"Alaska's Area 51"

When your life consists of going to 7 Eleven and Game Stop, both of which you can pretty much walk right into, then returning to your mom's basement to watch Ocean's Twelve and eat Funyuns, being restricted from anywhere must make that place seem so mysterious that your SciFi SyFy Channel-marinated brain must equate it to some top secret alien-related cover-up or some kind of mind control device. Wired had a gallery, called Inside Alaska's Answer to Area 51. What the hell are they talking about? The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP).



Ooooh! Big scary sign! What do they do?! Must be SECRETIVE! They do ionoshperic research at HAARP. Basically they heat up the ionosphere using antennae arrays and see what happens. (Among other things, such as radio observations of meteors. They can also create mini man-made auroras.) Such advanced technology must be scary and secret, right? It's a good thing they hid the base and don't let anyone know where it is. Oh, wait:

From HAARP's Website:
Where is the HAARP facility located?
The HAARP Research Station is located approximately 8 miles north of Gakona, Alaska.

What are the geographic coordinates of the facility?
The facility is located at:
62 deg 23.5 min North Latitude
145 deg 8.8 min West Longitude

Well, then at such a mysterious base, they wouldn't possibly actually let anyone have a look around would they? Oh, wait:

We recognize that there is great interest in the scientific work of the facility and, as a result, we hold an annual open house at which any and all are invited to visit the site. Several scientists are usually present at these open houses so that visitors can talk directly with those who use the facility for research. Open houses have been held most years since 1995 and have proven to be a popular event.

Anyway, back to Wired's asinine gallery...

The crazies think HAARP is used to research remote mind control. And who can blame them? I mean, look at these top secret-looking books that are CHAINED TO THE WALL!



Oh, wait, those are just Material Safety Data Sheets. They seriously made it sound secretive in some way. Here's their caption for the above picture:

Haarp (sic) is an unclassified facility. But the flow of information there is tightly controlled.

Right, so mind control and weather control aren't far behind the MSDSs!

From the intro to Wired's gallery:

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 (sic) has absolutely no direct military applications whatsoever.

I am quite glad they put "researchers" in quotes, but displeased they stressed the military affiliation, implying that they are to be distrusted. Listen, HAARP, like any military installation, is going to have a sign on it like that, no matter what they do! You should see the sign at Carderock... it's pretty much the same thing. Sigh.

Shame on Wired. They could have just showed the gallery and talked about how it's an interesting site that does interesting research. But no, they had to add some imaginary secrecy to make people care. Failure.

At least they don't go all out to insult your intelligence...

That caption for this picture is: "Haarp’s (sic) scientists view the state of the ionosphere with this 'optical dome.'" Optical dome? OPTICAL DOME? You mean the TELESCOPE?!

Previously: AUTEC