Fact Check: Viral video showing equipment at sea is not HAARP, it detects ballistic missiles
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program or HAARP, is a scientific facility situated in Alaska, United States of America. It is aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the 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.
Sea-based X-band radar
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program or HAARP, is a scientific facility situated in Alaska, United States of America. It is aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the 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. It is a sophisticated suite of scientific or diagnostic instruments that can be used to observe the physical processes that occur in the excited region.
Operations of the research facility were transferred from the United States Air Force to the University of Alaska Fairbanks in August 2015. Scientific instruments at the observatory read the ionospheric characterization using satellite beacons, telescopic observation of the aurora, and documentation of long-term variations in the ozone layer.
Recently, a video of a scientific apparatus floating in the seawater is in circulation with the claim that it shows a HAARP outpost towed out in the Caribbean Sea. Some X users shared the video with the caption “Nothing to see here - just the latest HAARP Outpost being towed out into the Caribbean Sea in order to generate some more ‘Climate Change’. Look at the size of this thing. You all still think weather manipulation is just a crazy conspiracy though right?”
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The scientific instrument seen in the video is an X-band radar.
When we extracted the keyframes from the video and searched them using Google reverse image search, we found that the scientific instrument seen in the video is a sea-based X-band Radar (SBX). It is a part of the US Ballistic Missile Defense System. It is designed to detect and establish information about ballistic missiles and differentiate missile warheads from debris and others. It also provides data for updating ground-based interceptors in flight.
According to the website, missiledefenseadvocacy.org, the SBX is deployed in the Pacific Ocean to monitor potential North Korean ICBM test launches. SBX-1 left Hawaii in March 2023.
According to the report published in hawaiinewsnow.com, in March 2023, the giant golf ball-like structure at Pearl Harbor is the US Missile Defense Agency’s sea-based X-band radar – SBX-1, is the world’s largest, most powerful mobile radar of its kind. About 72 crew members operate the vessel and rotate on and off every 9 weeks.
According to the fact sheet published by the Missile Defense Agency, USA, the SBX is an advanced X-band radar mounted on a mobile, ocean-going, semi-submersible platform that provides the Missile Defense System with an extremely powerful and capable radar that can be positioned to cover any region of the globe. Its ocean-spanning mobility allows the radar to be repositioned as needed to support the various Missile Defense System test scenarios.
Here is the complete document.
US Navy’s Military Sealift Command website also published an up-close image of the Sea-based X-band radar.
There have been several conspiracy theories around HAARP, which have been debunked by a few fact check organisations.
Hence, the viral video does not show the HAARP outlet towed onto the Caribbean Sea. It is a sea-based X-band radar. It is used to detect ballistic missiles.