5:56 PM 10/30/2012

David Martosko

Executive Editor

Here come the conspiracy theorists.

“Is Hurricane Sandy a ‘Mitt Romney’ Enginereed Storm?” That’s a question asked, straight-faced, in the title of one video uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 30.

Christopher Greene, a conspiracy-minded “alternative” radio host, argued during his Tuesday broadcast that the storm is “perfect timing” for Romney’s campaign. “In fact,” he said, “this is kinda like winning the lottery for Mitt Romney.”

“Which makes us ask the question: Is this an engineered storm? Could it perhaps be some kind of government HAARP program that is potentially reeling this storm in? Because this literally is the best thing that could happen for a Mitt Romney campaign.”

HAARP, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a government program jointly funded by the University of Alaska and several Pentagon agencies. Its purpose is to send radio signals into the ionosphere — a layer of the earth’s atmosphere that begins at about 52 miles off the ground — and measure their effects.

Scientists in the HAARP program hope to learn how to effectively transmit radio signals over greater distances in parts of the atmosphere that are most likely to see interference from the sun.

But Greene wondered aloud if President Barack Obama’s likely inability to manage Sandy’s after-effects in the few days remaining before the Nov. 6 election would doom his re-election chances.

“So this is very pessimistic for President Obama, very pessimistic for his campaign,” he said. “And it begs the question: ‘Is this an engineered storm?’

Greene isn’t the only one to say this out loud, nor was he the first. But others argue that if anyone engineered Sandy, it was the Obama administration.

Alex Jones, the Austin, Texas-based radio host whose listeners line up for tidbits about secret societies and “staged” elections, called the then still-approaching Sandy “the engineered storm of the century” on Oct. 26.

He charged during that day’s broadcast that in 1967 the federal government claimed that “with 10 aircraft,” a supervising meteorologist “could create hurricanes, he could kill hurricanes, he could strengthen hurricanes, he could weaken hurricanes.”

“It may be a natural storm,” he said. “But the fact is that because they have these weather weapon systems, we must look at this.”

Jones told his audience on Oct. 26 that the coming hurricane would “dominate the election now in the final stretch, right as Romney was coming up [in the polls],” creating an advantage for the president that Obama’s team could have created.

“You know, sometimes it takes them a week to two weeks to get all the power back on,” Jones said. “You know they’re going to try to delay the election if it knocks out the power to large cities. I mean, wow! … The police have been told [to] get ready for troops on the streets.”

“Now this storm — I’ve gotta be honest — I think it spells doom for Romney.”