HAARP facility unrelated to floods in Spain

Posts on social media have falsely implied that a research project studying the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere caused the recent flooding in Spain.

Claims shared on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook linked the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska with the floods, which have killed more than 200 people.

Several posts on Facebook use similar captions, saying: “Spain canceled a weapons deal with Israel. HAARP weather weapon unleashed days after. Just a coincidence right?” They are being shared with a video compilation of the floods in Spain—which has been taken from a TikTok by the Spanish state-owned media company RTVE Noticias. 

While it is true that Spain’s Interior Ministry recently said it was cancelling a contract to buy ammunition from an Israeli firm, this is unrelated to the recent floods and has nothing to do with HAARP.

Conspiracy theories about HAARP, which often accuse governments of using it to secretly alter the weather or cause natural disasters, have been circulating for more than a decade. But HAARP cannot control the weather.

What is HAARP?

HAARP is a high-frequency transmitter, which is used to study higher layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, the ionosphere and the thermosphere, starting at an altitude of around 60 km.

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.

Dr Ciaran Beggan at the British Geological Survey also told us: “HAARP is just a radio transmitter in the same way as those for a radio or TV station or air traffic control or mobile phones. It cannot create rain as it transmits radio waves—in the same way that light does not create rain.”

We have recently debunked conspiracy theories that HAARP caused Hurricane Milton and 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.