From Satire to Fake News: Snowden Did Not “Uncover” Haarp as a Secret Weapon for Climate Control

Photo: Coolloud, Flickr On November 25, 2024, theorist Vesna Curguz posted on Facebook claiming that American whistleblower Edward Snowden “uncovered” HAARP as a secret weapon for mind and climate control.

Snowden uncovered the sinister agenda of HAARP! Edward Snowden’s explosive revelations exposed the chilling truth behind HAARP, a high-frequency research program. In the past, HAARP was considered a benign research institution, but it has now been revealed as a mass control weapon, a tool used by the Deep State to manipulate the climate, eliminate enemies, and control Hidden weapons in Alaska. (…) Snowden revealed that NATO uses HAARP to suppress dissenters, forcing them to behave irrationally or even causing murderous delusions, a terrifying method in use.

The post claims that Snowden provided documents from high-ranking military officials to support his claims, and notes that, in addition to Alaska, HAARP facilities exist in Sweden, Russia, and other countries. Similar posts were shared on Facebook, with the earliest found dated September 11, 2024. The oldest post we found was published on September 11, 2024, here. It explained that Snowden had given documents about HAARP to journalists from the Internet Chronicle.

American Whistleblower

Edward Snowden is a former employee of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). In 2013, he exposed secret programs for gathering information conducted by the NSA. Snowden began working for companies Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton within NSA facilities in 2009. During this time, he began collecting documents that detailed various NSA activities. In May 2013, he went on medical leave and traveled to Hong Kong, where he met with journalists from The Washington Post and The Guardian and shared documents revealing secret mass surveillance programs conducted by the NSA and other U.S. government agencies. Stories were published in the media in June 2013, and shortly after that, Snowden revealed his identity publicly. He faced charges of espionage in the U.S. and sought asylum in Russia. In September 2022, he was granted Russian citizenship. In the U.S. and globally, there is a significant divide regarding how Snowden is perceived. Many see him as a fighter for truth and freedom of speech, a national hero, while others view him as a traitor or even a Russian spy.

Revelations about HAARP are only found in satirical articles

Claims that Edward Snowden uncovered HAARP as a secret weapon for climate control have been shared in other languages and by other fact-checking web portals, including our partner web portal Raskrinkavanje from Montenegro. HAARP is a large radio transmitter located in Alaska, used by a local university for ionosphere research. For decades, it has been the target of baseless conspiracy theories about controlling weather and the mind, as explored in our analyses here, here, and here. Contrary to these claims, HAARP has no capabilities to control weather and is not a mass control weapon. The claim that Edward Snowden uncovered documents proving HAARP as a secret weapon for controlling time and human minds originates from a satirical article published in 2013 on the U.S. web portal Internet Chronicle. This is not a real news story or an authentic statement by Snowden. The web portal is no longer available, but archived parts of the content that were published there remain. The “About Us” section was written in a humorous tone, claiming that the editors were aliens who came to Earth in 1976 after a meteor crash, and that their newsroom was carefree about drug use and intellectual property theft, and the publication of fake information is punished by “death and mutilation”. Additionally, it was mentioned that interns were not allowed to use the bathroom inside, but were forced to go outside. Although it is clear from the description that it was purely satirical in nature, its creators were compelled to confirm this for media outlets like Reuters and USA Today due to the viral nature of claims about Snowden and HAARP. Therefore, the article claiming that Edward Snowden provided journalists with documents proving HAARP as a secret weapon does not describe a real event. Based on the facts, we rate the initial post claiming Snowden uncovered HAARP as a secret weapon for mind and climate control as fake news. Subsequent posts sharing this claim are considered to be a distribution of fake news. (Author: Nerma Šehović, Raskrinkavanje.ba)