This one comes to us from a regular reader here, Ms. S. H., and I had to share and comment about it, because I think it may be a significant development. According to ARRL, the National Association for Amateur Radio, in an article posted on July 15th of last year, the HAARP facility is being shut down. But there's a significant caveat:

HAARP Facility Shuts Down

Now, there are too explanations for the shutdown, the first is fiscal and budgetary:

"The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) — a subject of fascination for many hams and the target of conspiracy theorists and anti-government activists — has closed down. HAARP’s program manager, Dr James Keeney at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, told ARRL that the sprawling 35-acre ionospheric research facility in remote Gakona, Alaska, has been shuttered since early May. "'Currently the site is abandoned,' he said. 'It comes down to money. We don’t have any.' Keeney said no one is on site, access roads are blocked, buildings are chained and the power turned off. HAARP’s website through the University of Alaska no longer is available; Keeney said the program can’t afford to pay for the service. 'Everything is in secure mode,' he said, adding that it will stay that way at least for another 4 to 6 weeks. In the meantime a new prime contractor will be coming on board to run the government owned-contractor operated (GOCO) facility."

But, hurray, the Diabolically Apocalyptic Research Projects Agency - like the Deutsche Reichspost - is awash with money to arrive at the site and conduct "research":

"The only bright spot on HAARP’s horizon right now is that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is expected on site as a client to finish up some research this fall and winter. DARPA has nearly $8.8 million in its FY 14 budget plan to research 'physical aspects of natural phenomena such as magnetospheric sub-storms, fire, lightning and geo-physical phenomena.'"

Leaving aside the implications of DARPA investigating the "physical aspects of natural phenomena" like "magnetospheric sub-storms" and lightning and the wonderfully non-descript "geophysical phenomena" (with categories that vague one could perhaps even sneak in the Red Spot on Jupiter. And, come to think of it, will DARPA be investigating all these phenomena just on this planet? just a thought...), we arrive at the second reason for the HAARP shut down. The second is - get this - that the diesel generators used to generate the electric power no longer pass clean air standards:

"The proximate cause of HAARP’s early May shutdown was less fiscal than environmental, Keeney said. As he explained it, the diesel generators on site no longer pass Clean Air Act muster. Repairing them to meet EPA standards will run $800,000. Beyond that, he said, it costs $300,000 a month just to keep the facility open and $500,000 to run it at full capacity for 10 days."

Uh huh.

Now folks, I'm not buying any of this for a nano-second. Anyone who has read Dr. Nick Begich's and Jeanne Manning's Angels Don't Play this HAARP, or any number of other researchers into the project like the late Jerry Smith, cannot come away from reading the Eastland patents and related HAARP technologies with anything other than the conviction that the technology was defense related from the outset. To be sure, it relied upon geophysical phenomena. The give-away here is the reference to DARPA wanting to investigate "lightning" using the facility. I recall when the HAARP story originally broke, some concerned researchers speculated that the facility could conceivably generate lightning strikes of beyond-natural power, and do so repeatedly at a particular location. This whole notion was quickly denigrated by various government spokesmen as being nonsense. Yet, here we are: DARPA wants to use the facility investigate lightning. Perhaps it means simple to use the vast antennae arrays to listen to the static signals generated by lightning strikes around the world. Perhaps... but I rather think something else is involved.

But now we come to the nub of the article, and I find it rather disturbing:

"Jointly funded by the US Air Force Research Laboratory and the US Naval Research Laboratory, HAARP is an ionospheric research facility. Its best-known apparatus is its 3.6 MW HF (approximately 3 to 10 MHz) ionospheric research instrument (IRI), feeding an extensive system of 180 antenna elements and used to “excite” sections of the ionosphere. Other onsite equipment is used to evaluate the effects."

Precisely... perhaps the years of research have allowed HAARP scientists to generate lightning in specific areas and strengths, and now DARPA steps in for "further study"

But there's something else going on here, and I hope you caught it, for Ms S.H. did when she sent me this article, and like her, I found it profoundly disturbing:

"In the meantime a new prime contractor will be coming on board to run the government owned-contractor operated (GOCO) facility."

Perhaps this refers to DARPA, but I suspect not. What this suggests is that HAARP is simply being privatized.

After all, the best way to keep secrets or to conduct secret research is to make it proprietary.

See you on the flip side...