When is a cyclone a space warfare weapon?

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I AM AFRICAN

Baffour Ankomah

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 This week, we are continuing our journey into the secretive world of electromagnetic and geophysical warfare. Remember the big question confronting us is: Was Cyclone Idai an electromagnetic or geophysical warfare event gone awry?

Now we have even more material to add to our suspicion. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government announced on 10 April that Cyclone Idai was preceded by a 3.8 magnitude earthquake in the Chimanimani and Chipinge areas. We now know that it is the earthquake that produced the massive landslides that compounded the destruction wrought by Idai.

Ironically, it is said that lightning does not hit a place twice. But Zimbabwe was hit by an earthquake and a devastating cyclone (travelling at an incredible speed of 194 km per hour) almost at the same time, leaving behind massive destruction that the United Nations says is the worst weather-related natural disaster in the Southern Hemisphere.

Now let’s get going. According to the History Channel, “the development of electromagnetic and geophysical weapons has been secretive and sound more like science fiction than reality.”

At the centre of this development is the ionosphere. I explained two weeks ago that the ionosphere is the delicate upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere which ranges from about 30 miles (50 km) to 600 miles (1,000 km) above the surface of the Earth. It is a sea of electrically-charged particles that act as a mirror which reflects radio waves back to the Earth.

Electromagnetic warfare research involves experiments using high-energy frequencies to fire pulsed, directed energy beams to burn or heat up a limited area of the ionosphere. This can, and does, produce abnormalities such as weather modification (which is an euphemism for creating artificial weather that produces storms, floods, tornadoes, cyclones, droughts, etc). The experiments are therefore principally to weaponise weather systems.

Two weeks ago, I quoted the Air University of the US Air Force as conceding in a major publication, AF 2025 Final Report, that: “Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes.

“The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather … and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power.”

TV documentaries

For the past two weeks, I have talked about three important TV documentaries aired in the past on electromagnetic and geophysical weapons by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, History Channel, and Trutv.com.

The History Channel documentary, titled “Welcome to the world of electromagnetic warfare”, was written by Barabaa Doran and John Whalen. It was 45-minutes long and spends a lot of time on a strange electromagnetic incident that happened in April 1978 on Bell Island, Newfoundland, Canada, on a quiet Sunday morning. “As people made their way to church, a colossal bolt of energy shot straight out of the sky blasting the peace of the island.”

Eyewitnesses, as far away as 20 km, said they heard a “terrific large bang” and saw an object moving very quickly in the sky towards the Atlantic Ocean, leaving a trail behind. Eventually it landed on land, exploding on the property of an unsuspecting couple, Joe and Susie Beckford, shattering the solemn Sunday morning.

Their TV set exploded. Electrical plugs and fuses shot out of the walls of their house. Balls of fire tore through their barn and the house. It was surreal.

According to the History Channel, “sateliites registered light emissions equivalent to 10 megaton blasts, making it one of the biggest emissions in history. In Ottawa, Canadian military scanners picked up the 10 megaton blast and the prime minister was alerted.”

James Farrel, a Canadian fire inspector/specialist who was dispatched posthaste to the scene was amazed. Joe and Susie Beckford’s barn was in shambles. Chickens were dead. Insulations had been ripped off the wires. This was at the height of the Cold War, yet the US and the Soviet Union forgot about their animosities and joined hands to investigate the surreal occurrence.

The Americans immediately sent two officers from Los Alamos to Bell Island. “The situation became even more bizarre with the arrival of a Russian general flanked by US and Canadian military personnel.” The History Channel asked: “Why would the Russians cross continents to conduct investigations at the Beckwith’s home in Newfoundland?”

Yet no public report was issued beyond the Canadian intelligence preliminary assessment that it was a lightning strike. But the locals did not believe it. They insisted it was a failed military experiment gone terribly wrong.

“Some in fact speculated that the blast was the result of Soviet testing of directed energy weapons,” says the History Channel. “The theory was that Bell Island had acted like a giant magnet. The place contained vast iron ore deposits and abandoned mines laced with miles of copper piping. The belief is that an electromagnetic signal passed over the island in April 1978 and it was drawn down by the island’s magnetic field.”

Sadly, four months after the bolt, Susie Beckford died. Her death certificate cited heart failure as the cause of death.

The race for mad weapons

“By the time the bolt hit Bell Island in 1978,” the History Channel revealed, “electromagnetic or directed energy weapons had been in the works for 30 years. This research has continued and will usher in a whole new way of war.”

In fact, the History Channel opened its documentary with a frightening statement: “Imagine the future, a strange new weapon denoted high over a city. No explosion. No visible destruction. But everything electronic within the range of this weapon dies permanently. Every electronic gadget in every home and every office disabled. No computers. No TV. No life support systems in hospitals. No water supply. No heat. No light. Truly a return to the dark ages.”

History Channel goes on: “Electromagnetic weapons pack an invisible wallop hundreds of times more powerful than the electrical current in a lightning bolt. One can blast enemy missiles out of the sky, another could be used to blind soldiers on the battlefield, still another to control an unruly crowd by burning the surface of their skin. If detonated over a large city, an electromagnetic weapon could destroy all electronics in seconds. They all use directed energy to create a powerful electromagnetic pulse.”

And not only that: “Directed energy,” says the History Channel, “is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching army in the desert. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification as a concept for battle environments.”

Dr Audrey Wise, a family and child counselor with extensive knowledge in electromagnetic and geophysical warfare, agrees: “Everything we have built up in the last 200 years, let alone in the last 20 years will be completely destroyed, will be non-existent,” she says. “Imagine the cost that would be to rebuild our cities. Think in terms of transportation, we might even have to pump water at that basic level.”

She continues: “We are going to go back to the 1800s. With this kind of society, we are not going to have refrigerators, dishwashers, and dare I say even a microwave. We are not going to have cellphones, telephones, and we are not going to have any form of communication as we know it. Without communications there is going to be chaos. There is going to be panic in the streets. Talk about control, and crowd control in particular, it is going to be complete chaos.”

That is the sheer power that electromagnetic weapons have in their sting.

Total shift from ordinance

Dr Nick Begich, the son of a US congressman and a scientist who has devoted his life fighting against the development of electromagnetic weapons (he is also a co-author of the book, Angels Do Not Play This Haarp), confirms that: “The revolution in military affairs has brought a total shift away from ordnance into energy weapons as the primary drive, whether it is high-powered lasers, iron beams, microwave radiation for creating heat sensations on the body, this is where the direction is going.

He reveals that “the US military, in a paper called The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflict Short of War, written in 1989 by the US War College, talked about this shift and they equated it to the introduction of gunpowder in Europe and the introduction of atomic weapons in the last century. The change taking place now is as just profound as the changes that took place then.”

According to the History Channel: “The battlefield may have already changed. There was speculation that [electromagnetic] weapons were used in Kosovo in 1999. In Iraq in 2003, it was reported that a top secret Tomahawk cruise missile was fired. Shortly after the launch, the lights went out in Baghdad, though no physical damage was seen on the ground. What we do know is that if a high-powered microwave e-bomb were deployed, it would have to be launched with a Tomahawk cruise missile.”

Seth Schiesel, a New York Times technology reporter, who stumbled on the way the technology that gave the world the mobile phone and microwave ovens was now being used secretly to develop new and lethal electromagnetic weapons, says: “These electromagnetic weapons can be used to destroy everything that has a chip in it, not only communication systems, but all devices, including power systems, TV and radio systems, even most cars these days have electronic emissions in them. And if [these weapons] are deployed in the relevant place in our societies now, anything with chips in them will be disabled.”

Full spectrum dominance

Since 1997, America’s stated goal has been “full spectrum dominance” of the world in outer space by the year 2020, which is just one year away. This is articulated in a “2020 Vision” programme adopted by the US Space Command (USSPACECOM) in February 1997.

In the preamble of the Vision 2020 policy paper, General Howell M. Estes III, the then US Air Force Commander-in-Chief, stated: “The increasing reliance of US military forces upon space power combined with the explosive proliferation of global space capabilities makes a space vision essential.

“As stewards for military space, we must be prepared to exploit the advantages of the space medium. This Vision serves as a bridge in the evolution of military space into the 21st century and is the standard by which United States Space Command and its components will measure progress into the future.”

Before Vision 2020, the US had a “Joint Vision 2010” whose “operational concepts of dominant manoeuvre, precision engagement, full-dimensional protection, and focused logistics” were rolled into Vision 2020 because the deadlines could not be met.

“The end result of these enablers and concepts,” explains the Vision 2020 policy paper, “is Full Spectrum Dominance … The emerging synergy of space superiority with land, sea, and air superiority, will lead to Full Spectrum Dominance…”

Vision 2020 also asserts that, “the medium of space is the fourth medium of warfare – along with land, sea, and air. Space power (systems, capabilities, and forces) will be increasingly leveraged to close the ever-widening gap between diminishing resources and increasing military commitments.”

To leave nobody in doubt, the policy paper emphasises that “the two principal themes of the USSPACECOM vision are dominating the space medium and integrating space power throughout military operations. Today, the United States is the preeminent military space power. Our vision is one of maintaining that pre-eminence – providing a solid foundation for our national security.”

In the History Channel documentary, US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich notes that: “Washington has been looking at Vision 2020, a programme for the US to dominate the world from outer space. Now I love America [he smiles] and I like to say that we are number one, but let me tell you something, we don’t need to be number one in weapons in space.

“The Department of Defence has been working from a facility in Alaska which is still in research into effects of electromagnetic frequencies in the ionosphere, and that facility which is called HAARP has raised concerns among many individuals about how this research will be applied. For example, we know that, according to some of the research, as these energy pulses are directed into the ionosphere, they can have some negative weather effect,” Kucinich conceded.

High-energy laser weapons

“There is a second category of weapons that use high laser energy,” reveals the American weapons systems expert, Dr Roger McCarthy of Exponent Inc. Whereas the electromagnetic weapon is one big powerful pulse, a laser is a continuous delivered stream of radiation with intense radiation to cause damage.

“We will be able to use high energy lasers, not only to defeat enemy aircraft and even more importantly unmanned aerial vehicles, which are small targets, we have actually successfully in several dozen tests, defeated artillery shells with high energy lasers directed at a small spot to detonate the shell in the air before it lands.”

He continues: “We have also looked at blinding lasers on the battlefield so that soldiers attacking a particular position could be subjected to a broadband sweeping laser with enough energy to temporarily blind them if they were looking in the direction of the laser.

“We have also been testing what I call microwave weapons for crowd control. Again, instead of using a single pulse, these are continuously directed energy weapons that heat the skin rapidly, much like your microwave oven, in fact almost exactly as your microwave oven, but they are controlled broadcast microwave pulses, and obviously you can derail opposing forces quickly if all the soldiers begin to feel a burning sensation on their skin. It is truly a burning sensation.”

This prompts Dr Begich to say: “The last time burning was used as a way of controlling behaviour was in the Middle Ages when we used to burn people at the stakes and society was kind of inhuman. We are going back to that I think.”

The worse thing about it all is that the health effects of these weapons are not known. In the same way as the health effects of atomic weapons were downplayed, protection against electromagnetic weapons has not been solved.

This notwithstanding, Dr McCarthy says: “We [meaning the USA] are going to defend ourselves, forget about the treaties, with the technologies that permit us to do so.”

(Next week, we shall conclude our series on electromagnetic warfare by examining if it has had any effects on Zim’s weather and economy.)

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