Video shows coral farm not HAARP research facility around Florida

A video is being shared on social media with false claims it shows a HAARP research facility positioned “perfectly” off the coast of Florida which was “activated” ahead of Hurricane Milton.

At least 16 people have been killed and millions have been left without power after it made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane.

The video that is circulating online appears to be a recording of someone using Google Maps or Google Earth to zoom in on an area of the Atlantic Ocean next to Florida. It then loads underwater images of the seabed, where frame-like structures can be seen, along with divers working on them. Text overlaid on it says: “What’s hiding under the water in Florida”.

Captions being shared with the clip on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook say: “HAARP is positioned perfectly right around Florida. It does seem to be activated as the whole state of Florida seems to be needing to prepare for what’s to come.” 

The video itself appears to originate from TikTok and was first shared on 5 October.

However, the area of ocean and apparatus that can be seen in the video is not related to the HAARP project. Full Fact has matched the site identified in the clip with an area off Key Largo in Florida called Snapper Ledge Reef. 

The video actually depicts an underwater coral nursery, which is one of many around the Florida Keys archipelago aimed at coral restoration in response to coral bleaching. 

Small fragments of staghorn and elkhorn corals are grown on artificial ‘trees’ which produce colonies that can be transplanted back into the reef months later.

What is HAARP, and could it cause hurricanes?

HAARP, which stands for ‘High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program’, is a high-frequency transmitter which is used to study the ionosphere and the thermosphere, layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, beginning from around 60 km altitude.

The facility’s main instrument is a number of antennas spread across 33 acres based in Gakona, Alaska.

These are designed to transmit radio waves into the ionosphere to cause electrons to move in waves to study how the ionosphere reacts to changing conditions. We have previously fact checked false claims that HAARP can cause the Northern Lights and peculiar clouds.

The radio waves from HAARP’s experiments would not cause or create hurricanes, which do not form in these higher levels of the atmosphere. 

Professor Chris Scott, Professor in Space and Atmospherics at the University of Reading told Full Fact that “HAARP is not responsible for causing Hurricane Milton or any other type of storm”.

“The technology to artificially create storms—especially Category 5 storms—does not exist. It is pure science fiction to suggest we have the technological prowess to develop deadly hurricanes,” he said via email.

“Hurricanes form naturally over warm tropical oceans. Rising warm air creates an area of low pressure. Surrounding air rushes in, creating wind. The Earth's rotation causes the system to spin. As it grows, it feeds on warm ocean water, intensifying wind speeds and forming the characteristic spiral structure of a hurricane. An increase in the intensity of such storms is predicted to result from climate change.”

Dr Ciaran Beggan at the British Geological Survey also told us that HAARP uses “tiny” amounts of power to transmit radio waves into the atmosphere, which would be a fraction of that needed to artificially create a hurricane.

HAARP Director Jessica Matthews said, in response to a query from Full Fact on whether it can affect hurricanes: “The research equipment at the HAARP facility is not capable of generating or amplifying such events.”

During significant weather events and natural disasters we often see misinformation, frequently in the form of miscaptioned videos, being shared online. We have previously debunked a number of false claims about weather manipulation and geoengineering, including chemtrails theories.