An enduring conspiracy theory has resurfaced on social media after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit western Colombia on Monday, with users blaming a research program in Alaska for the disaster.
Posts falsely claim that the earthquake, which has killed at least 270 people and left widespread damage, was caused by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, which studies the properties and behavior of the upper atmosphere.
But the earthquake was caused by natural movements in the Earth's crust. Experts say it had nothing to do with human activities.
Here's a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: HAARP caused the 7.4 magnitude earthquake in western Colombia on Monday.
THE FACTS: This is false. The U.S. Geological Survey says that the Colombia earthquake was caused primarily by “strike-slip faulting” — when two sections of Earth’s crust move horizontally past each other. The epicenter of the earthquake is within the country's Pacific region, which lies along the “Ring of Fire,” a line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world's earthquakes occur.
“No human endeavor caused this earthquake,” said Suzan Van der Lee, a seismologist and professor at Northwestern University. “The Colombia earthquake occurred in a region with many natural earthquakes.”
She said there are cases where human activity in shallow parts of the Earth's crust such as gas extraction or waste water injection has caused small- to moderate-magnitude earthquakes. But the earthquake in Colombia occurred at a depth of 110 kilometers — at least 10 times deeper than any caused by humans, Van der Lee noted.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks has operated HAARP since 2015. It was previously run by the U.S. military, which still owns the land where the program is located.
HAARP has been the subject of conspiracy theories since the military started building it in the early 1990s. In addition to allegations that it can cause earthquakes, believers have falsely claimed that it is a mind-control device and that it can control the weather.
Researchers at HAARP study the physical processes occurring in the highest parts of Earth's atmosphere — the thermosphere and ionosphere — by using high-frequency radio transmitters to heat small regions and observing the effects.
The program uses many scientific instruments, but the one that is often at the heart of conspiracy theories is its Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), the world's most powerful high-frequency radio transmitter.
“I can confidently state that there is ZERO physical basis for radio-frequency transmissions having any effects on the occurrence of earthquakes,” said Dean Whitman, a geophysicist at Florida International University, who called hypotheses about HAARP's supposed impact “ridiculous.”
He pointed to a number of reasons the claims are not valid. One, the energy released by the Colombia earthquake was “much larger than that released by even the largest hydrogen bombs” and “millions of times larger than the energy produced by the HAARP array.” Two, HAARP's equipment is pointed upward, not downward toward where earthquakes occur. And three, the radio transmitters it uses produce electromagnetic waves that would not be able to cause earthquakes because they “involve a completely different set of physics."
The search for those buried in the rubble of the Colombia earthquake is ongoing. Tons of aid from regional partners began to roll into the country on Wednesday.
Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
Soldiers clear debris three days after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
NEW YORK (AP) — Jaylen Brown and Giannis Antetokounmpo will play homecoming games a week apart in January.
The 2026-27 NBA schedule was released Thursday, setting the dates for the two former NBA Finals MVPs to return to face the teams that traded them this summer.
The schedules for opening night and Christmas had already been unveiled earlier this week, so those two games were among the most intriguing matchups not yet known. Brown, who was dealt from the Celtics to the rival Philadelphia 76ers in a stunning move, will play his first game back in Boston on Jan. 21.
Antetokounmpo was expected to be traded by Milwaukee this offseason — at one point speculation was that he might be swapped for Brown — and was eventually dealt to Miami. The Heat will travel to face the Bucks for the first time on Jan. 28.
Both of those games, which will be on Thursday nights, will stream on Prime Video.
Other details about the schedule:
The season will open Oct. 20 with a tripleheader, highlighted by LeBron James, Brown and the 76ers visiting the Knicks, who will receive their rings after winning the franchise's first championship since 1973.
The regular season ends April 11. All-Star weekend is set for Feb. 19-21 in Phoenix.
Every team will play on Monday, Nov. 2, and there will then be no games the following night, which is Election Day in the U.S. The league is leaving that first Tuesday in November as an open day in hopes that fans and members of the NBA community will participate in the voting process.
No teams will play on Saturday, April 10, the second-to-last day of the regular season. Every team is then in action on the final day, with all the games matching Eastern Conference teams and the one interconference matchup scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. EDT. The games involving West teams are set for 8:30 p.m.
There will be 90 regular-season games televised nationally on ABC or NBC, up from 79 last season. Every team will be scheduled to appear on national TV at least twice.
Throughout the season, games will stream on Peacock on Monday nights, be shown on NBC and Peacock on Tuesdays, be televised by ESPN on Wednesdays, and stream on Prime Video on Fridays.
Saturday night primetime games on ABC begin Dec. 12 with the Knicks visiting the Heat, while NBC's “Sunday Night Basketball” returns Jan. 24 with Oklahoma City visiting Golden State.
Prime Video will begin streaming Thursday night doubleheaders in January and some Saturday afternoon games starting Feb. 6 with Portland at Memphis, when Ja Morant returns to face the Grizzlies for the first time.
The NBA champion Knicks have the most appearances on ABC with six, while the Lakers, 76ers, San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Timberwolves all are featured on ESPN eight times.
The Knicks, Spurs, 76ers, Thunder, Warriors, Nuggets, Lakers and Houston all get the maximum 11 appearances on NBC.
Teams will average 14.2 back-to-backs this season, the lowest total since the NBA Cup was added to the schedule, and no team will have more than 16. No team will play eight games in 12 nights, or 18 in 30.
There are 59 back-to-backs involving at least 750 miles of travel, down from 74 last season.
No team will be scheduled to play the night before games in the NBA Cup, or if they are in nationally televised games on Christmas Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Sunday nights on NBC or Saturday nights on ABC.
If Kevin Durant averages 26 points, as he did in his first season in Houston, he could move past Kobe Bryant into fourth place on the career scoring list sometime around Jan. 16, when the Rockets would be at the midpoint of their schedule.
Rick Carlisle is set to become the eighth man to coach 2,000 NBA games on March 8, when the Indiana Pacers play their 65th game of the season.
See AP’s full NBA coverage here
FILE - Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown plays during Game 6 in a first-round NBA basketball playoff series, April 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
