FIGURE 2. Images from the HAARP telescope wide field camera showing speckle-like artificial optical emissions superimposed on the background aurora only during frames when the transmitter was on.

These data were taken at 557.7 nm during the minute of 06:41 ut on 10 March 2004. Frames taken during the 7.5 s the HAARP transmitter was turned on are in the top row with 'off' images along the bottom row. The camera was pointed at the magnetic zenith and covered a field of view of about 12° across, corresponding to a distance of about 20 km at an altitude of 100 km of the auroral E layer. Each image was integrated for just over 7 s so that with the data readout time the system would start each exposure at the beginning of each 7.5-s on or off period, indicated at lower left. True zenith is towards upper right and west is towards lower right. The speckles are visible in the upper row as bright spots much bigger than the stars and noise pixels. The larger speckles are approximately 30 pixels, or one degree, across, corresponding to a true size of about 1.75 km at the assumed 100-km altitude of the emission. The elongated shape and apparent displacement of many of the speckles are consistent with motion of the features of the order of several hundred metres per second of exposure time. Some frames, including those shown here, show small darker bands in the background suggestive of black aurora¹⁰, but as speckles are present in other frames lacking any apparent black aurora there does not appear to be any direct correlation.