We’ve spotted social media posts claiming that the recent flash flood on the Nepal-Tibet border was caused by a research project studying the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Claims shared online say the floods, which have killed more than 547 people, were “made by” the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska.
But as we’ve explained many times before, HAARP cannot control or manipulate the weather or natural disasters.
HAARP is a high-frequency transmitter, used to study higher layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, the ionosphere and the thermosphere, starting at an altitude of around 37 miles.
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It is designed to transmit radio waves into the ionosphere to cause electrons to move in waves, to study how the ionosphere reacts to changing conditions.
In an FAQ on its website, the HAARP facility explains that radio waves in the frequency ranges that HAARP transmits “are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere”, which are the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth’s weather. “Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather”, it explains.
After initially reporting an earthquake in the region, the US Geological Survey (USGS) later said it was “a glacial collapse and debris flow” that “caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream”.
Independent expert Dr Ciaran Beggan at the British Geological Survey told us “ice is actually transparent to radio waves—they pass straight through—so there’s absolutely no effect from radio waves on ice or glaciers”.
He previously told us that: “The HAARP instrument can only radiate a tiny amount of energy (around 3.6 MW…) into the thin upper atmosphere at 100 km altitude. That’s less power than a large wind turbine (5MW) can produce turning in the breeze.”
We have recently debunked conspiracy theories that HAARP caused heatwaves in the UK as well as the Northern Lights.
Misinformation about significant weather events and natural disasters often spreads quickly on social media, so it’s important to consider whether what you are seeing is genuine before sharing. Our toolkit provides guides on how to verify pictures and videos.
