NOV,'01 The high-tech hunt for terrorist lairs
U.S. could employ satellites and antenna arrays to map caves
By Robert Windrem
NBC NEWS PRODUCER
Nov. 27 — The United States is using its growing expertise in virtual spelunking to search Afghanistan’s maze of caves for Osama bin Laden. Satellite imagery and an experimental underground mapping program hidden away in rural Alaska are just some of the tools at Washington’s disposal.
Do you think the United States will discover Osama bin Laden's hideout?
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Yes, primarily through betrayal.
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Do you think the United States will discover Osama bin Laden's hideout?
* 14290 responses
Yes, primarily through technology.
32%
Yes, primarily through target-by-target bombing.
11%
Yes, primarily through betrayal.
47%
No, the hideout won't be discovered.
7%
None of the above (share your view on the Science/Tech Discussion Board).
3%
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JEFF RICHELSON, an intelligence historian who works with the National Security Archive, says the United States has long been interested in looking underground and has put several systems to use over the years:
Spy satellites and spy planes that look for construction equipment and slight variations in ground temperatures, which can indicate the presence of structural elements like shafts, entrances and even communication links.
Seismic stations that listen for explosions associated with construction.
Ground sensors planted covertly by special operations forces and spies near suspected sites to monitor heat and sound from underground.
There have been a number of successes — for example, massive Soviet underground hideouts were discovered in 1971 by enhancing spy satellite pictures. But locating an underground structure and imaging it are two different things.
Richelson, author of “The Wizards of Langley,” a new book on spy technology, believes that two experimental spy satellites launched several years ago — code-named Cobra Brass and Misty — were used to further enhance U.S. detection capabilities. Moreover, newer versions of the CIA’s workhorse KH-11 spy satellites may have upgraded capabilities. Richelson said the advanced KH-11 is almost certainly involved in the effort to locate caves used by bin Laden and the Taliban.
Richelson noted that two key multispectral technologies would be particularly useful for tracking caves: infrared and thermal imaging.
“Infrared looks for reflected heat. Thermal looks for heat generated by the object,” he said. “The advanced KH-11 has had some capabilities in these areas since 1992. Whether that capability has been significantly upgraded is classified.”
Another tool the United States could find helpful in pinpointing caves is the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, which has already been used to track Taliban and al-Qaida movements.
The Predator, say imaging experts, is ideal for tracking heat sources because it has both infrared and thermal imaging capabilities, plus the ability to hover for hours above a suspect site.
A senior U.S. official would neither confirm nor deny the aerial vehicle’s usefulness, saying only that the Predator “has a variety of imaging capabilities.”
HAARP IN THE HUNT
Meanwhile, the United States has been spending millions of dollars on two above-ground stations that use experimental technology to find underground complexes. The stations are both in Alaska — one near Gokana, 180 miles east-northeast of Anchorage, and the other west of Fairbanks. Over the past five years, the government has spent $70 million on the technology.
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Of the two sites, the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Project near Gulkana, known by the acronym HAARP, is the most advanced. Run by the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force’s Phillips Laboratory with help from the University of Alaska, HAARP has been operating for seven years, first under secrecy then more recently in the open. And it has not been without controversy.
Using 72 180-foot antennae set on a 33-acre gravel pad, HAARP heats — some would say it boils — the ionosphere to create a “mirror” so that Extremely Long Advertisement
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Frequency/Very Long Frequency radio waves can bounce off and penetrate the Earth. By measuring anomalies in the return signal, the military has had some success in creating “images” of underground facilities, including human-made tunnels and natural cavities. Once identified, tunnel entrances can be more easily spotted by satellites or spy planes, communications from the complexes can be more easily intercepted by antennae in space or on the ground, and underground facilities can be more easily targeted.
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Such signals, according to the HAARP Web site, “can penetrate deeply beneath the surface and interact with the geological structure of the Earth. ... The research called for in this effort is to assess the viability of exploiting the concept of electromagnetic induction to detect and image subterranean features such as tunnels, bunkers and other potential military targets.”
Officials have said the detection of underground facilities was a byproduct of the main research mission of the project — “simulating the aurora borealis to determine how we can compensate for its effects on our satellites,” as one official put it. HAARP has also become a favorite of conspiracy theorists who see it as a “death ray,” a means of “mind control” on a massive scale and a phenomenon responsible for widespread buzzing sounds heard in Germany and during Turkish earthquakes.
MORE POWER
Just a week before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Office of Naval Research announced that it was negotiating with a Washington contractor, Advanced Power Technologies Inc., to enhance the system and bring it to full power. HAARP has been running at about one-quarter of its planned power.
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It is not known if HAARP has been used in the hunt for bin Laden’s caves, and attempts to reach Advanced Power Technologies were fruitless.
However, its Web site describes HAARP’s capabilities this way: “The (VLF/ELF) signals are useful for communications with land forces and submarines and, because they have great penetration range, for the investigation of subterranean formations or structures.”
Advanced Power Technologies also advertises that it has a full range of hyperspectral cameras and data-processing technology along with global ground tomography technology, which it describes as “characterization of underground structures.”
That means the company could easily combine HAARP’s ability to find underground structures with its own ability to find minute gradations in ground temperatures.
Although U.S. officials declined to say whether HAARP or other similar technologies were being used, they noted that looking for bin Laden was an “all-source intelligence effort.”
Robert Windrem is an investigative producer for NBC’s “Nightly News.” |
