”
Who oversees the program now?
In 2015, HAARP became sponsored by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Since then, there has been no US military in the research center, according to the site.
The website’s curators respond to public questions about his work, as well as to various rumors about him, including what he claims, for example, that he has the ability to change the climate.
Can HAARP actually cause an earthquake?
In contact with Agence France-Presse on the eleventh of February, Jessica Matthews, in charge of the HAARP program, said that what is rumored on social media is not possible.
“The research equipment in the HAARP program cannot cause or aggravate a natural disaster,” she added.
What do independent experts say?
This was supported by a large number of experts polled by the news fact-checking service at Agence France-Presse.
“It’s not possible that (the program) will be used to influence Earth so far away,” said Jeffrey Hughes, a professor of astronomy at Boston University.
“Radio waves can cause artificial disturbance in the upper layers of the atmosphere, similar to what sunlight does,” he added.
“I haven’t seen any scientific evidence that artificial waves can cause stronger disturbances or affect seismic motion,” said Toshi Nishimura, a geophysicist and professor and researcher at Boston University’s College of Engineering.
“There is currently no technology capable of launching radio waves from the ground that reach another part of the earth, and it does not seem possible to me that radio waves can affect the seismic movement,” he told AFP.
“Fiction”
In the same vein, Susan Hough, a geophysicist at the US Seismological Center, described these claims as “science fiction”.
“There is no technology currently that allows the use of any weapon to cause an earthquake,” she told AFP news fact-finding service.
This was supported by David Keith, Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University, saying, “Quite simply, there is no known technology that allows the use of something similar to HAARP from near or far to influence earthquakes.”
HAARP “is not a weapon”
Michael Lockwood, an astrophysicist at Britain’s University of Reading, stresses that HAARP is not a “weapon”, contrary to what misleading publications have claimed.
“HAARP is not a weapon and in no way can it be used as a weapon,” he told AFP.
“We have never heard of the idea of artificially generating earthquakes before,” he added.
Was the Turkey earthquake “unnatural”?
Turkey lies on a major seismic fault line in the world.
In 1999, an earthquake in Izmit, about 100 kilometers southeast of Istanbul, killed 17,000 people.
This line has not witnessed any earthquake of more than 7 magnitude in more than two centuries, which led many residents to “underestimate its danger,” according to experts.
This duration also indicates that “a relatively large amount of energy has accumulated” along the fault. What confirms this, according to researchers, is the occurrence of a violent aftershock after the main earthquake.
According to experts, the latest quake is “almost a repeat” of the earthquake that struck the region on August 13, 1822, with a magnitude of 7.4.
