200 miles northeast of Anchorage, there's a massive military facility tucked deep in the black pine. What goes on at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (Haarp) depends on who you ask. Self-directed “researchers” like Nick Begich say the collection of transmitters and receivers is conducting secret tests of monstrous weapons for the Defense Department: mind control, weather manipulation, long-distance spying. The military scientists in charge of this military installation insist that Haarp has absolutely no direct military applications whatsoever. It "is and always was and was planned to be a research facility," says Dr. Paul Kossey, the Air Force's program manager. Haarp's antennas are being used to study the ionosphere, the electrically charged layer of Earth’s atmosphere, by pumping it full of energy. That's why Haarp's scientists are creating artificial Northern Lights, beaming radio waves into the crevasses of nearby Mt. Wrangell, and bouncing signals off of the Moon. Naturally.

Last year, I got a rare chance to see Haarp for myself. Here's what I found.

Haarp's main antenna array consists of 180 silver poles rising from the ground, each a foot thick, 72 feet tall, and spaced precisely 80 feet apart. João Canziani

The Northern Lights are normally triggered by solar winds. But with Haarp, aurora can now be man-made, too. Department of Defense

"Stare up and listen to the wind in the guide wires," says one unidentified Haarp scientist. "It's as close to a religious experience as you're ever going to get." João Canziani

Haarp is an unclassified facility. But the flow of information there is tightly controlled. João Canziani

Five 3,600-horsepower diesel-electric generators produce the energy that Haarp channels into the heavens. João Canziani

At Haarp's digital control center, scientist pulse, shape and direct blasts of massively powerful high-frequency radio waves. João Canziani

Haarp's collection of instruments often look like relics from an alien boneyard. It only makes the place feel more mysterious. João Canziani

Haarp's scientists view the state of the ionosphere with this "optical dome." João Canziani