Did a Secret Military Experiment Cause the 2003 American Blackout?

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On August 14, 2003, just a few minutes after the stock market closed for the day, a nine-minute 'event' had brought the entire Northeastern power grid down. It is believed that over fifty million people lost power that afternoon. Since this unprecedented event, blame games have flown back and forth, but no real answers have been provided. It is believed that the event originated in an area in the power grid where there is a bottleneck of power transmission between the eastern U.S. and the Midwest. But what has caused this mess? Outdated equipment, irresponsible power companies, and politicians have all been blamed without any solid evidence to support the accusations. What hasn't been suggested is the possibility that this was a secret government test that served the purpose of fulfilling requirements for sophisticated warfare and security response mechanisms.

Here are the facts. The power grid that was affected was the northeast grid. Not the vulnerable California grid, or the southeastern grid that Washington DC relies upon, and not that strangely isolated Texas oil grid. It was the grid that the northeast U.S. and southeast Canada rely on. A region that a large-scale outage would not have a really devastating effect on the economy or military control centers. The event conveniently began a few minutes after the closing bell on Wall Street as to not effect the days trading, but while power usage in the northeast on that hot day was still at peak. The event began in a bottleneck region where only a few percent increase in power flow could cause such a critical failure of the entire grid. The physical cause of the event such as the classic squirrel shorting out a transformer, has not been found; there were no indications of any lightning being present; nor was there any significant solar activity to cause an unexpected surge in the grid. Finally, the HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project) was turned on just after 4:00 PM EST on that fateful day.

The question is 'Could a secret HAARP experiment have caused the blackout?'

Interesting ionospheric effects occurred on 8/14/2003 that would have made the conditions for such a secret military test ideal, including a widespread, highly reflective ionospheric layer being expected (and was likely created by the electron event seen in figure 1), which would allow ideal conditions for signal propagation over long distances. Unfortunately, the ionosonde data that would help show where the effects of HAARP were directed by providing a picture of the ionosphere was not posted on the day of the blackout. The Gakona Ionosonde data is frequently not posted when classified HAARP experiments take place. What we do know is that HAARP was turned on at or just after 4:00 pm EST; it would take a few minutes for the target area to respond (say around 4:05 pm) which would allow a nine-minute event to knock the power out at 4:14 pm EST.

HAARP, Ionospheric Warfare, and Potential Applications

Those of us who work in ionospheric research, and who are concerned with environment risks associated with ionospheric warfare are familiar with HAARP. The basic concept that HAARP relies upon is based on work by N. Tesla when he was attempting to devise a method for the wireless transmission of electrical power, and subsequently picked up in the early twentieth century for the purpose of finding a way to modify the weather. It is thought that this technology was used by world leaders such as Stalin, whom during important outdoor events may have used such technology to prevent unwanted rain or fog. These claims were often associated with widespread reports of people feeling mysteriously ill. One of the leading researchers in this field is Dr. Bernard Eastlund, whom to this day accepts money from organizations such the European Space Agency to research potential weather modification applications including the possibility of stopping tornadoes with this type of technology.

(Chart Omitted) Satellite environment shows that an enhanced flux of high energy electrons which would create preferable reflection conditions for HAARP were present at the time of the event, and geomagnetic activity that could cause problems with the power-grid were non-existent

HAARP is a phased-array ionospheric heater that is capable of focusing large quantities of electromagnetic energy into very localized regions that are very far away from the source. It is entirely possible that the HAARP heaters were directed at the power grid's bottleneck while the grid was operating near peak capacity. The sudden presence of electromagnetic energy could easily force an unexpected increase in the power flow which could in-turn cause a critical failure such as the one seen on august 14, 2003.

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Despite the claims of HAARP advocates, ionospheric heaters can use the ionosphere to reflect their energy at distances several thousand miles away by using the ionosphere as a 'mirror' much the same way as AM radio signals travel over vast distances. Unlike an AM radio, HAARP can use phase interference to focus its energy on a localized area (such as the weak point on the power grid). The only requirement to achieve geographic precision is that geomagnetic activity is minimal such as it was on the day of the blackout. Also, there was a short duration test about 20 minutes ...

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