The following review was contributed by:  John Walsh: CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a high tech facility based in Alaska. Back in 1998 when Jerry E. Smith’s book was published, it was possible to imagine the potentially immense power of what seemed to be a stunning new weapon type system. Perhaps some form of resonance could be emitted that would kill people while leaving the infrastructure complete. Perhaps it would be possible to transmit a gigantic mind control message that would encourage millions of people to believe they were witnessing a vision of their god or similar heavenly messenger, who would persuade them al to submit. How powerful would this make the weapon’s controller – and who does really control this weapon? Might it be part of some giant conspiracy aimed at destroying humanity or the world or at the very least global domination.

One of the effects of the so-called War on Terror that has forcibly struck objective observers has been to re-emphasise the enormous incompetence of the American military and, indeed, the American state. Terrorist attacks – ordinary men and women done up as human suicide bombs – trump any kind of sophisticated, expensive defensive gear – eventually, anyway. Military response ends up killing mostly civilians and provokes greater hatred than its perpetrators can ever think of suppressing. The possibility of a massive mind control ray being successfully used beggars belief, frankly, even if there ever were such an attempt. The idiocy of Reagan’s star wars program put paid to any such grandiose schemese among the sane members of the US military.

Even so, Jerry E. Smith outlines the possibilities of the conspiratorial use of the facility and the role in particular of Nikola Tesla, an individual who seems to exercise a strange fascination on writers involved in this kind of topic. Are any deep secrets uncovered by this? Well, fundamentally, readers can judge for themselves. There is plenty of information on the internet about HAARP and even an official website. I particularly enjoyed the HAARP Cam, which shows Alaska covered in snow – rather different from the hot sun under which I sit writing this in Bangkok.