TEHRAN – Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement Mohammad Hossein Zolfaqari has ruled out a link between repeated earthquakes in Iran and the HAARP project, saying the claim lacks scientific basis.

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was initiated as an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It was designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies (BAEAT). Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. 

As a university-owned facility, HAARP is a high-power, high-frequency transmitter used for study of the ionosphere.

Over time, HAARP has been blamed for generating such catastrophes, as well as thunderstorms, in Iran, Pakistan, Haiti, Turkey, Greece and the Philippines, and even major power outages, the downing of TWA Flight 800, Gulf War syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Zolfaqari told ILNA in an interview published on Tuesday that the Interior Ministry has not received any report from the country’s military and scientific institutions on the link between the earthquakes and the HAARP.

Iran has been struck by several earthquakes in recent months, including the Kermanshah earthquake, which left at least 630 people dead and more than 8,100 injured.

Asked about strange lights in several cities’ skies during the past few days, the deputy interior minister said no official report was made about the incidents and the ministry only knew about them through social media.

“Military and air defense ranks, who are active in their fields, would have informed us if there had been something important,” he stated.

MH/PA