When the Army Owns the Weather

By Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Alive. Posted February 5, 2002.

Humans have long sought to control the weather. Early people learned how to make fire and modify their micro-environments; rain dances and other rituals to alleviate droughts are part of our folklore. So news that the government is engaged in secret experiments to control the weather should come as no surprise -- especially after a long history of "cloud seeding," "atom splitting" and cloning revelations.

In fact, a vast majority of people would be shocked to learn that this orphan of the cold war is still in practice. As the U.S. and former Soviet Union spent trillions of dollars on their militaries, their commitment to mutually assured destruction led to extensive experimentation with the use of weather as a weapon. In 1977, the Saturday Review cited a CIA report hinting that the U.S. government already had the power to massively manipulate the weather for war purposes.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated, a 1993 Isvestia article suggested the U.S. might want to partner with the Russians in peddling their top-secret technology to the world. Oleg Klugin, a high-ranking KGB officer, bragged of his involvement in geophysical weapons research to a London newspaper. The grid patterns of jet chemtrails now spotted throughout the Western world are likely the application of these technologies to new military and civilian uses.

The military is not attempting to hide its long-term goals. "Weather is a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" is a white paper that can be found on a Pentagon-sponsored website. The paper’s abstract reads: "In 2025, U.S. aerospace forces can ‘own the weather’ by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies towards fighting applications. Such a capability offers the war fighters tools to shape the battle space in ways never before possible… In the U.S., weather modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications."

Wired magazine wrote about the paper and extensively quoted physicist Bernard Eastlund in its January 2000 article "Activate Cloud Shield! Zap a Twister!" The article detailed the military’s plan for "made-to-order thunderstorms" and "lightning strikes on demand."

Eastlund managed programs for Controlled Thermal Nuclear Research for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1966 to 1974; he was a key researcher in the 1980s’ Strategic Space Initiative (aka Star Wars). Since 1996, Eastlund served as CEO and president of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation. The company boasts on its website that it specializes in "weather modification" and "tornado modification" among other high-tech services.

Eastlund considers the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska a smaller version of what he envisions for weather modification. In response to Michael Theroux of Borderland Sciences -- who asked Eastlund whether the HAARP station could affect the weather -- Eastlund replied: "Significant experiments could be performed… The HAARP antenna as is it now configured modulates the auroral electrojet to induce ELF waves and thus could have an effect on the zonal winds."

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