Conspiracy theories falsely blame Colombia earthquake on Alaska research program
An enduring conspiracy theory has resurfaced on social media after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit western Colombia on Monday, with users blaming a research program in Alaska for the disaster.
Posts falsely claim that the Aug. 13 earthquake, which has killed at least 270 people and left widespread damage, was caused by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, which studies the properties and behavior of the upper atmosphere.
But the earthquake was caused by natural movements in the Earth’s crust. Experts say it had nothing to do with human activities.
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HAARP has been the subject of conspiracy theories since the military started building it in the early 1990s. In addition to allegations that it can cause earthquakes, believers have falsely claimed that it is a mind-control device and that it can control the weather.
Researchers at HAARP study the physical processes occurring in the highest parts of Earth’s atmosphere — the thermosphere and ionosphere — by using high-frequency radio transmitters to heat small regions and observing the effects.
The program uses many scientific instruments, but the one that is often at the heart of conspiracy theories is its Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), the world’s most powerful high-frequency radio transmitter.
“I can confidently state that there is ZERO physical basis for radio-frequency transmissions having any effects on the occurrence of earthquakes,” said Dean Whitman, a geophysicist at Florida International University, who called hypotheses about HAARP’s supposed impact “ridiculous.”
He pointed to a number of reasons the claims are not valid. One, the energy released by the Colombia earthquake was “much larger than that released by even the largest hydrogen bombs” and “millions of times larger than the energy produced by the HAARP array.” Two, HAARP’s equipment is pointed upward, not downward toward where earthquakes occur. And three, the radio transmitters it uses produce electromagnetic waves that would not be able to cause earthquakes because they “involve a completely different set of physics.”
The search for those buried in the rubble of the Colombia earthquake is ongoing. Tons of aid from regional partners began to roll into the country on Wednesday.