Fact Check: Clouds seen in viral video are not Geoengineered clouds, they are naturally formed
The devastation caused by Hurricane Helene is still fresh and another, Hurricane Milton, is posing bigger threat
Asperitas clouds in florida
The devastation caused by Hurricane Helene is still fresh and another, Hurricane Milton, is posing bigger threat, as It rapidly escalated from Category 1 to Category 5 in just 12 hours, leaving the experts astonished. It is a type of storm climate, experts have been warning about. The storm killed at least 12 people, most in the eastern part of Florida, destroyed homes, knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, and tore the roof off a baseball stadium.
Meanwhile, claims about the origin of Hurricane Milton are being shared virally on social media platforms. Many users are sharing a video showing dark wavy clouds claiming that it shows geoengineered clouds over Florida as Hurricane Milton approached land. The users are blaming HAARP technology and authorities for manufacturing weather weapons and affecting civilians. Some users shared the video with the caption “Do these clouds look natural to you? Hurricane Milton Harris is what geoengineering looks like… Look up HAARP. They’re using fucking weather weapons on us.”
While some others shared it with captions like “HAARP Created Hurricane Milton Harris! This is what Geo Engineering looks like!”
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The clouds seen in the video are not geoengineered clouds producing Hurricane Milton. The video shows Asperitas clouds from the year 2021.
When we searched the keyframes extracted from the video using Google reverse image search, we found a Facebook post showing the same video published on June 29, 2021. The post has the caption “Spectacular asperitas clouds over Fort Walton Beach, Florida. These wave-shaped clouds don't produce rainfall but have been linked to thunderstorms. Credit: yoyome85 via Reddit”
Upon further search, we found an article published in ibtimes in June 2021 with the title ‘Apocalyptic Scenes in skies stun beachgoers, experts have different explanation’. The article shared the expert explanation of the clouds seen. The experts made it clear that the clouds are asperitas clouds which are formed through a natural phenomenon. Asperitas clouds look like rough sea surfaces. Though the formation itself does not produce rainfall, these clouds are linked to thunderstorms occurring afterwards.
HAARP – High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program is a US military research initiative—the program aimed at studying the Earth’s ionosphere. HAARP is the world's most capable high-power, high-frequency transmitter for study of the ionosphere. The HAARP program is a world-class ionospheric research facility. It consists of the Ionospheric Research Instrument, a high-power transmitter facility operating in the high-frequency range. The IRI can be used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for scientific study.
Many people are spreading conspiracy theories against HAARP technology implicating that it has been used by the governments to take control of the weather and other manipulations. Here is a fact check published by Telugupost debunking misinformation about HAARP technology.
According to an article published in Reuters, experts on Hurricane meteorology state that hurricane modification has never been possible due to the size and power of the storms.
Hence, the claim that the clouds seen in the viral video are geoengineered by HAARP, creating Hurricane Milton is False. The clouds seen in the video are Asperitus clouds which are rare but natural cloud formations.