Blog - LOST IN HISTORY

The Lost Amber Room – Russian Treasure and Nazi Plunder

The famous Russian Amber Room, 1917 — The famous Russian Amber Room of the Czars, Catherine Palace, 1917

When most people hear the word amber they might think about the popular Jurassic Park movies, where dinosaur DNA was discovered. But the precious stone has been prized for centuries, most especially by the former Russian Empire. Their famous Amber Room was made with TONS of it. After several back and forth “exchanges” between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia over the centuries, both friendly and hostile, it has today quite simply vanished! Dubbed by historians as “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” where it is today is one of the greatest mysteries of World War II.

Since Roman times, the area of Germany formerly known as Prussia has been one of the world’s largest producers of the golden, fossilized tree sap, amber. The “Amber Room” was built between 1701 and 1709 by Fredrick I of Prussia in the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin as a gift for his wife. It was designed by a German baroque sculptor and constructed by a Danish amber expert. Craftsmen set colored amber onto gold leaf wall panels to create intricate mosaics, topped off with jasmine, jade, and onyx. Long before electricity, imagine scores of candelabras lit within, and the golden gallery must have gleamed like a room in God’s heavenly palace.

Russian Tzar Peter the Great greatly admired the exquisitely carved room on a visit to Prussia.

In 1716, the next Prussian King, Frederick William I, presented it to Peter as a gift to cement the new Prussian-Russian peace alliance. So the glorious Amber Room’s panels were painstakingly disassembled and shipped to Russia on multiple horse carts in 18 huge crates. There it was installed by the Tzar for his viewing pleasure in St. Petersburg’s Winter Palace.

And there is sat for 40 years until in 1755, when Tzarina Elizabeth ordered the room disassembled again and moved to her Catherine Palace in Pushkin. Italian designer Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli spent the next 10 years, redesigning the room to fit into its new, larger space, adding 6 more tons of amber, shipped to Russia from Berlin.

The room now covered about 180 square feet and positively glowed with brilliance. The wall’s amber panels were backed with gold leaf, making the room worth about $142 million at the time. Today it would be worth half a billion euros. The Amber Room was used as a meditation chamber for Tzarina Elizabeth, then a drawing room for Catherine the Great, and a finally a trophy room for Tsar Alexander II. And so it sat again, for the next 200 years, surviving the Russian Revolution, until World War II.

Then in June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his infamous Operation Barbarossa, sending 3 million German soldiers on an ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union. The Nazis notoriously ransacked every country they invaded, from Holland to France to Poland, looting thousands of priceless art treasures. In Russia, this would include the illustrious Amber Room. Hitler believed it was made by Germans for Germans alone and not to be shared. Soviet Premier Josef Stalin disagreed with him.

As Third Reich forces advanced in Russia, curators realized the Nazis would soon come for the Amber Room.

They first attempted to disassemble and hide the precious walls. But the dry and brittle amber began to crumble! What could the panicked curators do? They instead foolishly tried hiding the room behind hastily applied plaster and wallpaper. Leningrad fell in 1941, and the ruse didn’t fool the Nazis for long. They knew the room was somewhere in the palace and eventually found it. They disassembled the Amber Room in just 36 hours, packed it up in 27 crates, and shipped it west by train. The room was reassembled this time in the Königsberg’s Castle on Germany’s Baltic Coast. Within a month, local German newspapers boasted of an exhibition at the castle for Nazi elite.

Then in late 1943, the tables were turned. Soviet Russian forces were now approaching Germany from the eastern front. Hitler gave the order that “cultural goods of priority” should be moved from Königsberg for safe keeping. The castle’s director, Alfred Rohde, was ordered to immediately dismantle the Amber Room once again and place it in crates for immediate transport.

What happened after that remains a tantalizing mystery. In August 1944, Allied bombing raids destroyed much of the city, including Königsberg Castle. Was the Amber Room still inside, but now safely deep in a dungeon? Some think so, others believe the Nazis had ample opportunity to get it out in time. Others believe witnesses who said they saw the Amber Room’s crates being loaded into the hold of a German naval ship, perhaps the MV Wilhelm Gustloff. That ship however now lies on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, sunk by a Soviet submarine!

And with that, the trail of the famous Amber Room was lost.

Optimists still hope the Amber Room is intact in a dungeon, cave or mine somewhere, awaiting discovery by intrepid adventurers. Since the end of World War II, art historians and treasure hunters alike have searched and searched. It has never been found. Most agree it was likely lost in the fires that consumed Königsberg Castle at the close of WWII. The site is now covered by a massive building known as the “House of Soviets,” built in 1960 by the East Germans. The grounds underneath have never been thoroughly investigated.

In 1997, a gold framed, mosaic marble fragment from the Amber Room was discovered at a German art auction and confiscated by officials. It’s believed to have come from a Nazi officer who stole it while he was transporting the room from Russia to Germany. The fragment and another piece were formally returned to St. Petersburg in the Russian Federation in 2000.

Today over 70 years later, 3 amateur investigators believe they may have found the lost treasure. They think it resides in Prince’s Cave in the Hartenstein hills near Dresden, once used by Nazi scientists. They claim evidence of a large, unexplored Nazi bunker. The team is attempting to raise enough money for a detailed examination. We shall see, time will tell.

If the Amber Room did somehow survive, it’s likely that the Nazis hid it underground in a cave, mine, dungeon or bunker. Experts warn that in this prolonged, damp environment, the amber could easily deteriorate. Even before it was stolen in 1941, the Amber Room was badly in need of restoration as the amber pieces were falling out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at Amber Room reconstruction dedication in St. Petersburg, 2004

Rather than continued to search, Soviet Russia decided to rebuild the entire Amber Room in 1979. Using old photos and original drawings, the Russian government completed a recreation of the Amber Room. Due to a lack of skilled labor, it was not until 2004 however, that the new version was revealed to the public. Ironically, when the Russian organization ran out of money, a German company, EON, raised the remaining funds necessary to complete the project. Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder unveiled it together.

So a German made treasure >> given to a Russia Tzar >> stolen by German Nazis >> recreated by Russians >> with help of German money is once again alive, even if not the original. Such was, and is, the complicated relationship of these two great nations over time. This new ‘Amber Room’ can be viewed by the public in St. Petersburg’s Catherine Palace.

The original Amber Room, however, remains lost to history … at least for now.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History

America’s First Whistleblowers were its Founding Fathers

US Naval officer whistleblowers aboard the USS Warren

America’s very first whistleblowers were not the British, but actually 10 American naval officers during the Revolutionary War. They bravely reported improper behavior by the Continental Navy’s most powerful officer, their superior, to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In February 1777, those 10 men secretly gathered below deck on the USS Warren to sign a petition documenting numerous abuses by their commander, Commodore Esek Hopkins.

They understood all too well they could be branded by congress and the people as Traitors, rather than Patriots. Hopkins had been appointed the 1st Commander of the Continental Navy in 1775. And they knew he possessed powerful connections in Philadelphia. His brother Stephen was a well-known signer of the Declaration of Independence! They wrote collectively:

‘He is guilty of such crimes as to render him unfit for the command he now occupies.‘

The officers then detailed the commodore’s misconduct and poor character in personal affidavits. They worried sailors under him would quit serving their new country. They detailed how a key British warship had eluded capture through Hopkins’ incompetence.

‘We know him to be a man of no principles, and quite unfit for the important trust given him.’

Commodore Hopkins himself held the Continental Congress in low regard and repeatedly defied its orders.

The men accused him of cursing the Founding Fathers as ‘a pack of damned fools’ and treating British prisoners in an inhumane, barbarous manner. This was in direct violation of General George Washington’s orders that British captives be ‘well and humanely treated.

‘Hopkins conversation is at times so wild, and orders so unsteady, that we have thought he was not in his senses.’

So that night, Marine Captain John Grannis left his post on the Warren, which was docked at the time at Providence, RI. He rode his horse 235 miles over several days to Philadelphia to deliver the petition and affidavits directly to the new Continental Congress. It was a risky move for an officer who had basically just jumped ship.

The Continental Congress called Captain Grannis himself to testify. ‘It is generally feared on board the fleet that he commands would be so imprudent that the ships could be foolishly lost.’ Grannis reported how British prisoners had been placed in irons and held back from prisoner exchanges.

The Founding Fathers took all the accusations seriously and voted to relieve Hopkins of command.

Three of the 10 whistle-blowers felt obligated to meet with Commodore Hopkins while Grannis was away, and inform him of their petition and affidavits. Hopkins learned 3rd Lieutenant Richard Marvin had been the lead officer who organized the complaints against him. He had Marvin tried aboard his ship and court-martialed in April 1777.

Hopkins never bothered to give the Continental Congress a rebuttal to the whistleblowers’ accusations. But when he was formally dismissed from the Navy, he filed a criminal libel lawsuit against his 10 accusers, with damages set at £10,000. Only Marvin and another officer, Samuel Shaw, were arrested – the rest were still on duty at sea.

The 2 defendants turned to Congress for help as they were not wealthy men, but firmly believed they were doing their duty as naval officers. The president of Congress informed them that reasonable expenses for their defense would be provided. They also authorized the public release of records relating to Commodore Hopkin’s removal.

The president enclosed a copy of a law just passed by Congress, the first Whistleblower Protection Act.

“It is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by persons in the service of these States,”
U.S. Whistleblower Protection Act, 1788

It was approved unanimously in July 1788. Marven and Shaw prevailed in court, and the Continental Congress kept their promise and paid all their legal bills.

Nearly a century later comes a second example. During the US Civil War, the Union army relied heavily on private contractors for basic necessities like uniforms, shoes, rifles and gunpowder. Some of those contractors were unscrupulous profiteers, often cutting dangerous corners and providing substandard products.

Some contractors even went so far as to sell the army rifles that wouldn’t fire and gunpowder mixed with sawdust.

Soldiers complained about moth-eaten blankets and thin wool uniforms that would rot in the damp rain. Corrupt defense contractors sold the Union Army spoiled rations that gave soldiers in the field scurvy and dysentery. They provided horses that were wasted, lame, and in some cases even blind!

President Abraham Lincoln supported whistleblowers.

War profiteering and outright criminal fraud crippled both the Union and Confederate armies. ‘You can sell anything to the government at any price,’ boasted one crook who made millions. During the war, the government didn’t have enough inspectors to ferret out all the fraud, so Congress came up with a novel idea. It would provide an incentive for employees to turn in their own companies.

Congress wrote the False Claims Bill in the winter of 1863. The whistleblowers, then called ‘relators,’ could sue a contractor on behalf of the US, if they had personal proof of the scam. If successful, plaintiffs were entitled to receive HALF the money recovered. The FCA’s sponsor was Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan. He strongly believed that paying rewards to whistleblowers was the best way to uncover the largest fraudulent schemes.

President Abraham Lincoln strongly advocated passage of the False Claims Act.

It contained qui tam provisions that allowed private citizens to sue, on the government’s behalf, companies or individuals that were defrauding the federal government. Qui tam is short for a Latin phrase meaning “he who brings an action for the state as well as for himself.” Congress passed, and Lincoln signed, the FALSE CLAIMS ACT in March 1863. It proved effective at protecting US interests and hold those who stole from the US liable.

Decades later, the False Claims Act would allow whistleblowers in the defense industry to come forward. And it worked just as well against drug manufacturers, power companies, and big tobacco. These led to the more famous, recent whistleblowers of the last few decades. These include such well-known names as:

Daniel Ellsberg – 1971 – leaked the Vietnam War Pentagon Papers
W. Mark Felt – 1972 – Watergate’s infamous Deep Throat in the FBI
Karen Silkwood – 1974 – Kerr McGee nuclear plant, later mysteriously killed
Jeffrey Wigand – 1996 – Brown and Williamson tobacco company
Sherron Watkins – 2002 – Enron Corporation financial scandal
John Kopchinski, 2009 – Pfizer Pharmaceuticals painkiller expose

And of course, the Whistleblower saga continues with today’s more modern Washington scandals, conspiracies, and ‘witch hunts,’ whether Republican or Democrat. It takes both courage and a strong sense patriotism for such people to step forward, for regardless of their legal protection, they are rarely received well.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The 1989 Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia

Demonstrator in Prague during the Velvet Revolution

During an astonishing 6-week period in 1989, between November 17th and December 29th, a non-violent Velvet Revolution took place in Communist Czechoslovakia. It overthrew the 44 year old Soviet backed regime put in place by Josef Stalin at the end of World War II, and replaced it with a free democracy. It was nicknamed the Velvet Revolution because it was a successful, non-violent rebellion.

By the 2nd half of the 1980s, the Cold War was slowly thawing. The Soviet Union was a bit more open, thanks to Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost, which opened the USSR’s government to debate, and Perestroika, which reformed Soviet politics and economy. Unfortunately, the same was NOT true in Czechoslovakia. Their hard-line Communist Party stopped Gorbachev’s reforms in their tracks. Dissidence was still not tolerated and political activists were imprisoned. Gustav Husak, in power since 1968, would allow NO reforms.

All that changed however in 1989 …

First with Poland’s Solidarity toppling their Communist party in September elections, followed by the peaceful conversion of Hungary from Communism to democracy in October. Finally, the shocking fall of the East German Berlin Wall on November 9^th. Regardless, the Czechoslovak Communist Party continued to carry out their hard-line policies. That continued repression, combined with the slow collapse of the Soviet Bloc, inspired Czechoslovaks to demand change from their government as well.

But let’s step back for just a bit. Remember Czechoslovakia only became an independent country in 1918 after World War I, when the losing Austro-Hungarian Empire was carved up like a Sunday roast. Following its unfortunate inclusion into Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II, Czechoslovakia became part of the Communist bloc behind Stalin’s Iron Curtain in 1945. Twenty long years of repression followed.

Then a glimmer of hope. During the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968, a reform effort swept through the government. Human rights and a free press were actually encouraged. People were able to openly criticize Communist rule, travel more freely, and form new political parties! Though modest, this was far too much for the Kremlin. In August, thousands of Soviet troops rolled into the country. A young playwright and poet named Vaclav Havel, spoke out against the invasion on Radio Free Europe. Soviet occupation led to the worst of the East European regimes with all the reforms killed.

Under Communist rule, over 250,000 Czechoslovaks were imprisoned, many dying in forced labor camps.

A small underground movement of resistors managed to survive. Opposition was mostly symbolic though because of the severe repression. One example was that rock music became a medium for political dissent. This included The Plastic People, who wrote protest songs in English. The band members were thrown into prison in 1976.

In 1977, a non-violent, pro-democracy group calling themselves Charter 77, wrote a Manifesto calling on the Communist regime to live up to international human rights demands. One of its founding members was Vaclav Havel. This prompted the government to imprison its members and ban Charter 77. Havel was sentenced to five years of hard labor. Fast forward now another 2 decades to 1989.

The Velvet Revolution began spontaneously on Friday, November 17th.

A student march took place marking the 50th anniversary of the death of a student Nazi protestor, Jan Opletal, in 1939. However, it quickly turned into an anti-Communist protest, with students carrying banners and chanting slogans. Riot police stopped the students marching from the National Cemetery to Wenceslas Square. A stand-off ensued in which the students peacefully offered flowers to the riot police. They were met with tear gas and water cannons. The police began beating the young students with night sticks. 167 were hospitalized.

The demonstration and violence inspired workers’ unions and other civic groups to also organize. Theaters became dissident meeting places where activists devised strategies and held open discussions. At one meeting at Prague’s Magic Lantern Theatre on November 19th, a group calling themselves the Civic Forum was established as a collection of spokespeople for the democracy. Former members of Charter 77, including a much older Vaclav Havel, came together along with other dissidents to unite their opposition against the Communist Party.

The Civic Forum became the heart of the democratic movement.

They boldly demanded the resignation of the Communist government, the release of political prisoners, and investigations into the Nov. 17th police brutality. They chose Vaclav Havel as one of its leaders, who used his literary talents to craft the movement’s messaging, challenging the government in ways that captured the public’s imagination. Havel showed the deadening effects of Communism on ordinary people and their lives.

The next day, a sister initiative – Public Against Violence – was born in Bratislava, Slovakia. Both were joined en masse by Czechoslovak citizens – from university students to factory workers. Subsequent marches, protests, and strikes took place in the following week – too large to be silenced by police brutality. This barrage of nonviolent activism had a profound effect on the people. Even larger mass protests were held in several Czech and Slovak cities. People shook their keys in the air as a symbol for change.

Tens of thousands gathered in protest, chanting in the streets, “It’s finally happening!”

It took 2 weeks before for the state-run media began broadcasting reports of what was actually occurring in the cities. In the meantime, students traveled to countryside towns and villages to rally support outside the capital. Vaclav Havel became the face of the opposition. He knew that many more would have to join them in order for the movement to succeed. So the Civic Forum sought to organize a General Strike for November 27th that would span ALL of Czechoslovakia.

You’re probably asking yourself ‘What were the hard-line Communist leaders plotting in the meantime?!’ Well, they were unprepared to deal with such a huge popular unrest. As the mass demonstrations continued, more and more citizens supported the general strikes. The enormous mass demonstrations – up to a million people in a country with less than 16 million – were a collective show of defiance. An emergency session of the Central Committee was called where the Communist Party President resigned, and a relatively unknown elected.

The Civic Forum and Public Against Violence rejected this cosmetic, token reform and the people’s dissatisfaction only increased.

On November 25 and 26, massive demonstrations of over 750,000 people took place at Letna Park in Prague. On Monday, Nov. 27th, 75% of the Czechoslovak population participated in a 2 hour General Strike, showing the mass support behind the Civic Forum and People Against Violence. The strike finally showed the Communist regime that the people would no longer quietly obey and more importantly, the government was powerless to stop them.

Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec was forced to hold talks with the Civic Forum, led by Vaclav Havel. That day, they presented their list of demands: to form a new coalition government and to DELETE the leading role of the Communist Party from the Constitution. Adamec agreed to them all and personally guaranteed that no violence would be used against peaceful citizens.

These amendments were unanimously approved by the Communist Parliament the next day, November 28.

A new compromise government was formed including only 9 members of the Communist Party with 7 new, non-communist Ministers, all of whom were members of the Czech or Slovak forums. This new government was named by president Gustav Husak on December 10th who, under threat of yet another general strike, went on national television that evening to announce his resignation.

The Velvet Revolution has succeeded. After Christmas, on December 28^th, at the joint session of the two Federal Houses, Alexander Dubcek – who led the ill-fated Prague Spring in 1968 – was elected Speaker. One day later, parliament elected Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia!

Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel addressing the crowds in Prague

Despite lacking serious political experience, the new parliament was able to fill many of the gaps in human freedoms, private ownership, and business law. The military was transferred from communist to democratic control. They also laid the framework for the first Free Elections in 44 years. The results of the following year’s elections were basically a referendum on ending Communism in a sweeping victory for democracy.

The turnout was more than 96%. Vaclav Havel was formally elected President by the people.

After the 1990 elections, efforts to craft a new democratic constitution were stalled by the political and economic differences between Czechs and Slovaks. Some Czechs saw the poorer Slovakia as a drag on the economy. Slovaks saw the Czechs as having too much power and control in Prague. This division led to the “Velvet Divorce,” peacefully creating 2 independent nations: the Czech and Slovak Republics in December 1992. Vladimir Meclar became Prime Minister of the new Slovakia. The once mighty Soviet Union eventually collapsed in December 1991 under Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1997, at the urging of President Havel, the Plastic People reunited. In 2009, they were honored at Prague’s National Theater as part of the 20 year celebration of the success of the Velvet Revolution. Vaclav Havel remained in office as President until 2003 and passed away in 2011 at age 75. Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia have remained democratic nations ever since.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Podcast: The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall

By 1961, the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union raged unchecked around the globe. Since World War II, it seemed the entire world had chosen sides. The fortified ‘Iron Curtain‘ had been raised – borders dividing Western & Eastern Europe along Democratic vs. Communist lines. Berlin however, though divided as well, still allowed free movement of people between the Communist East and Democratic West … but not for long, the Berlin Wall was coming. Thirty years later, it was gone!

The Berlin Wall looking into East Germany and No Man's Land — The Berlin Wall looking into East Germany

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Podcast: Ten Propaganda Tricks Hitler Used to Control the German People

Outside of Germany during World War II, people around the world were appalled at the profound deceitfulness of Nazi propaganda, the ridiculous exaggerations, the outright falsehoods, the blatant evil towards their own Jewish population, and the astonishing acceptance of the German people. How on earth could intelligent, educated, rational people have been convinced by all that rubbish? So much as to allow the Holocaust to occur?

Nazi propaganda poster of a smiling Adolf Hitler

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Statue of Liberty Powerful Poem Still Rings True

New York's Statue of Liberty as seen by Ellis Island Immigrants — New York’s Statue of Liberty as seen by Ellis Island Immigrants

The United States is a nation of immigrants, and the children of immigrants, coming to America for over four hundred years. From the first Spaniard and Englishmen to the current Latinos and Asians. Emma Lazarus’ 1883 famous poem rings true today more than ever. It is immortalized on a bronze plaque at the base of New York’s Statue of Liberty (then called Liberty Enlightening the Word). Her own grandparents were Portuguese Jews who had fled their homeland.

My own grandparents traveled to the US from Eastern Europe, as mere teenagers, just before World War I. In the face of abject poverty, they abandoned the lives they knew, dreamt of, and found a better life in America. The statue would have been one of the first things they saw from the rail of their steamship in New York harbor. What they must have felt at that moment, standing by the railing, we can only imagine. They would soon be off for processing at Ellis Island and a new future as Americans.

We all have heard the famous line: ‘Give us your tire, your poor, your huddled masses.” She wrote it in 1883 as part of the fundraising effort to build the stone pedestal for Lady Liberty. But read Emma Lazarus’ entire sonnet below – slowly and carefully, perhaps for the very first time. Take in each stanza and pause to reflect on the words. Read it with your children, or better yet your grandchildren. Ponder the meaning of each line, the promises of Hope, Freedom and Liberty, to ALL immigrants. Then say a prayer for all those immigrants and refugees, those ‘tempest-tost’ still attempting to do the same thing today.

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

with conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch!

whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,

and her name, Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome;

her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

– Emma Lazarus, 1883

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Does HAARP Study the Weather … or Control it?

**High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska**

The HAARP military research program in central Alaska has been a darling of conspiracy theorists for over a decade. They claim it does everything from control the weather to controlling people’s minds. Former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez even claimed the U.S. military used HAARP to cause the 2010 Haiti earthquake!

H.A.A.R.P. stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.

It was designed by the US military to study the Earth’s ionosphere. That is the upper-most portion of our atmosphere which stretches from about 53 miles (85 km) above the earth to around 370 miles (600 km). It’s a high-energy layer at the very edge of outer space, filled with charged particles. These particles respond to radio waves, so HAARP beams high-power radio frequencies straight up into the Alaska sky.

HAARP was built in 1993 at a cost of more than $290 million. It was earmarked by the late Senator Ted Stevens, a powerful Republican from Alaska. The program has been run over the years by the US Air Force Research Lab, Office of Naval Research, and the secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

HAARP’s public mission is to study the ionosphere’s physics, which is bombarded by our sun on a daily basis. Huge solar flares send charged particles racing toward Earth, disrupting communications and often our country’s electric grid. By studying the ionosphere, scientists feel they might be able to mitigate these problems in the future.

Science aside, the HAARP site certainly looks futuristic. It is peppered with 180 weird-looking, geometrically aligned, cross-shaped antennas, poking into the Alaska sky like alien hardware. And like the infamous Area 51 in Nevada, it’s located in a remote military compound in the south Alaskan wilderness southeast of Fairbanks.

For those of you who might want to check it out, HAARP is located near Gakona, Alaska at GPS coordinates 62.39 N, 145.15 W off the Tok Cutoff Highway. Its crown jewel is the massive high-power, high-frequency array known as the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI). The IRI went on line in 2007 and can actually agitate a chunk of our ionosphere for research purposes.

HAARP is so powerful, it can create an artificial aurora borealis in the Alaskan night sky.

The IRI consists of 180 dipole antennas in a 15 x 12 grid covering multiple acres. Together they can transmit 3600 kW of radio waves at frequencies up to 10 mHz. This energy is absorbed by the ionosphere and produces atmospheric fluctuations that can be detected back on earth by HAARPs instruments below.

The U.S. military was interested because our ionosphere plays a key role in transmitting radio signals. So it can be used to improve satellite communications. And, yes, the Department of Defense (DOD) has used it to study things they still will not fully disclose. For example, HAARP can turn the ionosphere into a giant antenna used to transmit signals strong enough to reach nuclear submarines underwater.

Not surprisingly, HAARP’s remote location and ability to manipulate the upper atmosphere has made it a favorite of various conspiracy theorists. The fringe nature of HAARP’s research doesn’t help. When scientists do talk about the experiments, nobody but a trained physicist can fully understand the complexity.

Conspiracy theorists think HAARP’s purpose is far more sinister than what the military stated.

Former Minnesota Governor and ex-pro wrestler Jess Ventura believes the government uses the IRI site to both manipulate the weather and control minds. Others have blamed it for everything from superheating the atmosphere causing climate change, to the mysterious humming associated with alien encounters. They say HAARP was to blame for the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 and Japan’s 2011 tsunami. The Russian military supposedly believed it has the power to jam global communications and even reverse the polarity of the earth’s poles!

HAARP, its military research, and its many conspiracies almost came to an end. In 2013, the site shut down, was abandoned and temporarily locked its gates. The Air Force said Congress no longer wanted to pay the millions of dollars needed to staff and keep HAARP alive, and was prepared to dismantle it.

But fear not, HAARP lives on! Operation of the research facility was transferred from the US Air Force to the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2015. It allows HAARP to continue its scientific exploration of ionospheric phenomenon via a cooperative Research & Development agreement with the Air Force.

In 2022, HAARP and the University actually held an Open House, free to the general public! The facility offered bus rides from Fairbanks, was open for walking tours, and had research results on display. Just to show how far it’s come, souvenir HAARP T-shirts and even shot glasses were on sale, as well as hamburgers and hot dogs to help fund continued research.

But I am quite sure conspiracy theorists, somewhere in their darkened basements, think this is nothing but a cover-up, a clever ruse; and flood social media with their theories. They believe the U.S. military continues HAARP’s more nefarious purposes to this day. Somewhere behind thick steel doors, deep underground in the frozen and remote Alaskan wilderness. In 2016, two Georgia men arrested on drug charges were supposedly plotting an act of domestic terrorism based on HAARP conspiracy theories.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Podcast: The Deadly Galveston Hurricane of 1900

On Saturday, September 9th, 1900, a Category 4 Hurricane slammed into an unsuspecting, unprepared Galveston. At the time, it was a bustling port city on a Texas barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. In the days before weather satellites or even radio, the people of Galveston had absolutely no warning, and no time to evacuate. The devastation to come from the Galveston Hurricane was nothing short of Biblical.

Beachfront Memorial to the victims of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane

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Podcast: Remember the Sultana! The Civil War Disaster

More souls died during the Riverboat Sultana disaster than on the RMS Titanic! The Sultana disaster on the Mississippi River during the U.S. Civil War is in fact, the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history. So why is it such a forgotten piece of Americana, with no historical site or Hollywood film? Everyone remembers the Alamo or Pearl Harbor, so why not the poor Sultana?

**The Sultana Disaster on the Mississippi River, 1865**

Read SULTANA AWAITS, a Historical Novel of the Sultana Disaster by Paul Andrews: CLICK HERE

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Podcast: The Lingering Legacy of the Chernobyl Disaster

The greatest nuclear disaster the Earth has ever known, worse than even Japan’s Fukushima, or the U.S. Three Mile Island, began innocently enough in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 26^th, 1986 at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. A simple safety test was about to be performed that would terribly, terribly wrong. The resulting explosion would contaminate both the site and surrounding countryside for centuries to come.

Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor #4 following the explosion — Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor #4 following the 1986 explosion

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