Copyright © Martin Cannon, 1997
THE CONTROLLERS:
Part I
Part II
Selected Bibliography on Mind Control
Part I
One wag has dubbed the problem "Terra and the Pirates."
The pirates, ostensibly, are marauders from another
solar system; their victims include a growing number of
troubled human beings who insist that they've been
shanghaied by these otherworldly visitors. An outlandish
scenario -- yet through the works of such authors as Budd
Hopkins[1] and Whitley Strieber[2], the "alien abduction"
syndrome has seized the public imagination. Indeed, tales of
UFO contact threaten to lapse into fashionability, even
though, as I have elsewhere noted[3], they may still inflict
a formidable social price upon the claimant.
Some time ago, I began to research these claims,
concentrating my studies on the social and political
environment surrounding these events. As I studied, the
project grew and its scope widened. Indeed, I began to feel
as though I'd gone digging through familiar terrain only to
unearth Gomorrah.
These excavations may have disgorged a solution.
THE PROBLEM
Among ufologists, the term "abduction" has come to
refer to an infinitely confounding experience, or matrix of
experiences, shared by a dizzying number of individuals, who
claim that travellers from the stars have scooped them out
of their beds, or snatched them from their cars, and
subjected them to interrogations, quasi-medical
examinations, and "instruction" periods. Usually, these
sessions are said to occur within alien spacecraft;
frequently, the stories include terrifying details
reminiscent of the tortures inflicted in Germany's death
camps. The abductees often (though not always) lose all
memory of these events; they find themselves back in their
cars or beds, unable to account for hours of "missing time."
Hypnosis, or some other trigger, can bring back these
haunted hours in an explosion of recollection -- and as the
smoke clears, an abductee will often spot a trail of similar
experiences, stretching all the way back to childhood.
Perhaps the oddest fact of these odd tales: Many
abductees, for all their vividly-recollected agonies, claim
to love their alien tormentors. That's the word I've heard
repeatedly: love.
Within the community of "scientific ufologists" --
those lonely, all-too little-heard advocates of reasonable
and open-minded debate on matters saucerological -- these
claims have elicited cautious interest and a commendable
restraint from conclusion-hopping. Outside the higher
realms of scientific ufology, the situation is, alas, quite
different. In the popular press, in both the "straight" and
sensationalist media, within that journalistic realm where
issues are defined and public opinion solidified (despite a
frequently superficial approach to matters of evidence and
investigation) abduction scenarios have elicited two basic
reactions: that of the Believer and the Skeptic.
The Believers -- and here we should note that
"Believers" and "abductees" are two groups whose memberships
overlap but are in no way congruent -- accept such stories
at face value. They accept, despite the seeming absurdity
of these tales, the internal contradictions, the askew logic
of narrative construction, the severe discontinuity of
emotional response to the actions described. The Believers
believe, despite reports that their beloved "space brothers"
use vile and inhuman tactics of medical examination --
senseless procedures most of us (and certainly the vanguard
of an advanced race) would be ashamed to inflict on an
animal. The Believers believe, despite the difficulty of
reconciling these unsettling tales with their own deliriums
of benevolent off-worlders.
Occasionally, the rough notes of a rationalization are
offered: "The aliens don't know what they are doing," we
hear; or "Some aliens are bad." Yet the Believers confound
their own reasoning when they insist on ascribing the wisdom
of the ages and the beneficence of the angels to their
beloved visitors. The aliens allegedly know enough about
our society to go about their business undetected by the
local authorities and the general public; they communicate
with the abductees in human tongue; they concern themselves
with details of the percipients' innermost lives -- yet they
remain so ignorant of our culture as to be unaware of the
basic moral precepts concerning the dignity of the
individual and the right to self-determination. Such
dichotomies don't bother the Believers; they are the
faithful, and faith is assumed to have its mysteries.
SANCTA SIMPLICITAS.
Conversely, the Skeptics dismiss these stories out of
hand. They dismiss, despite the intriguing confirmatory
details: the multiple witness events, the physical traces
left by the ufonauts, the scars and implants left on the
abductees. The skeptics scoff, though the abductees tell
stories similar in detail -- even certain tiny details, not
known to the general public.
Philip Klass is a debunker who, through his appearances
on such television programs as NOVA and NIGHTLINE, has been
in a position to affect much of the public debate on UFOs.
In his interesting but poorly-documented work on
abductions[4], Klass claims that "abduction" is a
psychological disease, spread by those who write about it.
This argument exactly resembles the professional press-
basher's frequent assertion that terrorism metastasizes
through media exposure. Yet for all the millions of words
expectorated by newsfolk on the subject of terrorism,
terrorist actions remain quite rare, as any statistician
(though few politicians) will admit, and verifiable linkage
between crimes and their coverage remains to be found. For
that matter, there have been books -- bestsellers, even --
on unicorns and gnomes. People who claim to see those
creatures are few. Abductees are plentiful.
Both Believer and Skeptic, in my opinion, miss the real
story. Both make the same mistake: They connect the
abduction phenomenon to the forty-year history of UFO
sightings, and they apply their prejudices about the latter
to the controversy about the former.
At first sight, the link seems natural. Shouldn't our
thoughts about UFOs color our thoughts about UFO abductions?
NO.
They may well be separate issues. Or, rather, they are
connected only in this: The myth of the UFO has provided an
effective cover story for an entirely different sort of
mystery. Remove yourself from the Believer/Skeptic
dialectic, and you will see the third alternative.
As we examine this alternative, we will, of necessity,
stray far from the saucers. We must turn our face from the
paranormal and concentrate on the occult -- if, by "occult,"
we mean SECRET.
I posit that the abductees HAVE been abducted. Yet
they are also spewing fantasy -- or, more precisely, they
have been given a set of lies to repeat and believe. If my
hypothesis proves true, then we must accept the following:
The kidnapping is real. The fear is real. The pain is
real. The instruction is real. But the little grey men
from Zeti Reticuli are NOT real; they are constructs,
Halloween masks meant to disguise the real faces of the
controllers. The abductors may not be visitors from Beyond;
rather, they may be a symptom of the carcinoma which
blackens our body politic.
The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.
THE HYPOTHESIS
Substantial evidence exists linking members of this
country's intelligence community (including the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, and the Office of Naval Intelligence) with the
esoteric technology of MIND CONTROL. For decades, "spy-
chiatrists" working behind the scenes -- on college
campuses, in CIA-sponsored institutes, and (most heinously)
in prisons -- have experimented with the erasure of memory,
hypnotic resistance to torture, truth serums, post-hypnotic
suggestion, rapid induction of hypnosis, electronic
stimulation of the brain, non-ionizing radiation, microwave
induction of intracerebral "voices," and a host of even more
disturbing technologies. Some of the projects exploring
these areas were ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, PANDORA, MKDELTA,
MKSEARCH and the infamous MKULTRA.
I have read nearly every available book on these
projects, as well as the relevant congressional
testimony[5]. I have also spent much time in university
libraries researching relevant articles, contacting other
researchers (who have graciously allowed me access to their
files), and conducting interviews. Moreover, I traveled to
Washington, DC to review the files John Marks compiled when
he wrote THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE"[6].
These files include some 20,000 pages of CIA and Defense
Department documents, interviews, scientific articles,
letters, etc. The views presented here are the result of
extensive and ongoing research.
As a result of this research, I have come to the
following conclusions:
2. Clandestine research into thought manipulation has
NOT stopped, despite CIA protestations that it no longer
sponsors such studies. Victor Marchetti, 14-year veteran of
the CIA and author of the renown expose, THE CIA AND THE
CULT OF INTELLIGENCE, confirmed in a 1977 interview that the
mind control research continues, and that CIA claims to the
contrary are a "cover story."[9]
3. The Central Intelligence Agency was not the only
government agency involved in this research[10]. Indeed,
many branches of our government took part in these studies -
- including NASA, the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as
all branches of the Defense Department.
To these conclusions I would append the following --
NOT as firmly-established historical fact, but as a working
hypothesis and grounds for investigation:
4. The "UFO abduction" phenomenon MIGHT be a
continuation of clandestine mind control operations.
I recognize the difficulties this thesis might present
to those readers emotionally wedded to the extraterrestrial
hypothesis, or to those whose political WELTANSHAUUNG
disallows any such suspicions. Still, the open-minded
student of abductions should consider the possibilities.
Certainly, we are not being narrow-minded if we ask
researchers to exhaust ALL terrestrial explanations before
looking heavenward.
Granted, this particular explanation may, at first,
seem as bizarre as the phenomenon itself. But I invite the
skeptical reader to examine the work of George Estabrooks, a
seminal theorist on the use of hypnosis in warfare, and a
veteran of Project MKULTRA. Estabrooks once amused himself
during a party by covertly hypnotizing two friends, who were
led to believe that the Prime Minister of England had just
arrived; Estabrooks' victims spent an hour conversing with,
and even serving drinks to, the esteemed visitor[11]. For
ufologists, this incident raises an inescapable question: If
the Mesmeric arts can successfully evoke a non-existent
Prime Minister, why can't a representative from the Pleiades
be similarly induced?
But there is much more to the present day technology of
mind control than mere hypnosis -- and many good reasons to
suspect that UFO abduction accounts are an artifact of
continuing brainwashing/behavior modification experiments.
Moreover, I intend to demonstrate that, by using UFO
mythology as a cover story, the experimenters may have
solved the major problem with the work conducted in the
1950s -- "the disposal problem," i.e., the question of "What
do we do with the victims?"
If, in these pages, I seem to stray from the subject of
the saucers, I plead for patience. Before I attempt to link
UFO abductions with mind control experiments, I must first
show that this technology EXISTS. Much of the forthcoming
is an introduction to the topic of mind control -- what it
is, and how it works.
Part II
The Technology A BRIEF OVERVIEW
In the early days of World War II, George Estabrooks,
of Colgate University, wrote to the Department of War,
describing in breathless terms the possible uses of hypnosis
in warfare[12]. The Army was intrigued; Estabrooks had a
job. The true history of Estabrooks' wartime collaboration
with the CID, FBI[13] and other agencies may never be told:
After the war, he burned his diary pages covering the years
1940-45, and thereafter avoided discussing his continuing
government work with anyone, even close members of the
family[14]. Occasionally, he strongly intimated that his
work involved the creation of hypno-programmed couriers and
hypnotically-induced split personalities, but whether he
succeeded in these areas remains a controversial point.
Nevertheless, the eccentric and flamboyant Estabrooks
remains a pivotal figure in the early history of clandestine
behavioral research.
Which is not to say that he worked alone. World War II
was the first conflict in which the human brain became a
field of battle, where invading forces were led by the most
notable names in psychology and pharmacology. On both
sides, the war spurred furious efforts to create a "truth
drug" for use in interrogating prisoners. General William
"Wild Bill" Donovan, director of the OSS, tasked his crack
team -- including Dr. Winifred Overhulser, Dr. Edward
Strecker, Harry J. Anslinger and George White -- to modify
human perception and behavior through chemical means; their
"medicine cabinet" included scopolamine, peyote,
barbiturates, mescaline, and marijuana. (This research had
its amusing side: Donovan's "psychic warriors" conducted
many extensive and expensive trials before deciding that the
best method of administering tetrahydrocannabinol, the
active ingredient in marijuana, was via the cigarette. Any
jazz musician could have told them as much[15].)
Simultaneously, the notorious NAZI doctors at Dachau
experimented with mescaline as a means of eliminating the
victim's will to resist. Jews, slavs, gypsies, and other
"Untermenschen" in the camp were surreptitiously slipped the
drug; later, mescaline was combined with hypnosis[16]. The
results of these tests were made available to the United
States after the War. [cf. Operation PAPERCLIP, which
transferred thousands of German and Japanese intelligence
researchers directly into the U.S. intelligence community.
"Our Germans are BETTER than their Germans!" - DR.
STRANGELOVE -jpg]
In 1947, the Navy conducted the first known post-war
mind control program, Project CHAPTER, which continued the
drug experiments. Decades later, journalists and
investigators still haven't uncovered much information about
this project -- or, indeed, about any of the military's
other excursions into this field. We know that the Army
eventually founded operations THIRD CHANCE and DERBY HAT;
other project names remain mysterious, though the existence
of these programs is unquestionable. [? -jpg]
The newly-formed CIA plunged into this cesspool in
1950, with Project BLUEBIRD, rechristened ARTICHOKE in 1951.
To establish a "cover story" for this research, the CIA
funded a propaganda effort designed to convince the world
that the Communist Bloc had devised insidious new methods of
re-shaping the human will; the CIA's own efforts could
therefore, if exposed, be explained as an attempt to "catch
up" with Soviet and Chinese work. The primary promoter of
this "line" was one Edward Hunter, a CIA contract employee
operating undercover as a journalist, and, later, a
prominent member of the John Birch society. (Hunter was an
OSS veteran of the China theatre -- the same spawning
grounds which produced Richard Helms, Howard Hunt, Mitch
WerBell, Fred Chrisman, Paul Helliwell and a host of other
note-worthies who came to dominate that strange land where
the worlds of intelligence and right-wing extremism
meet[17].) Hunter offered "brainwashing" as the explanation
for the numerous confessions signed by American prisoners of
war during the Korean War and (generally) UN-recanted upon
the prisoners' repatriation. These confessions alleged that
the United States used germ warfare in the Korean conflict,
a claim which the American public of the time found
impossible to accept. Many years later, however,
investigative reporters discovered that Japan's germ warfare
specialists (who had wreaked incalculable terror on the
conquered Chinese during WWII) had been mustered into the
American national security apparat -- and that the knowledge
gleaned from Japan's horrifying germ warfare experiments
probably WAS used in Korea, just as the "brainwashed"
soldiers had indicated[18]. Thus, we now know that the
entire brainwashing scare of the 1950s constituted a CIA
hoax perpetrated upon the American public: CIA deputy
director Richard Helms admitted as much when, in 1963, he
told the Warren Commission that Soviet mind control research
consistently lagged years behind American efforts[19].
When the CIA's mind control program was transferred
from the Office of Security to the Technical Services Staff
(TSS) in 1953, the name changed again -- to MKULTRA[20].
Many consider this wide-ranging "octopus" project -- whose
tentacles twined through the corridors of numerous
universities and around the necks of an army of scientists -
- the most ominous operation in CIA's catalogue of atrocity.
Through MKULTRA, the Agency created an umbrella program of a
positively Joycean scope, designed to ferret out all
possible means of invading what George Orwell once called
"the space between our ears" (Later still, in 1962, mind
control research was transferred to the Office of Research
and Development; project cryptonyms remain unrevealed[21].)
What was studied? Everything -- including hypnosis,
conditioning, sensory deprivation, drugs, religious cults,
microwaves, psychosurgery, brain implants, and even ESP.
When MKULTRA "leaked" to the public during the great CIA
investigations of the 1970s, public attention focused most
heavily on drug experimentation and the work with ESP[22].
Mystery still shrouds another area of study, the area which
seems to have most interested ORD: psychoelectronics. This
research may prove key to our understanding of the UFO
abduction phenomenon.
IMPLANTS
Perhaps the most interesting pieces of evidence
surrounding the abduction phenomenon are the intracerebral
implants allegedly visible in the X-rays and MRI scans of
many abductees[23]. Indeed, abductees often describe
operations in which needles are inserted into the brain;
more frequently still, they report implantation of foreign
objects through the sinus cavities. Many abduction
specialists assume that these intracranial incursions must
be the handiwork of scientists from the stars.
Unfortunately, these researchers have failed to familiarize
themselves with certain little-heralded advances in
terrestrial technology.
The abductees' implants strongly suggest a
technological lineage which can be traced to a device known
as a "stimoceiver," invented in the late '50s - early '60s
by a neuroscientist named Jose Delgado. The stimoceiver is
a miniature depth electrode which can receive and transmit
electronic signals over FM radio waves. By stimulating a
correctly-positioned stimoceiver, an outside operator can
wield a surprising degree of control over the subject's
responses.
The most famous example of the stimoceiver in action
occurred in a Madrid bull ring. Delgado "wired" the bull
before stepping into the ring, entirely unprotected.
Furious for gore, the bull charged toward the doctor -- then
stopped, just before reaching him. The technician-turned-
toreador had halted the animal by simply pushing a button on
a black box, held in the hand[24].
Delgado's PHYSICAL CONTROL OF THE MIND: TOWARD A
PSYCHOCIVILIZED SOCIETY[25] remains the sole, full-length,
popularly-written work on intracerebral implants and
electronic stimulation of the brain (ESB). (The book's
ominous title and unconvincing philosophical rationales for
mass mind control prompted an unfavorable public reaction --
which may have deterred other researchers from publishing on
this theme for a general audience.) While subsequent work
has long since superseded the techniques described in this
book, Delgado's achievements were seminal. His animal and
human experiments clearly demonstrate that the experimenter
can electronically induce emotions and behavior: Under
certain conditions, the extremes of temperament -- rage,
lust, fatigue, etc. -- can be elicited by an outside
operator as easily as an organist might call forth a C-major
chord.
Delgado writes: "Radio stimulation of different points
in the amygdala and hippocampus in the four patients
produced a variety of effects, including pleasant
sensations, elation, deep, thoughtful concentration, odd
feelings, super relaxation, colored visions, and other
responses."[26] The evocative phrase "colored vision"
clearly indicates remotely-induced hallucination; we will
detail later how these hallucinations may be "controlled" by
an outside operator.
Speaking in 1966 -- and reflecting research undertaken
years previous -- Delgado asserted that his experiments
"support the distasteful conclusion that motion, emotion,
and behavior can be directed by electrical forces and that
humans can be controlled like robots by push buttons."[27]
He even prophesied a day when brain control could be turned
over to non-human operators, by establishing two-way radio
communication between the implanted brain and a
computer[28].
Of one experimental subject, Delgado notes that "the
patient expressed the successive sensations of fainting,
fright and floating around. These 'floating' feelings were
repeatedly evoked on different days by stimulation of the
same point..."[29] Ufologists may recognize the similarity
of this sequence of events to abductee reports of the
opening minutes of their experiences[30]. Under subsequent
hypnosis, the abductee could be instructed to mis-remember
the cause of this floating sensation.
In a fascinating series of experiments, Delgado
attached the stimoceiver to the tympanic membrane, thereby
transforming the ear into a sort of microphone. An
assistant would whisper "How are you?" into the ear of a
suitably "fixed" cat, and Delgado could hear the words over
a loudspeaker in the next room. The application of this
technology to the spy trade should be readily apparent.
According to Victor Marchetti, The Agency once attempted a
highly sophisticated extension of this basic idea, in which
radio implants were attached to a cat's cochlea, to
facilitate the pinpointing of specific conversations, freed
from extraneous surrounding noises[31]. Such "advances"
exacerbate the already-imposing level of Twentieth-Century
paranoia: Not only can our phones be tapped and mail
checked, but even TABBY may be spying on us!
Yet the ramifications of this technology may go even
deeper than Marchetti indicates. I presume that if a
suitably-wired subject's inner ear can be made into a
microphone, it can also be made into a loudspeaker -- one
possible explanation for the "voices" heard by
abductees[32]. Indeed, I have personally viewed a strange,
opalescent implant within the ear canal of an abductee. I
see no reason to ascribe this device to alien intrusion --
more than likely, the "intruders" in this case were the
technological inheritors of the Delgado legacy. Indeed, not
many years after Delgado's experiments with the cat, Ralph
Schwitzgebel devised a "bug-in-the-ear" via which the
therapist -- odd term, under the circumstances -- can
communicate with his subject[33].
Other researchers have made notable contributions to
this field.
Robert G. Heath, of Tulane University, who has
implanted as many as 125 electrodes in his subjects,
achieved his greatest notoriety by attempting to "cure"
homosexuality through ESB. In his experiments, he
discovered that he could control his patients' memory, (a
feat which, applied in the ufological context, may account
for the phenomenon of "missing time"); he could also induce
sexual arousal, fear, pleasure, and hallucinations[34].
Heath and another researcher, James Olds[35], have
independently illustrated that areas of the brain in and
near the hypothalamus have, when electronically stimulated,
what has been described as "rewarding" and "aversive"
effects. Both animals and men, when given the means to
induce their own ESB of the brain's pleasure centers, will
stimulate themselves at a tremendous rate, ignoring such
basic drives as hunger and thirst[36]. (Using fixed
electrodes of his own invention, John C. Lilly had
accomplished similar effects in the early 1950s[37].)
Anyone who has studied the abduction phenomenon will find
himself on familiar territory here, for the abductee
accounts are replete with stories of bewildering and
inappropriate sexual response countered by extremely painful
stimuli -- operant conditioning, at its most extreme, and
most insidious, for here we see a form of conditioning in
which the manipulator renders himself invisible. Indeed,
B.F. Skinner-esque aversive therapy, remotely applied, was
Heath's prescription for "healing" homosexuality[38].
here here Ralph Schwitzgebel and his brother Robert
have produced a panoply of devices for tracking individuals
over long ranges; they may be considered the creators of the
"electronic house arrest" devices recently approved by the
courts[39]. Schwitzgebel devices could be used for tracking
all the physical and neurological signs of a "patient"
within a quarter of a mile[40], thereby lifting the distance
limitations which restricted Delgado.
In Ralph Schwitzgebel's initial work, application of
this technology to ESB seems to have been limited to
cumbersome brain implants with protruding wires. But the
technology was soon miniaturized, and a scheme was proposed
whereby radio receivers would be mounted on utility poles
throughout a given city, thereby providing 24-hour-a-day
monitoring capability[41]. Like Heath, Schwitzgebel was
much exercised about homosexuality and the use of
intracranial devices to combat sexual deviation. But he has
also spoken ominously about applying his devices to
"socially troublesome persons"... which, of course, could
mean anyone[42].
Bryan Robinson, of the Yerkes primate laboratory has
conducted fascinating simian research on the use of remote
ESB in a social context. He could cause mothers to ignore
their offspring, despite the babies' cries. He could turn
submission into dominance, and vice-versa[43].
Perhaps the most disturbing wanderer into this mind-
field is Joseph A. Meyer, of the National Security Agency,
the most formidable and secretive component of America's
national security complex. Meyer has proposed implanting
roughly half of all Americans arrested -- not necessarily
convicted -- of any crime; the numbers of "subscribers" (his
euphemism) would run into the tens of millions.
"Subscribers" could be monitored continually by computer
wherever they went. Meyer, who has carefully worked out the
economics of his mass-implantation system, asserts that
taxpayer liability should be reduced by forcing subscribers
to "rent" the implant from the State. Implants are cheaper
and more efficient than police, Meyer suggests, since the
call to crime is relentless for the poor "urban dweller" --
who, this spook-scientist admits in a surprisingly candid
aside, is fundamentally unnecessary to a post-industrial
economy. "Urban dweller" may be another of Meyer's
euphemisms: He uses New York's Harlem as his model community
in working out the details of his mind-management
system[44].
ABDUCTEE IMPLANTS
If we are to take seriously abductee accounts of brain
implants, we must consider the possibility that the
implanters, properly perceived, DON'T look much like the
"greys" pictured on Strieber's dust-jackets. Instead, the
visitors may resemble Dr. Meyer and his brethren. We would
thus have an explanation for both the reports of abductee
brain implants and, as we shall see, the "scoop marks" and
other scars visible on other parts of the abductees' bodies.
We would also have an explanation for the reports of
individuals suffering personality change after contact with
the UFO phenomenon.
Skeptics might counter that the time factor of UFO
abductions disallows this possibility. If estimates of
"missing time" are correct, the abductions rarely take
longer than one-to-three hours. Wouldn't a brain surgeon,
operating under less-than-ideal conditions (perhaps in a
mobile unit) need more time?
NO -- not if we accept the claims of a Florida doctor
named Daniel Man. He recently proposed a draconian solution
to the overblown "missing children problem," by suggesting a
program wherein America's youngsters would be implanted with
tiny transmitters in order to track the children
continuously. Man brags that the operation can be done right
in the office -- and would take less than 20 minutes[45].
Conceivably, it might take a tad longer in the field.
A QUESTION OF TIMING
The history of brain implantation, as gleaned from the
open literature, is certainly disquieting. Yet this history
has almost certainly been censored, and the dates
manipulated in a nigh-Orwellian fashion. When dealing with
research funded by the engines of national security, one can
never know the true origin date of any individual scientific
advance. However, if we listen carefully to the scientists
who have pioneered this research, we may hear whispers,
faint but unmistakable, hinting that remotely-applied ESB
originated earlier than published studies would indicate.
In his autobiography THE SCIENTIST, John C. Lilly (who
would later achieve a cultish renown for his work with
dolphins, drugs and sensory deprivation) records a
conversation he had with the director of the National
Institute of Mental Health -- in 1953. The director asked
Lilly to brief the CIA, FBI, NSA and the various military
intelligence services on his work using electrodes to
stimulate directly the pleasure and pain centers of the
brain. Lilly refused, noting, in his reply:
Dr. Antoine Remond, using our techniques in Paris, has
demonstrated that this method of stimulation of the brain
can be applied to the human without the help of the
neurosurgeon; he is doing it in his office in Paris without
neurosurgical supervision. This means that anybody with the
proper apparatus can carry this out on a person covertly,
with no external signs that electrodes have been used on
that person. I feel that if this technique got into the
hands of a secret agency, they would have total control over
a human being and be able to change his beliefs extremely
quickly, leaving little evidence of what they had done[46].
Lilly's assertion of the moral high ground here is
interesting. Despite his avowed phobia against secrecy, a
careful reading of THE SCIENTIST reveals that he continued
to do work useful to this country's national security
apparatus. His sensory deprivation experiments expanded upon
the work of ARTICHOKE's Maitland Baldwin, and even his
dolphin research has -- perhaps inadvertently proved useful
in naval warfare[47]. One should note that Lilly's work on
monkeys carried a "secret" classification, and that NIMH
was a common CIA funding conduit[48].
But the most important aspect of Lilly's statement is
its date. 1953? How far back does radio-controlled ESB go?
Alas, I have not yet seen Remond's work -- if it is
available in the open literature. In the documents made
available to Marks, the earliest reference to remotely-
applied ESB is a 1959 financial document pertaining to
MKULTRA subproject 94. The general subproject descriptions
sent to the CIA's financial department rarely contain much
information, and rarely change from year to year, leaving us
little idea as to when this subproject began.
Unfortunately, even the Freedom of Information Act
couldn't pry loose much information on electronic mind
control techniques, though we know a great deal of study was
done in these areas. We have, for example, only four pages
on subproject 94 -- by comparison, a veritable flood of
documents were released on the use of drugs in mind control.
(Whenever an author tells us that MKULTRA met with little
success, the reference is to drug testing.) On this point, I
must criticize John Marks: His book never mentions that
roughly 20-25 percent of the subprojects are "dark" --
i.e., little or no information was ever made available,
despite lawyers and FOIA requests. Marks seems to feel that
the only information worth having is the information he
received. We know, however, that research into
psychoelectronics was extensive indeed, statements of
project goals dating from ARTICHOKE and BLUEBIRD days
clearly identify this area as a high priority. Marks'
anonymous informant, jocularly named "Deep Trance," even
told a previous interviewer that, beginning in 1963, CIA and
the military's mind control efforts strongly emphasized
electronics[49]. I therefore assume -- not rashly, I hope -
- that the "dark" MKULTRA subprojects concerned matters such
as brain implants, microwaves, ESB, and related
technologies.
I make an issue of the timing and secrecy involved in
this research to underscore three points:
2. The open literature almost certainly
gives a bowdlerized view of the actual research.
3. Lavishly-funded clandestine researchers -- unrestrained by
peer review or the need for strict controls -- can achieve
far more rapid progress than scientists "on the outside."
THE QUANDARY
We have amply demonstrated, then, that as far back as
the 1960s -- and possibly earlier still -- scientists have
had the capability to create implants similar to those now
purportedly visible in abductee MRI scans. Indeed, we have
no notion just how advanced this technology has become,
since the popular press stopped reporting on brain
implantation in the 1970s. The research has no doubt
continued, albeit in a less public fashion. In fact,
scientists such as Delgado have cast their eye far beyond
the implants; ESB effects can now be elicited with
microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation,
used with and without electrodes.
So why -- if we take UFO abduction accounts at face
value -- are the "advanced aliens" using an old technology,
an EARTH technology, a technology which may soon be rendered
obsolescent, if it hasn't been so rendered already? I am
reminded of the charming anachronisms in the old Flash
Gordon serials, where swords and spaceships clashed
continually.
Do they also watch black-and-white television on Zeta
Reticuli?
REMOTE HYPNOSIS
Hypnosis provides the (highly controversial) key which
opens the door to many abduction accounts[51]. And
obviously, if my thesis is correct, hypnosis plays a large
part in the abduction itself. One thing we know with
certainty: Since the earliest days of project BLUEBIRD, the
CIA's spy-chiatrists spent enormous sums mastering Mesmer's
art.
I cannot here give even a brief summary of hypnosis,
nor even of the CIA's studies in this area. (Fortunately,
FOIA requests were rather more successful in shaking loose
information on this topic than in the area of
psychoelectronics.) Here, we will concentrate on a
particularly intriguing allegation -- one heard faintly, but
persistently, for the past twenty years by those who would
investigate the shadow side of politics.
If this allegation proves true, hypnosis is NOT
necessarily a person-to-person affair.
The abductee -- or the mind control victim -- need not
have physical contact with a hypnotist for hypnotic
suggestion to take effect; trance could be induced, and
suggestions made, via the intracerebral transmitters
described above. The concept sounds like something out of
Huxley's or Orwell's most masochistic fantasies. Yet remote
hypnosis was first reported -- using allegedly
parapsychological means -- in the early 1930s, by L.L.
Vasilev, Professor of Physiology in the University of
Leningrad[52]. Later, other scientists attempted to
accomplish the same goal, using less mystic means.
Over the years, certain journalists have asserted that
the CIA has mastered a technology call RHIC-EDOM. RHIC
means "Radio Hypnotic Intracerebral Control." EDOM stands
for "Electronic Dissolution of Memory." Together, these
techniques can -- allegedly -- remotely induce hypnotic
trance, deliver suggestions to the subject, and erase all
memory for both the instruction period and the act which the
subject is asked to perform.
RHIC uses the stimoceiver, or a microminiaturized
offspring of that technology to induce a hypnotic state.
Interestingly, this technique is also reputed to involve the
use of INTRAMUSCULAR implants, a detail strikingly
reminiscent of the "scars" mentioned in Budd Hopkins MISSING
TIME. Apparently, these implants are stimulated to induce a
post-hypnotic suggestion.
EDOM is nothing more than missing time itself -- the
erasure of memory from consciousness through the blockage of
synaptic transmission in certain areas of the brain. By
jamming the brain's synapses through a surfeit of
acetocholine, neural transmission along selected pathways
can be effectively stilled. According to the proponents of
RHIC-EDOM, acetocholine production can be affected by
electromagnetic means. (Modern research in the psycho-
physiological effects of microwaves confirm this
proposition.)
Does RHIC-EDOM exist? In our discussion of Delgado's
work, I have already cited a strange little book (published
in 1969) titled WERE WE CONTROLLED?, written by one Lincoln
Lawrence, a former FBI agent turned journalist. (The name
is a pseudonym; I know his real identity.) This work deals
at length with RHIC-EDOM; a careful comparison of Lawrence's
work with MKULTRA files declassified ten years later
indicates a strong possibility that the writer did indeed
have "inside" sources.
Here is how Lawrence describes RHIC in action:
It is the ultra-sophisticated application of post-
hypnotic suggestion TRIGGERED AT WILL [italics in original]
by radio transmission. It is a recurring hypnotic state,
re-induced automatically at intervals by the same radio
control. An individual is brought under hypnosis. This can
be done either with his knowledge -- or WITHOUT it by use
of narco-hypnosis, which can be brought into play under many
guises. He is then programmed to perform certain actions
and maintain certain attitudes upon radio signal[53].
Other authors have mentioned this technique --
specifically Walter Bowart (in his book OPERATION MIND
CONTROL) and journalist James Moore, who, in a 1975 issue of
a periodical called MODERN PEOPLE, claimed to have secured a
350-page manual, prepared in 1963, on RHIC-EDOM[54]. He
received the manual from CIA sources, although --
interestingly -- the technique is said to have originated in
the military.
The following quote by Moore on RHIC should prove
especially intriguing to abduction researchers who have
confronted odd "personality shifts" in abductees:
Medically, these radio signals are directed to certain
parts of the brain. When a part of your brain receives a
tiny electrical impulse from outside sources, such as
vision, hearing, etc.,an emotion is produced -- anger at the
sight of a gang of boys beating an old woman, for example.
The same emotion of anger can be created by artificial radio
signals sent to your brain by a controller. You could
instantly feel the same white-hot anger without any apparent
reason[55].
Lawrence's sources imparted an even more tantalizing --
and frightening -- revelation:
...there is already in use a small EDOM generator-
transmitter which can be concealed on the body of a person.
Contact with this person -- a casual handshake or even just
a touch -- transmits a tiny electronic charge plus an ultra-
sonic signal tone which for a short while will disturb the
time orientation of the person affected[56].
If RHIC-EDOM exists, it goes a long way toward
providing an earthbound rationale for alien abductions --
or, at least, certain aspects of them. The phenomenon of
"missing time" is no longer mysterious. Abductee implants,
both intracerebral and otherwise, are explained. And note
the reference to "recurring hypnotic state, reinduced
automatically by the same radio command." This situation may
account for "repeater" abductees who, after their initial
encounter, have regular sessions of "missing time" and
abduction -- even while a bed-mate sleeps undisturbed.
At present, I cannot claim conclusively that RHIC-EDOM
is real. To my knowledge, the only official questioning of
a CIA representative concerning these techniques occurred in
1977, during Senate hearings on CIA drug testing. Senator
Richard Schweicker had the following interchange with Dr.
Sidney Gottlieb, an important MKULTRA administrator:
GOTTLIEB: Yes.
SCHWEICKER: Did any of these projects involve
something called radio hypnotic intracerebral control, which
is a combination, as I understand it, in layman's terms, of
radio transmissions and hypnosis.
GOTTLIEB: My answer is "No."
SCHWEICKER: None whatsoever?
GOTTLIEB: Well, I am trying to be responsive to the
terms you used. As I remember it, there was a current
interest, running interest, all the time in what effects
people's standing in the field of radio energy have, and it
could easily have been that somewhere in many projects,
someone was trying to see if you could hypnotize someone
easier if he was standing in a radio beam. That would seem
like a reasonable piece of research to do.
Gottlieb's blandishments do not comfort much. For one
thing, the good doctor did not always provide thoroughly
candid testimony. (During the same hearing he averred that
99 percent on the CIA's research had been openly published;
if so, why are so many MKULTRA sub-projects still "dark,"
and why does the Agency still go to great lengths to protect
the identities of its scientists?[58]) We should also
recognize that the CIA's operations are compartmentalized on
a "need-to-know" basis; Gottlieb may not have had access to
the information requested by Schweicker. Note that the
MKULTRA rubric circumscribed Gottlieb's statement: RHIC-EDOM
might have been the focus of another program. (There were
several others: MKNAOMI, MKACTION, MKSEARCH, etc.) Also
keep in mind the revelation by "Deep Trance" that the CIA
concentrated on psychoelectronics AFTER the termination of
MKULTRA in 1963. Most significantly: RHIC-EDOM is described
by both Lawrence and Moore as a product of MILITARY
research; Gottlieb spoke only of matters pertaining to CIA.
He may thus have spoken truthfully -- at least in a strictly
technical sense -- while still misleading the Congressional
interlocutors.
Personally, I believe that the RHIC-EDOM story deserves
a great deal of further research. I find it significant
that when Dr. Petter Lindstrom examined X-rays of Robert
Naesland, a Swedish victim of brain-implantation, the doctor
authoritatively cited WERE WE CONTROLLED? in his letter of
response[59]. This is the same Dr. Lindstrom noted for his
pioneering use of ultrasonics in neurosurgery[60]. Lincoln
Lawrence's book has received a strong endorsement indeed.
Bowart's OPERATION MIND CONTROL contains a significant
interview with an intelligence agent knowledgeable in these
areas. Granted, the reader has every right to adopt a
skeptical attitude toward information culled from anonymous
sources; still, one should note that this operative's
statements confirm, in pertinent part, Lawrence's
thesis[61].
Most importantly: The open literature on brain-wave
entrainment and the behavioral effects of electromagnetic
radiation substantiates much of the RHIC-EDOM story -- as we
shall see.
THAT'S ENTRAINMENT
Robert Anton Wilson, an author with a devoted cult
following, recently has taken to promoting a new generation
of "mind machines" designed to promote creativity, stimulate
learning, and alter consciousness -- i.e., provide a drug-
less high. Interestingly, these machines can also induce
"Out-of-Body-Experiences," in which the percipient mentally
"travels" to another location while his body remains at
rest[62]. This rapidly-developing technology has spawned a
technological equivalent to the drug culture; indeed, the
aficionados of the electronic buzz even have their own
magazine, REALITY HACKERS. [Now defunct. -jpg] I strongly
suspect that we will hear much of these machines in the
future.
One such device is called the "hemi-synch." This
headphone-like invention produces slightly different
frequencies in each ear; the brain calculates the difference
between these frequencies, resulting in a rhythm known as
the "binaural beat." The brain "entrains" itself to this
beat -- that is, the subject's EEG slows down or speeds up
to keep pace with its electronic running partner[63].
The brain has a "beat" of its own.
This rhythm was first discovered in 1924 by the German
psychiatrist Hans Berger, who recorded cerebral voltages as
part of a telepathy study[64]. He noted two distinct
frequencies: alpha (8-13 cycles per second), associated with
a relaxed, alert state, and beta (14-30 cycles per second),
produced during states of agitation and intense mental
concentration. Later, other rhythms were noted, which are
particularly important for our present purposes: theta (4-7
cycles per second), a hypnogogic state, and delta (.5 to 3.5
cycles per second), generally found in sleeping
subjects[65].
The hemi-synch -- and related mind-machines -- can
produce alpha or theta waves, on demand, according to the
operator's wishes. A suitably-entrained brain is much more
responsive to suggestion, and is even likely to experience
vivid hallucinations.
I have spoken to several UFO abductees who describe a
"stereophonic sound" effect -- EXACTLY SIMILAR TO THAT
PRODUCED BY THE HEMI-SYNCH -- preceding many "encounters."
Of course, one usually administers the hemi-synch via
headphones, but I see no reason why the effect cannot be
transmitted via the above-described stimoceiver. Again, I
remind the reader of the abductee with an implant just
inside her ear canal.
There's more than one way to entrain a brain. Michael
Hutchison's excellent book MEGA BRAIN details the author's
personal experiences with many such devices -- the Alpha-
stim, TENS, the Synchro-energizer, Tranquilite, etc. He
recounts dazzling, Dali-esque hallucinations, as a result of
using this mind-expanding technology; moreover, he offers a
seductive argument that these devices may represent a true
breakthrough in consciousness-control, thereby fulfilling
the dashed dream of the hallucinogenic '60s.
I wish to avoid a knee-jerk Luddite response to these
fascinating wonder-boxes. At the same time, I recognize the
dangers involved. What about the possibility of an outside
operator literally "changing our minds" by altering our
brain waves without our knowledge or permission? If these
machines can induce a hypnotic state, what's to stop a
skilled hypnotist from making use of this state?
Granted, most of these devices require some physical
interaction with the subject. But a tool called the Bio-
Pacer can, according to its manufacturer, produce a number
of mood altering frequencies -- WITHOUT attachment to the
subject. Indeed, the Bio-Pacer III (a high-powered version)
can affect an entire room. This device costs $275, according
to the most recent price sheet available[66]. What sort of
machine might $27,500 buy? Or $275,000? What effects, what
ranges might a million-dollar machine be capable of?
The military certainly has that sort of money.
And they're certainly interested in this sort of
technology, according to Michael Hutchison. His interview
with an informant named Joseph Light elicited some
particularly provocative revelations. According to Light:
There are important elements in the scientific
community, powerful people, who are very much interested in
these areas...but they have to keep most of their work
secret. Because as soon as they start to publish some of
these sensitive things, they have problems in their lives.
You see, they work on research grants, and if you follow the
research being done, you find that as soon as these
scientists publish something about this, their research
funds are cut off. There are areas in bioelectric research
where very simple techniques and devices can have mind-
boggling effects. Conceivably, if you have a crazed person
with a bit of a technical background, he can do a lot of
damage[67].
This last statement is particularly evocative. In
1984, a violent neo-NAZI group called The Order (responsible
for the murder of talk-show host Alan Berg) established
contact with two government scientists engaged in
clandestine research to project chemical imbalances and
render targeted individuals docile via certain frequencies
of electronic waves. For $100,000 the scientists were
willing to deliver this information[68].
Thus, at least one group of crazed individuals almost
got the goods.
WAVE YOUR BRAIN GOODBYE
Every Senator and Congressional representative has a
"wavie" file. So do many state representatives. Wavies
have even pled their case to private institutions such as
the Christic Institute[69].
And who are the wavies?
They claim to be victims of clandestine bombardment
with non-ionizing radiation -- or microwaves. They report
sudden changes in psychological states, alteration of sleep
patterns, intracerebral voices and other sounds, and
physiological effects. Most people never realize how many
wavies there are in this country. I've spoken to a number
of wavies myself.
Are these troubled individuals seeking an exterior
rationale for their mental problems? Maybe. Indeed, I'm
sure that such is the case in many instances. But the fact
is that the literature on the behavioral effects of
microwaves, extra-low-frequencies (ELF) and ultrasonics is
such that we cannot blithely dismiss ALL such claims.
For decades, American science and industry tried to
convince the population that microwaves could have no
adverse effects on human beings at sub-thermal levels -- in
other words, the attitude was, "If it can't burn you, it
can't hurt you." This approach became increasingly
difficult to defend as reports mounted of microwave-induced
physiological effects. Technicians described "hearing"
certain radar installations; users of radar telescopes began
developing cataracts at an appallingly high rate[70]. The
Soviets had long recognized the strange and sometimes subtle
effects of these radio frequencies, which is why their
exposure standards have always been much stricter.
Soviet microwave bombardment of the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow prompted the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency's Project PANDORA (later renamed), whose ostensible
goal was to determine whether these pulsations (reportedly
10 cycles per second, which puts them in the alpha range)
could be used for the purposes of mind control. I suspect
that the "war on Tchaikovsky Street," as I call it[71], was
used, at least in part, as a cover story for DARPA mind
control research, and that the stories floated in the news
(via, for example, Jack Anderson's column) about Soviet
remote brainwashing served the same propaganda purposes as
did the bleatings of Edward Hunter during the 1950s.[72]
What can low-level microwaves do to the mind?
According to a DIA report released under the Freedom of
Information Act[73], microwaves can induce metabolic
changes, alter brain functions, and disrupt behavior
patterns. PANDORA discovered that pulsed microwaves can
create leaks in the blood/brain barrier, induce heart
seizures, and create behavioral disorganization[74]. In
1970, a RAND Corporation scientist reported that microwaves
could be used to promote insomnia, fatigue, irritability,
memory loss, and hallucinations[75].
Perhaps the most significant work in this area has been
produced by Dr. W. Ross Adey at the University of Southern
California. He determined that behavior and emotional
states can be altered without electrodes -- simply by
placing the subject in an electromagnetic field. By
directing a carrier frequency to stimulate the brain and
using amplitude modulation to "shape" the wave into a
mimicry of a desired EEG frequency, he was able to impose a
4.5 cps theta rhythm on his subjects -- a frequency which he
previously measured in the hippocampus during avoidance
learning. Thus, he could externally condition the mind
towards an aversive reaction[76]. (Adey has also done
extensive work on the use of electrodes in animals[77].)
According to another prominent microwave scientist, Allen
Frey, other frequencies could -- in animal studies -- induce
docility[78]. [cf USP #3,884,218 by Robert Monroe, METHOD
OF INDUCING AND MAINTAINING VARIOUS STAGES OF SLEEP IN THE
HUMAN BEING, granted 20 May 1975; ABSTRACT: A method of
inducing sleep in the human being wherein an audio signal is
generated comprising a familiar pleasing repetitive sound
modulated by an EEG sleep pattern. -jpg]
The controversial researcher Andrijah Puharich asserts
that "a weak (1 mW) 4 Hz magnetic sine wave will modify
human brain waves in 6 to 10 seconds. The psychological
effects of a 4 Hz sine magnetic wave are negative -- causing
dizziness, nausea, headache, and can lead to vomiting."
Conversely, an 8 Hz magnetic sine wave has beneficial
effects[79]. Though some writers question Puharich's
integrity (perhaps correctly, considering his involvement in
the confused tale of Uri Geller), his claims here seem in
line with the findings of less-flamboyant experimenters.
As investigative journalist Anne Keeler writes:
Specific frequencies at low intensities can predictably
influence sensory processes...pleasantness-unpleasantness,
strain-relaxation, and excitement-quiescence can be created
with the fields. Negative feelings and avoidance are strong
biological phenomena and relate to survival. Feelings are
the true basis of much "decision-making" and often occur as
subthreshold [i.e. subliminal -jpg] impressions...Ideas
INCLUDING NAMES [my italics] [Cannon's italics -jpg] can be
synchronized with the feelings that the fields induce[80].
Adey and compatriots have compiled an entire library of
frequencies and pulsation rates which can affect the mind
and nervous system. Some of these effects can be extremely
bizarre. For example, engineer Tom Jarski, in an attempt to
replicate the seminal work of F. Cazzamali, found that a
particular frequency caused a ringing sensation in the ears
of his subjects -- who felt strangely compelled to BITE the
experimenters![81]. On the other hand, the diet-conscious
may be intrigued by the finding that rats exposed to ELF
waves failed to gain weight normally[82].
For our present purposes, the most significant
electromagnetic research findings concern microwave signals
modulated by hypnoidal EEG frequencies. Microwaves can act
much like the "hemi-synch" device previously described --
that is, they can entrain the brain to theta rhythms[83]. I
need not emphasize the implications of remotely
synchronizing the brain to resonate at a frequency conducive
to sleep, or to hypnosis.
Trance may be remotely induced -- but can it be
directed? Yes. Recall the intracerebral voices mentioned
earlier in our discussion of Delgado. The same effect can
be produced by "the wave." Frey demonstrated in the early
1960s that microwaves could produce booming, hissing,
buzzing, and other intra-cerebral static (this phenomenon is
now called "the Frey effect"); in 1973, Dr. Joseph Sharp, of
the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, expanded on
Frey's work in an experiment where the subject -- in this
case, Sharp himself-- "heard" and understood spoken words
delivered via a pulsed-microwave analog of the speaker's
sound vibrations[84].
Dr. Robert Becker comments that "Such a device has
obvious applications in covert operations designed to drive
a target crazy with 'voices' or deliver undetectable
instructions to a programmed assassin."[85] In other words,
we now have, AT THE PUSH OF A BUTTON, the technology either
to inflict an electronic GASLIGHT -- or to create a true
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. Indeed, the former capability could
effectively disguise the latter. Who will listen to the
victims, when electronically-induced hallucinations they
recount exactly parallel the classical signals of paranoid
schizophrenia and/or temporal lobe epilepsy?
Perhaps the most ominous revelations, however, concern
the mysterious work of J.F. Schapitz, who in 1974 filed a
plan to explore the interaction of radio frequencies and
hypnosis. He proposed the following:
In this investigation it will be shown that the spoken
word of the hypnotist may be conveyed by modulated electro-
magnetic energy DIRECTLY INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS PARTS OF THE
HUMAN BRAIN [my italics] -- i.e., without employing any
technical devices for receiving or transcoding the messages
and without the person exposed to such influence having a
chance to control the information input consciously.
He outlined an experiment, innocent in its immediate
effects yet chilling in its implications, whereby subjects
would be implanted with the subconscious suggestion to leave
the lab and buy a particular item; this action would be
triggered by a certain cue word or action. Schapitz felt
certain that the subjects would rationalize the behavior --
in other words, the subject would seize upon any excuse,
however thin, to chalk up his actions to the working of free
will[86]. His instincts on this latter point coalesce
perfectly with findings of professional hypnotists[87].
Schapitz's work was funded by the Department of
Defense. Despite FOIA requests, the results have never been
publicly revealed[88].
FINAL THOUGHTS ON "THE WAVE"
I must again offer a caveat about possible disparities
between the "official" record of electromagnetism's
psychological effects and the hidden history. Once more, we
face a question of timing. How long ago did this research
REALLY begin?
In the early years of this century, Nikola Tesla seems
to have stumbled upon certain of the behavioral effects of
electromagnetic exposure[89]. Cazamalli, mentioned earlier,
conducted his studies in the 1930s. In 1934, E.L. Chaffe
and R.U. Light published a paper on "A Method for the Remote
Control of Electrical Stimulation of the Nervous
System."[90] From the very beginning of their work with
microwaves, the Soviets explored the more subtle
physiological effects of electromagnetism -- and despite the
bleatings of certain right-wing alarmists[91] that an
"electromagnetic gap" separates us from Soviet advances,
East European literature in this area has been closely
monitored for decades by the West. ARTICHOKE/BLUEBIRD
project outlines, dating from the early 1950s, prominently
mention the need to explore all possible uses of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
Another point worth mentioning concerns the combination
of EMR and miniature brain electrodes. The father of the
stimoceiver, Dr. J.M.R. Delgado, has recently conducted
experiments in which monkeys are exposed to electromagnetic
fields, thereby eliciting a wide range of behavioral effects
-- one monkey might fly into a volcanic rage while, just a
few feet away, his simian partner begins to nod off.
Fascinatingly, when monkeys with brain implants felt "the
wave," the effects were greatly intensified. Apparently,
these tiny electrodes can act as AMPLIFIERS of the
electromagnetic effect[92].
This last point is important to our "alien abduction"
thesis. Critics might counter that any burst of microwave
energy powerful enough to have truly remote effects would
probably also create a thermal reaction. That is, if a
clandestine operator propagated a "wave" from outside an
abductee's bedroom (say, from a low-flying helicopter, or
from a truck travelling alongside the subject's car), the
power necessary to do the job might be such that the
microwave would cook the target before it got a chance to
launder his thoughts. Our abductee would end up like the
victim of the microwave "hit" in the finale of Jerzy
Kozinsky's COCKPIT.
It's a fair criticism. But Delgado's work may give us
our solution. Once an abductee has been implanted -- and if
we are to trust hypnotic regression accounts of abductees at
all, the first implanting session may occur in childhood --
the chip-in-the-brain would act as an intensifier of the
signal. Such an individual could have any number of "UFO"
experiences while his or her bed partner dozes comfortably.
Furthermore, recent reports indicate that a "waver" can
achieve pinpoint accuracy without the use of Delgado-style
implants. In 1985, volunteers at the Midwest Research
Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, were exposed to
microwave beams as part of an experiment sponsored by the
Department of Energy and the New York State Department of
Health. As THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC[93] described the
experiment, "A matched control group sat IN THE SAME ROOM
without being bombarded by non-ionizing radiation." [My
italics.] Apparently, one can focus "the wave" quite
narrowly -- a fact which has wide implications for
abductees.
Part III
Applications
So we now have some idea of the tools available to the
"spy-chiatrists." How have these tools been used?
This question necessarily involves some detective work.
The Central Intelligence Agency, under duress, provided
some, though not enough, documentation of its efforts to
commandeer "the space between our ears." We know that these
efforts were extensive, long-term, and at least partially
successful. We know also that these experiments used human
subjects. But who? When?
One paradox of this line of inquiry is that, for many
readers, the victims elicit sympathy only insofar as they
remain anonymous. Intellectually, we realize that MKULTRA
and its allied projects must have affected hundreds,
probably thousands, of individuals. Yet we react with deep
suspicion whenever one of these individuals steps forward
and identifies himself, or whenever an independent
investigator argues that mind control has directed some
newsworthy person's otherwise inexplicable actions. Where,
the skeptic may rightfully ask, is the documentation
supporting such accusations? Most of the MKULTRA "paper
trail" was (allegedly) burnt at Richard Helms' order; what's
left has been censored, leaving black ink smudges wherever
the names originally appeared. Claimed mind control victims
can, for the most part, only give us testimony -- and how
reliable can such testimony be, especially in light of the
fact that one purpose of MKULTRA was to induce insanity?
Anyone asserting that he was victimized by the program might
well be seeking an extrinsic excuse for his own
psychopathology. If you say that you are a manufactured
madman, you were probably mad to begin with: Catch 22.
When John Marks wrote THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN
CANDIDATE" he received numerous letters from people
insisting that they had been drugged, "waved," or otherwise
abused by the CIA or the military. Most of these
communications went directly into his crank file. Perhaps
many deserved that destination; I know of at least one that
did not[94].
Marks did, however, devote much attention to Val
Orlikov, a former "patient" of perhaps the most notorious
figure in the annals of American medical crime: Dr. Ewen
Cameron, a CIA-funded scientist heading the Allan Memorial
Institute at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Cameron,
a highly-respected mental health researcher[95],
experimented with a technique he called "psychic driving," a
brainwashing program which involved inflicting upon a
subject an endless tape loop blaring selected messages, 16-
to-24 hours a day, combined with massive electroshock and
LSD. The project's "guinea pigs" were patients who had come
to Allan Memorial with relatively minor psychological
complaints. Cameron's experiments failed and his theories
were discredited, which may explain why the CIA and its
apologists now feel relatively comfortable discussing the
Frankensteinian efforts at Allan Memorial, as opposed to
more successful work elsewhere.
Orlikov's testimony has received much respectful
attention from those writers who have examined MKULTRA, and
correctly so. When I studied the files at the National
Security Archives, I was particularly keen to read her
original letters to John Marks, for these pages had led to
the unmasking of an especially heinous CIA project. The
letters, interestingly enough, proved just as vague,
disjointed, and bizarre as similar correspondence which
researchers routinely dismiss. Orlikov can't be blamed for
the hazy nature of her recollections; a certain amount of
fog is to be expected, given the nature of the crime
perpetrated against her. The important point is that her
story, ultimately, was found to be true. All of which leads
me to wonder: Why did HER claims prompt investigation when
those of others prompt only dismissal? Perhaps the answer
lies in the fact that Orlikov's husband became a Canadian
Member of Parliament. Any victims of CIA experimentation
who wish to be taken seriously ought, perhaps, first make
sure to marry well.
Of course, we can easily forgive previous writers and
readers whose researches into MKULTRA have been biased in
favor of complacency[96]. But we can't let this natural
prejudice cripple our present investigation. Let us
examine, then, a few of the "horror stories" from the mind
control literature and highlight possible correlations to
abductee testimony.
PALLE HARDRUP'S "GUARDIAN ANGEL"
As mentioned previously, I have not delved much into
the subject of hypnosis in this paper -- primarily because
of space and time limitations, but also because discussions
of the possibilities of hypnosis PER SE tend to cloud the
issue of its use in conjunction with the above-mentioned
electronic techniques. Obviously, however, hypnosis is a
major weapon in the mind controller's armament; in a
forthcoming full-length work, I intend to deal with this
subject at much greater length.
Needless to say, one of the primary objectives of
MKULTRA and related projects was to determine whether one
could hypnotically induce someone to commit an anti-social
act. This possibility remains one of the most hotly-debated
issues in hypnosis, for conventional wisdom asserts that no
individual can be hypnotized to commit an action which
violates his interior moral code. Martin Orne, editor of the
prestigious INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND
EXPERIMENTAL HYPNOSIS agrees with this axiom[97], and he is
in a position to codify much of the established view on this
topic. Orne, however, is a veteran of MKULTRA, and
furthermore seems to have lied -- at least in his original
communications -- to author John Marks about his witting
involvement in sub-project 94[98]. While I respect much of
Orne's ground-breaking work, his pronouncements do not hold,
for this layman, an Olympian unassailability.
To be sure, many other hypnosis experts, untainted by
Company connections, also discount the possibility that
anti-social actions can be induced. But a number of highly-
experienced professionals -- including Milton Kline, William
Kroger, George Estabrooks, John Watkins, and Herbert Spiegel
-- have argued that such actions can, at least to some
degree, be elicited by an outside manipulator.
Occasionally, claims of hypnotically-induced anti-
social behavior find their way into the courtroom; one such
case, which led to the incarceration of the hypnotist, was
the Palle Hardrup affair. This incident occurred in Denmark
in 1951[99]. Palle Hardrup robbed a bank, killing a guard
in the process, and later claimed that he had been
instructed to do so by the hypnotist Bjorn Nielsen. Nielsen
eventually confessed to having engineered the crime as a
test of his hypnotic abilities.
The most significant aspect of this incident concerns
the "pose" Nielsen adopted to work his malicious designs.
During the hypnosis sessions, Nielsen hypnotically suggested
that he was Hardrup's "guardian angel," represented by the
letter X. Hardrup testified that "There is another room
next door where Nielsen and I go and talk on our own. It is
there that my guardian spirit usually comes and talks to me.
Nielsen says that X has a task for me."
One of these tasks was arranging for Hardrup's
girlfriend to have sex with the hypnotist. The other tasks,
he mentioned, included robbery and murder. Nielsen convinced
his victim that "X" wanted the robbery funds to be used for
worthwhile political goals. The end, Hardrup was told,
justified the means.
Compare this scenario to that encountered in the
typical contactee case, in which alien "guardians" convince
their victims/subjects that the encounter will eventually
serve some unspecified "higher purpose." Indeed, in my
interviews with abductees who have established a "long-term"
relationship with their visitors, I have found that some of
them originally believed themselves in contact with Hardrup-
like angelic guardians. Only in recent years was the
"angel" pose discarded and the true "alien" form revealed.
Thus we have one possible means of overcoming the
proposition that hypnosis cannot induce anti-social
behavior. If a hypnotist lacks scruples, and has access to
a particularly susceptible subject, he can induce a
MISPERCEIVED REALITY. Actions which we would abhor in an
everyday context become acceptable in specialized
circumstances: A citizen who could never commit murder on a
suburban street might, if drafted into an army, kill on the
field of battle. In hypnosis, the mind becomes that
battlefield. In the words of Dr. John Watkins,
We behave on the basis of our perceptions. If our
perceptions of a situation can be altered so as to cause us
to misconstrue it, or to develop a false belief, then our
behavior in relation to it will be drastically altered. It
is precisely in the area of changing perceptions that the
hypnotic modality demonstrates its most powerful effects.
Hallucinations both under hypnosis, and posthypnotic, can
easily be induced in the suggestible subject. He can be
made to ignore painful stimuli, be apparently unable to hear
loud sounds, AND "SEE" INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE NOT PRESENT [my
italics]. Moreover, attitudes and beliefs can be initiated
in him which are quite abnormal and often contrary to those
which he previously held[100].
If traditional hypnosis, unaided, can achieve such
changes in perception, one can only imagine the
possibilities inherent in the combination of hypnotic
techniques with the psychoelectronic research previously
described.
Scientists such as Orne and Milton Erickson[101] have
taken issue with Watkins' assertions. But the Hardrup case
would appear to bear Watkins out. If someone can be
convinced that he, like Jeanne D'Arc, acts under the
influence of a supernatural higher power, then previously
unthinkable capabilities may be evinced and "impossible"
actions carried forth. Indeed, when we consider the extreme
personality changes -- and occasionally, the heinous
actions, elicited by leaders of certain cults, and occult
groups[102], we understand the desirability of installing a
hypnotic "cover story" within a supernatural matrix. People
will do for God -- or the Devil, or the Space Brothers --
what they would not do otherwise.
The date of the Hardrup affair corresponds to the
institution of BLUEBIRD/ ARTICHOKE; it doesn't require much
imagination to see how this case could have served as a
model to the scientists researching those and subsequent
projects.
SCREEN MEMORY
According to declassified documents in the Marks files,
a major difficulty faced by the MKULTRA researchers
concerned the "disposal problem." What to do with the
victims of CIA-sponsored electroshock, hypnosis, and drug
experimentation? The Company resorted to distressing, but
characteristic, tactics: They disposed of their human guinea
pigs by incarcerating them in insane asylums, by performing
ice-pick lobotomies, and by ordering "executive
actions."[103]
A more sophisticated solution had to be found. One of
the goals of the CIA's mind control efforts was the erasure
of memory via hypnosis (and drugs, electronics, lobotomies,
etc.); not only would this hide what occurred during the
experimental indoctrination/programming sessions, it would
prove useful in the field. "Amnesia was a big goal,"
confirms Victor Marchetti, who points out its usefulness in
dealing with contract agents: "After you've done it, the
agent doesn't even know what he's done...you send him in, he
does the job. When he comes out, you clean his head
out."[104]
The big problem: Despite hypnotically-induced amnesia,
there would be memory leaks -- snippets of the repressed
material would arise spontaneously, in dreams, as
flashbacks, etc. A proposed solution: Give the subject a
"screen memory," a false story; thus, even if he starts to
recall the material, he will recall it incorrectly.
Even the conservative Dr. Orne notes that:
A S [subject] who is able to develop good posthypnotic
amnesia will also respond to suggestions to remember events
which did not actually occur. On awakening, he will fail to
recall the real events of the trance and will instead recall
the suggested events. If anything, this phenomenon is
easier to produce than total amnesia, perhaps because it
eliminates the subjective feeling of an empty space in
memory.[105]
Not only would the screen memories fill in the
uncomfortable blanks in the subjects' recollection, they
would protect against revelation. One fear of the MKULTRA
scientists was that a hypno-programmed individual used as,
say, a courier, could be un-programmed by another hypnotist,
perhaps working for the enemy. Thus, the MKULTRA scientists
decided to instill multiple personalities -- multiple cover
stories, if you will -- to confuse any "unauthorized"
hypnotist.[106]
One case using this technique centered on an assassin
named Luis Castillo, who, after his capture in the
Philippines, was extensively de-briefed and studied by
experts in the employ of the National Bureau of
Investigation, that country's equivalent to our FBI.
Castillo was discovered to have had at least FOUR separate
personalities hypnotically instilled; each personality could
be triggered by a specific cue. In one state, he claimed to
be Sgt. Manuel Angel Ramirez, of the Strategic Air Tactical
Command in South Vietnam; supposedly, "Ramirez" was the
illegitimate son of a certain pipe-smoking, highly-placed
CIA official whose initials were A.D.[107] Another
personality claimed to be one of John F. Kennedy's
assassins.
The main hypnotist involved with this case labelled
these hypnotic alter-egos "Zombie states." The report on
the case stated that "The Zombie phenomenon referred to here
is a somnambulistic behavior displayed by the subject in a
conditioned response to a series of words, phrases, and
statements, apparently unknown to the subject during his
normal waking state."
Upon Castillo's repatriation to the United States, the
FBI claimed that he had fabricated the story. In his book
OPERATION MIND CONTROL, Walter Bowart makes a convincing
case against the FBI's claims. Certainly, many aspects of
the Castillo affair argue for his sincerity -- including his
hypnotically-induced insensitivity to pain[108], his
maintenance of the story (or stories) even when severely
inebriated, and his apparently programmed suicide attempts.
If Castillo told the truth, as I believe he did, then
he manifested both hypnotically-induced multiple personality
and pseudo-memory. The former remains controversial; the
latter has been repeatedly replicated in experimental
situations[109].
This point is vitally important for students of the
abduction phenomenon. We CANNOT assume the accuracy of
abduction descriptions given during subsequent hypnotic
regression. Moreover, we cannot even assume the accuracy of
spontaneously-arising recollections (i.e., abduction
memories not elicited through hypnotic regression). Indeed,
responsible skeptics have argued that hypnotic regression
may prove inadvertently harmful, in that it may lock in
place a false remembrance. (Note, however, that other
psychiatric professionals consider hypnotic regression the
best technique, however flawed, in unlocking amnesia[110].
For my part, I maintain an ambivalent and cautious attitude
toward the use of hypnosis in abductee work.)
Granted, it is all too easy for the debunkers to cry
"confabulation" to dismiss hypnotic testimony which does not
conform to our preconceptions about the possible; I do not
intend to make this same error. Whenever skeptics offer the
phenomenon of pseudo-memory to rationalize abduction claims,
they cite experimental situations in which PSEUDO-MEMORY WAS
ORIGINALLY CREATED BY A HYPNOTIST[111]. These experiments
can not be cited as proof that an individual abductee
spontaneously conjured up a fantasy (which just happens to
correspond to the details of hundreds of similar
"fantasies"). Rather, laboratory studies of pseudo-memory
creation prove MY point: Pseudo-memory can be induced BY
PREVIOUS HYPNOSIS[112].
In other words, an abductee may talk of aliens -- when
the reality was something else entirely.
In correspondence with me, a noted abduction researcher
wrote of an instance in which an abductee recounted seeing a
helicopter during his experience; as the abductee testimony
progressed, the helicopter turned into a UFO. During one of
the (quite few) regression sessions I attended, I heard an
exactly similar narrative. Hopkins would argue that the
helicopter was a "screen memory" hiding the awful reality of
the UFO encounter. But does Occam's razor really cut that
way? Shouldn't we also consider the possibility that the
object in question really WAS a helicopter -- which the
abductee was instructed to recall as a UFO?
THE SUPER SPY
Among the released BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA papers
was the following handwritten memorandum, unsigned and
undated:
The method is the production of hypnosis by means of
simple oral medication. Then (with NO further medication)
the hypnosis is re-enforced daily during the following three
or four days.
Each individual is conditioned against revealing any
information to an enemy, even though subjected to hypnosis
or drugging. If preferable, he may be conditioned to give
FALSE information rather than NO information.
In the margin of this document, one of Marks'
assistants wrote, "Is this Wendt?" The reference here is to
G. Richard Wendt, a professor employed by project CHATTER
who, in 1951, led both his Naval employers and the CIA on a
mind control merry-goose-chase, when an experiment similar
to that described above failed to produce results[113].
I refer to the case of Candy Jones.
Her story has filled at least one book[114] and ought,
one day, to give rise to another. Obviously, I cannot here
give all the details of this fascinating and frightening
narrative. But a precis is mandatory.
Ms. Jones (born Jessica Wilcox) achieved star status as
a model during World War II, and later established her own
modelling agency. An FBI man requested her to allow her
place of business to be used as a "mail drop" for the Bureau
and "another government agency" (presumably, the CIA);
Candy, deeply patriotic, accepted the proposition gladly.
Toiling on the fringes of the clandestine world, Candy
eventually came into contact with a "Dr. Gilbert Jensen,"
who worked, in turn, with a "Dr. Marshall Burger." (Both
names are pseudonyms.) Unknown to her, these doctors had
been employed as "spy-chiatrists" by the CIA. Using a job
interview as a cover, Jensen induced hypnosis, found Candy
to be a particularly responsive subject -- and proceeded to
use her as other scientists would use a rhesus monkey. She
became a test subject for the CIA's mind control program.
Her job -- insofar as it is known -- was to provide a
clandestine courier service[115]. Estabrooks had outlined
the basic idea years earlier: Induce hypnosis via a
disguised technique, give the messenger information to
memorize, hypnotically "erase" the message from conscious
memory, and install a post-hypnotic suggestion that the
message (now buried within the subconscious) will be brought
forth only upon a specific cue. If the hypnotist can create
such a courier, ultra-security can be guaranteed; even
torture won't cause the messenger to tell what he knows --
because he doesn't know that he knows it[116]. According to
the highly respected Dr. Milton Kline, "Evidence really does
exist that has not been published" proving that Estabrooks'
perfect secret agent could be successfully evoked[117].
Candy was one such success story. Success, in this
context, means that she could be -- and was -- brutally
tortured and abused while running assignments for the CIA.
All the MKULTRA toys were brought into play: hypnosis,
drugs, conditioning -- and electronics. Using these
devices, Jensen and Burger managed to: -- install a
"duplicate personality," -- create amnesia of both the
programming sessions and the field assignments, -- turn
Candy into a vicious, hate-mongering bigot, the better to
isolate her from the rest of humanity (previously, her
associates considered her noteworthy for her racial
tolerance; her modelling agency was one of the first to
break the color barrier), and -- program her to commit
suicide at the end of her usefulness to the Agency. The
programming techniques used on her were flawed. She
breached security when she married famed New York radio
personality John Nebel[118], who, using hypnotic regression,
elicited the long-repressed truth. Eventually, the "Other
Candy" was bade farewell, and the programming broken.
Skeptics might find Candy's story as incredible as the
abduction accounts-- after all, an amateur had conducted her
hypnotic regression, and the possibility of confabulation
always lurks. Nevertheless, I feel that the veracity of her
narrative has been established beyond reasonable doubt. In
her hypnotic regression sessions, she recalled being
programmed at a government-connected institute in northern
California -- which, as John Marks' investigators later
proved, was indeed heavily involved with government-funded
brainwashing research[119]. Marks himself believes Candy's
story -- not least, because the details of the programming
methods used on her were substantiated by documents released
AFTER her book was published[120]. Interviews with Milton
Kline, Dr. Frances Jakes, John Watkins and others provided
the testimony that the programming of Candy Jones was
feasible -- and Deep Trance substantiated the story[121].
Recently, the case has received important "indirect"
confirmation: Investigators interested in follow-up research
have filed FOIA requests with the CIA for all papers
relating to Candy Jones. The agency admits that it has a
substantial file on her, but refuses to release any part of
it. If her tale is false, then why would the CIA be so
reluctant to deliver the information? Indeed, why would they
have a file in the first place?[122]
The final confirmation of Candy's tale requires a
revelation -- one which I make with some trepidation, even
though the individual named is dead.
"Marshall Burger" was really Dr. William Kroger[123].
Kroger, long associated with the espionage
establishment, had written the following in 1963:
If Candy confabulated her story, why did she name this
particular scientist, who, writing theoretically in 1963,
predicted the subsequent events in her life?[125]
After L'AFFAIR JONES, Kroger transferred his base of
operations to UCLA -- specifically, to the Neuropsychiatric
Institute run by Dr. Louis Jolyon West, an MKULTRA veteran.
There he wrote HYPNOSIS AND BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION[126], with
a preface by Martin Orne (another MKULTRA veteran) and H.J.
Eysenck (still another MKULTRA veteran). The finale of this
opus contains chilling hints of the possibilities inherent
in combining hypnosis with ESB, implants, and conditioning -
- though Kroger is careful to point out that "we are not
concerned that man might be conditioned by rewards and
punishments through electronic brain stimulation to be
controlled like robots."[127] HE may not be concerned --
but perhaps WE ought to be.
The control of Candy Jones gives us much information
useful to our "alien abduction" hypothesis.
2. Her personality shifts roughly parallel those
experienced by certain UFO abductees.
3. Despite her brutalization, she remained "loyal" to
Drs. Jensen and Burger. This bewildering behavior reminds
me of my first abductee interviews, during which I heard
ghastly descriptions of UFO torture sessions -- followed by
protestations of limitless love for the alien pain-mongers.
4. Like many abductees, Candy had to attend regular
"conditioning" sessions. Repeated exposure to the
programming is necessary to effect continuous control.
5. To maintain their hammerlock on her mind, Candy's
handlers programmed her to remain isolated. Specifically,
they instilled a deep paranoia toward other human beings;
"outsiders" were probable enemies, out to use or abuse her.
I have seen this pattern consistently in my own work with
abductees[128]. Skeptics would argue that unreasonable
abductee fears probably indicate paranoid schizophrenia--one
symptom of which can, indeed, be hallucinatory experiences.
But most abductees are easily hypnotized, while paranoid
schizophrenics are extremely difficult to "put under,"
according to Dr. Edward Simpson-Kallas, a psychiatrist with
wide experience in the area of forensic hypnosis[129]. If,
however, those unreasonable fears had been hypnotically
induced, the contradiction is resolved.
6. Candy was the product of an unhappy childhood, hence
her propensity toward multiple personality[130]. Many of
the "repeater" abductees I have interviewed had similarly
depressing family histories[131].
7. The story of Candy Jones also has what we might call
a "negative relevance" to the abduction accounts. Because
the Controllers did not establish a hypnotic cover story, or
pseudo- memory, the true facts of the case managed to
percolate into her conscious mind. No matter how thorough
the post-hypnotic amnesia, leaks will occur -- hence the
need for a false memory, to fill the gap of recollection.
The CIA learns from its mistakes. Candy's hypno-programming
broke down in early 1973 -- the year the "alien disguise"
became (if my hypothesis proves correct) standard operating
procedure[132]. (Milton Kline accepted the Candy Jones
story, but considered the job amateurish and inconsistent
with the best work done at that time[133]. Perhaps the
major fault was the lack of a pseudo-memory cover story?)
BASES OF SUSPICION
"Underground base" rumors are as hot as jalapenos in
the UFO field right now, and several of these stories
involve abductions.
For example, a sideshow of the famous Bentwaters UFO
case involves the abduction of an airman named Larry Warren
to an underground cavity beneath the military base. There,
while in what he later described as "a bit of a drugged
state," he saw aliens and human beings -- military figures -
- working side-by-side[134].
I have spoken to another abductee, Nancy Wright, who
was allegedly taken to an underground chamber ten miles
north of Edwards AFB, California. As this was a multiple-
witness event, and Ms. Wright has not attempted to
capitalize on the story for financial gain, I tend to credit
her story[135]. According to abduction researcher Miranda
Parks, an elderly couple living in the vicinity was also
abducted in an exactly similar fashion[136].
In 1979, Paul Bennewitz and Leo Sprinkle researched a
particularly controversial abduction involving a young woman
(name unrevealed) who was apparently taken to a facility
where aliens processed fluids and body parts from a cattle
mutilation. This investigation seems to have led to the
government harassment of Bennewitz, in which some form of
mind control (or, as I have previously referred to it,
"electronic GASLIGHT") may have played a part[137].
How do we account for these tales of alleged alien
skullduggery carried out in conjunction with the military?
I, for one, cannot credit the generally unsubstantiated
tales of "cosmic conspiracy" now promulgated by ex-
intelligence agents such as John Lear and William Cooper.
While I cannot assert insincerity on the part of these men,
I often wonder if they have been used as conduits -- witting
or unwitting -- in a sophisticated disinformation scheme.
A simpler, though no less chilling, explanation for the
"base" abductions may be found in the story of Dr. Louis
Jolyon West, now notorious for his participation in MKULTRA
experiments with LSD[138]. Inspired by VIOLENCE AND THE
BRAIN (a book by Drs. Frank Ervin and Vernon H. Mark which
ascribed inner city turmoil to a "genetic defect" within
rebellious blacks), West proposed, in 1973, a Center for the
Study and Reduction of Violence, where potentially violent
individuals could be dealt with prophylactically. ["I was
cured, all right." - A CLOCKWORK ORANGE -jpg]
And who were these individuals? According to West's
proposal, the noteworthy factors indicating a violent
predisposition were "sex (male), age (youthful), ethnicity
(black) and urbanicity." How to deal with them? "...by
implanting tiny electrodes deep within the brain, electrical
activity can be followed in areas that cannot be measured
from the surface of the scalp...it is even possible to
record bioelectrical changes in the brains of freely-moving
subjects, through the use of remote monitoring
techniques..." By monitoring the subjects' EEGs remotely,
potentially violent episodes could be identified.
For our purposes, the most significant aspect of this
proposal had to do with location. In a secret communication
to Dr. J.M. Stubblebine, director of the California State
Department of Health (fortunately, this missive was "leaked"
to the public), West disclosed that he intended to house his
Center in an abandoned Nike missile base, whose location was
accessible yet relatively remote. "The site is securely
fenced," West wrote. "Comparative studies could be carried
out there, in an isolated but convenient location, of
experimental model programs, for the alteration of
undesirable behavior."[139]
Public outcry stopped these plans. But was this scheme
truly eliminated? Or was it merely modified, stripped
(temporarily) of its overtly racial overtones and relocated
to some less-accessible spot?
One thing is certain: A CIA "spy-chiatrist" favored
secret behavior control experimentation in a remote military
installation. Perhaps someone within the espionage
establishment's mind-modification divisions still thinks
highly of the idea. If so, the disposal problem would once
again rear its ugly head, should "visitors" to these
installations ever reappear in outside society. Again, a
hypno-programmed cover story -- the less believable, the
better -- would prove invaluable.
THE SCANDINAVIAN CONNECTION
Many books have been written about abductees, yet few
exist about the victims of mind control. I cannot
understand this situation; the reality of UFOs is still
controversial, yet the existence of mind control was
verified in two (heavily compromised) congressional
investigations and in thousands of FOIA documents.
Nevertheless, the abductees find many a sympathetic ear,
while those few who dare to proclaim themselves the victims
of known government programs rarely find anyone to hear them
out. Our prejudices on this score are regrettable, for if
we listened to the "controllees" we would hear many details
strikingly similar to those mentioned by UFO abductees.
Two cases in point: Martti Koski and Robert Naeslund.
Koski, a Finnish citizen, claims to have been a victim
of mind control experimentation while visiting Canada.
Shortly after his experience began, he attempted to
broadcast his situation to the world and draw attention to
his plight. Few listened. Many of his details were
bizarre, and not being a native speaker of English, he could
not express himself convincingly to those he approached for
help. Yet many aspects of his story correspond closely to
known details of MKULTRA and related programs.
Naeslund, a Swedish citizen, tells a similar story.
Moreover, his claims were backed by special evidence: X-rays
revealed an implant in his brain. Naeslund actually went to
the extreme of having his implant tested by electronic
technicians employed by Hewlett-Packard. A Greek surgeon
performed the necessary trepanation to remove the device.
Many aspects of the Koski and Naeslund stories
correspond to my hypothesis. Koski, for example, was at one
point told that the doctors afflicting him were actually
"aliens from Sirius." At another point, he was led to
believe that he was under direction of "the Lord." (As I
previously indicated, manipulation of religious imagery
could help induce anti-social behavior; the subject's super-
ego can be nullified if he believes that he follows commands
from on high. Such manipulation may explain the more
bizarre aspects of Betty Andreasson Luca's abduction[140].)
Naeslund's implant was originally placed through his
nasal cavity. He first realized that something terrible had
happened to him after an experience of missing time,
followed by an INEXPLICABLE NOSEBLEED.
This detail will be instantly familiar to anyone who
has studied abductions; I have encountered it in my own
conversations with abductees. For an excellent example in
the UFO literature, I refer the reader to the case of Susan
Ransted, as detailed in Kevin D. Randle's THE UFO
CASEBOOK[141]; the background of alleged contactee Diane
Tessman is also noteworthy in this regard[142].
Intriguingly, I have located a reference in the open
literature to the use, in animal study, of nasally-implanted
electrodes for the measurement of electro-magnetic radiation
effects[143].
There are other claimed mind control victims bearing
evidence of implants; note, especially, the fascinating case
of James Petit, a CIA-connected pilot and alleged
brainwashing alumnus; X-rays of his cranium have revealed
abductee-style implants -- fitting, perhaps, since his body
bears abductee-style scars. [144] Conversely, certain
abductees will, if allowed a thorough and sympathetic
hearing, deliver testimony strongly agreeing with Koski's
narrative.
HELICOPTERS AND DISKS
The bizarre story of Rex Niles and his sister (not
named in news accounts) may shed interesting light on a
variety of abductee cases, particularly that of Betty and
Barney Hill[145]. Niles, the high-rolling owner of a
Woodland Hills defense subcontracting firm (Rex Rep) was
fingered by authorities investigating defense industry
kickbacks. He became an extraordinarily cooperative witness
in the investigation -- until he was targeted by his
enemies, who allegedly used psychoelectronics as harassment.
The following excerpt from the LOS ANGELES TIMES
article on Niles is particularly compelling:
He [Niles] produced testimony from his sister, a Simi
Valley woman who swears that helicopters have repeatedly
circled her home. An engineer measured 250 watts of
microwaves in the atmosphere outside Niles' house and found
a RADIOACTIVE DISK UNDERNEATH THE DASH OF HIS CAR [my
italics].
A former high school friend, Lyn Silverman, claimed
that her home computer went haywire when Niles stepped close
to it.
No aliens in this story -- yet how similar it is to
tales of alien abduction! The low-flying helicopters, of
course, are frequently reported by abduction victims -- the
Betty Andreasson Luca case provides the best-known
example[146]. The haywire electronics equipment is also
frequently encountered in putative abduction cases; I have
spoken (independently) to three women who claimed to have
been able to disturb or shut off televisions and stereos
simply by walking past the devices; one woman even claimed
she had switched off her TV simply by pointing at it.
But the radioactive disc is especially intriguing. As
former FBI agent Ted Gunderson recently explained to my
associate Alexander Constantine, magnetic radioactive discs
have long been used by the clandestine services as cancer-
inducing "silent killers" -- i.e., as tools of
assassination. Not only that. The disc calls to mind one
little-remembered detail of the Hill case -- the dozen-or-
so circular "shiny spots," each the size of a silver dollar,
found on the trunk of her car directly after the abduction.
A compass needle reacted wildly when placed near these
spots. Could they have marked the location where an
electromagnetic or radioactive device, similar to that found
by Niles, was placed on the car? (Such a device might have
been held to the spot magnetically, hence the circular
impressions.) If so, then the disorienting EMR could have
helped induce the Hills' "UFO sighting."
THE MILITARY AND MIND CONTROL
Some time ago, I attended hypnotic regression sessions
in which the subject -- a claimed UFO abductee -- recalled
undergoing a mysterious "brain operation" at a veteran's
hospital in California. The operation was performed by
human beings, not aliens. Interestingly, this same hospital
was mentioned in two other cases I encountered. These other
claims were not made by abductees, but by people alleged to
have been victims of mind control experimentation.
One of these claimants, a former Navy SEAL who
undertook numerous dangerous missions in Vietnam, favorably
impressed me with the wealth of detail in his story[147].
This individual -- I've taken to calling him "the trained
SEAL"-- had received specialized combat training at a
military base in California; he claims that at one point
during this training he was drugged, hypnotized, possibly
placed under some form of electronic control, and subjected
to the extremes of pain/pleasure operant conditioning. One
peculiar detail of his story concerns the "reward" aspect of
the conditioning: When properly acquiescent, he was given
unlimited sexual access to a woman who, the SEAL avers, was
herself the victim of brainwashing.
Unbelievable as this last claim may seem, I found it
oddly resonant when I later interviewed a prominent abductee
in the Southern California area, who bravely offered me
details on a puzzling, albeit quite delicate, incident in
her past. Still an attractive woman, she recalled for me --
indeed, seemed strangely compelled to describe -- an early
love affair with a young soldier training at a military base
near her home. She cannot recall the soldier's name. All
she remembers is that one day he started LIVING AT HER
FAMILY'S HOUSE; she has no memory of how the arrangement
began, and her parents have never felt comfortable
discussing the matter. Although unattracted to this
soldier, she felt compelled to become intimate with him,
adopting a pliant, obeisant attitude that was quite out of
character for her. Later, the soldier went on to covert
missions in Vietnam.
Of course, a young person's psycho-sexual development
is never smooth, and the incident related above may merely
have represented one peculiarly upsetting bump in that
notoriously rough road. Still, some of the details of this
story -- particularly the parents' attitude, the woman's
personality shift, and her subsequent memory lapses -- are
striking, and I treat with respect the abductee's intuition
that this minor enigma in her personal history could, if
properly understood, shed light on her later "missing time"
experiences.
Could the "trained SEAL" have been right? Was there,
IS there, a coterie of hypno-programmed soldiers conducting
particularly hazardous missions? And do the programmers
have at their disposal a "ladies' auxiliary," so to speak,
of hypnotized camp followers?
If the SEAL's story stood alone, skeptics could easily
dismiss it (provided they did not sit, as I did, face-to-
face with the story's teller, listening to all the grisly
and unsettling details). But other veterans have added
their voices to this grim tale. Daniel Sheehan, of the
Christic Institute, claims that his organization has spoken
to half-a-dozen individuals with narratives similar to my
SEAL informant. All had received "processing," so to speak,
within the context of standard military training; after
programming and specialized combat instruction by
mercenaries, the recruits were placed "on hold," to be used
as situations arose -- and some of those situations occurred
within the United States[148].
Walter Bowart began his own researches into mind
control by placing an ad in SOLDIER-OF-FORTUNE-style
publications, asking for correspondence from veterans who
experienced inexplicable lapses in memory or strange
behavior modification techniques while serving in Vietnam;
he received over 100 replies. Bowart devoted an entire
chapter to one of these respondents -- an Air Force veteran
named David, who ended his four-year tour of duty recalling
only that he had spent the time "having fun, skin diving,
laying on the beach, collecting shells...It never dawned on
me until later that I must have DONE something while I was
in the service." (An obvious example of screen memory.) He
was also "assigned" a girlfriend whose name he cannot now
recall, despite the length and deep intimacy of the
affair[149]. The parallels to the SEAL's story and the
abductee's account should be obvious.
We even have a confession, of sorts, from a scientist
who specialized in one aspect of this sort of training. Lt.
Commander Thomas Narut, of the U.S. Naval Hospital at the
NATO headquarters in Naples, Florida, admitted during a
lecture in Oslo that recruits in Naples underwent CLOCKWORK-
ORANGE-style behavior modification sessions. Trainees would
be strapped into chairs with their eyelids clamped open
while watching films of industrial accidents and African
circumcision ceremonies -- films frequently used by
psychologists as a means of inducing stress in experimental
situations. Unlike the protagonist in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE,
who learned revulsion at the sight of violence, Narut's
soldiers were taught to accept and enjoy bloodshed, to view
it with equanimity. Similar techniques were used to
dehumanize potential enemies. Graduates of this program
became, in Narut's words, "hit men and assassins," to be
placed in American embassies throughout the world.
When questioned by reporters about these claims, the
American government denied the story; Narut -- after a long
incommunicado period and apparent coercion -- later
explained to journalists that he had merely spoken
theoretically. If so, why did he originally describe the
behavior modification procedure as an ongoing program?[150]
And while it may seem frivolous to return to the
subject of abductions after examining such grim data, I
should remind the reader of the many abduction accounts in
which abductees recall being forced to watch certain stress-
inducing motion pictures. The aliens, it seems, have
learned a few lessons from Dr. Narut.
Narut, of course, concentrated on selective programming
of individual American soldiers; on the other side of the
mind control spectrum, Defense Department specialists have
also concentrated on methods to render entire enemy
battalions "combat ineffective." Electromagnetic weaponry,
intended to wipe out the aggression of the enemy, is the
province of DARPA, under the direction of Dr. Jack Verona.
These projects remain fairly mysterious; we do know,
however, that one operation, SLEEPING BEAUTY, employed the
services of Dr. Michael Persinger, a scientist who has
expressed interesting views regarding UFOs.
Persinger discovered a method of using ELF waves to
induce the brain's MAST cells to release histamine; should a
battlefield commander wish to subject his enemy to mass
bouts of vomiting, Persinger's trick could do the job even
faster than a Tobe Hooper movie. The method works on
animals. "The question," writes mind control researcher
Larry Collins, "is how to get from point A to point B
without violating one of the most rigorous commandments of
Government ethics -- thou shalt not conduct experiments like
that on human beings."[151]
If Collins had studied the record a little more
carefully, he might realize that the government hasn't
always regarded this commandment as something graven in
stone. As Milton Kline put it:
Ethical factors involved in most research would
preclude having positive results. Those ethical factors
don't always hold with government research. THE RESEARCH
WHICH HAS GIVEN REALLY POSITIVE RESULTS HAS NOT BEEN LIMITED
BY ETHICAL CONSTRAINTS[152]. [my italics]
THE ULTIMATE MOTIVE FOR MIND CONTROL
Hypnosis hard-liners of the Orne school would almost
certainly dismiss the foregoing veterans' accounts of the
use of hypnosis, drugs and behavioral conditioning on
American fighting men. Why, the skeptics would ask, would
anyone attempt to create a "Manchurian Candidate" when the
military services, using entirely conventional means, can
create a "Rambo"? There have always been recruits for even
the most hazardous duties; what need of hypnosis?
The need, in fact, is absolute.
The modern battlefield has little place for the
traditional soldier. Advanced weaponry requires an
increasing level of technical sophistication, which in turn
requires a cool-headed operator. But the all-too-human
combatant -- though capable of extraordinary acts of courage
under the most stressful conditions imaginable -- does not
possess inexhaustible reserves of SANG-FROID. Eventually,
breakdowns will occur. Per-capita psychiatric casualties
have increased dramatically in each successive American
conflict. As Richard Gabriel, the excellent historian of the
role of psychiatry in warfare, writes:
Modern warfare has become so lethal and so intense that
only the already insane can endure it...Modern war requiring
continuous combat will increase the degree of fatigue on the
soldier to heretofore unknown levels. Physical fatigue --
especially the lack of sleep -- will increase the rate of
psychiatric casualties enormously. Other factors -- high
rates of indirect fire, night fighting, lack of food,
constant stress, large numbers of casualties -- will ensure
that the number of psychiatric casualties will reach
disastrous proportions. And the number of casualties will
overburden the medical structure to the point of collapse.
The ability to treat psychiatric casualties will all
but disappear. There will be no safe forward areas in which
to treat soldiers debilitated by mental collapse. The
technology of modern war has made such locations
functionally obsolete...[153]
According to Gabriel, the military intends to meet this
challenge by creating "the chemical soldier," a designer-
drugged zombie in fighting man's uniform:
On the battlefields of the future we will witness a
true clash of ignorant armies, armies ignorant of their own
emotions and even of the reasons for which they fight.
Soldiers on all sides will be reduced to fearless chemical
automatons who fight simply because they can do nothing
else...Once the chemical genie is out of the bottle, the
full range of human mental and physical actions become
targets for chemical control...Today it is already possible
by chemical or electrical stimulation to increase the
aggression levels of the human being by stimulating the
amygdala, a section of the brain known to control aggression
and rage. Such "human potential engineering" is already a
partial reality and the necessary technical knowledge
increases every day[154].
While this passage speaks of drugs and electronics, we
can safely assume that the planners of battle would not
refrain from using any other promising technique.
Gabriel writes primarily of large-scale battle
scenarios, but based on his information, we can fairly
deduce that the mind-controlled soldier will also play a
role in the surgical strike, the covert operation, the
infiltration behind enemy lines by units of the Special
Forces. On such missions, United States personnel have
increasingly relied on torture as a means of interrogation
and intimidation[155], and as such barbarism becomes
standard procedure the American fighting man of the future
will need to find within himself unprecedented reserves of
brutality. Will the average recruit, culled from the
nation's suburbs and reared on traditional ideals, possess
such reserves?
Vietnam proved that the soldier, despite a barrage of
propaganda intended to cloud his discernment, will sense the
difference between fighting for legitimate defense interests
and fighting to protect political hegemony. To forestall
this realization, or to render it irrelevant, military
planners must withdraw the human combatant and replace him
with a new species of warrior. The soldier of the future
will not discern; he will merely do. He will not be a
butcher; he will be the butcher's KNIFE -- a tool among
tools, thoughtless and effective.
And it is my contention that to create this soldier of
the future, the controllers will need a continuing program,
one designed to test each new method and combination of
methods for conquering the human mind.
One primary goal of this program must include expanding
the human capacity for stress and violence. Subjects
enrolled in such experimental procedures will experience
pain, and will learn to accept the pain. Eventually, they
will learn to inflict it, without remorse or even
remembrance. The nation who first creates this new soldier
will possess a decisive advantage on the "conventional"
battlefield -- as will the nation which first develops a
means of using mass mind control techniques to disable
entire enemy platoons. [And to placate whole civilian
populations, both those of the enemy and those at home. -
jpg] This paramount military necessity is the reason why I
will never believe any unconvincing reassurances that our
nation's clandestine scientists have foregone or will forego
research into behavior modification. This research will
never be mere history. What's past is present, and today's
covert experimentation will become tomorrow's basic
training.
A prototype of the future warrior may already be with
us. The Navy SEAL I interviewed spoke in horrifying detail
of dismemberment without emotion, of rape as routine, of
killing without affect. And then FORGETTING THAT HE HAD
KILLED. Even years later, he could not recall the stories
behind many of the wounds on his own body. He claims that
whenever he would need the services of the veteran's
hospital, doctors would re-hypnotize him shortly after his
admission, while a physician specifically cleared for such
work would examine his medical history, which was highly
classified and kept under lock and key.
According to the SEAL's testimony, his memory block
cracked little by little, as a result of events too complex
to recount here. Finally, years after Vietnam, he was able
to remember what he did.
Amnesia was a blessing.
Part IV
Abductions
Press and public now regard abductees as tony
curiosities, yet science, for the most part, still banishes
their tales to the domain of the damned, as Charles Fort
defined damnation. So too with claimed victims of mind
control. The Voice of Authority tells us that MKULTRA
belongs to history; like Hasdrubal and Hitler, it threatened
once, but no more. Anyone insisting otherwise must be
silenced by glib rationalization and selective inattention.
Yet these two topics -- UFO abductions and mind control
-- have more in common than their mutual ostracization. The
data overlap. If we could chart these phenomena on a Venn
diagram, we would see a surprisingly large intersection
between the two circles of information. It is this overlap
I seek to address.
Note, however, that I can NOT address all the other
interesting and important issues raised by the UFO abduction
experience. For example, I have written, admittedly rather
vaguely, of nasal implants reported by abductees -- the sort
of detail which might place an account in the "high
strangeness" category, and of course, a detail central to my
thesis. But what percentage of the percipients speak of
such implants? A truly scientific analysis would provide a
figure. Unfortunately, I haven't the resources to compile a
sufficiently large abductee sample from which one could draw
statistics. Nor can I make an over-arching qualitative
analysis, measuring the value of "high strangeness" reports
against other abductee claims. All I can do is note the
available literature, and leave the reader to wonder, as I
do, whether the compilers of that literature concentrated on
exceptional cases or were biased in favor of the less
fantastic abductee accounts. I have supplemented readings
of the abduction literature with my own interviews with
percipients -- which, since abductees tend to know other
abductees, can give a surprisingly wide view of the
phenomenon. This view has been broadened still further by
my talks and correspondence with other members of the UFO
community.
Of course, we must recognize the difference between
testimony and proof. No one can state definitively that
abduction reports have a basis in objective reality (however
misperceived). Ultimately, all we have are stories. Some of
these stories may be of questionable veracity; others may be
contaminated by investigator bias; many are insufficiently
detailed. No one research paper can resolve all abduction
controversies, and many necessary battles must be fought on
other fields.
Still, the testimony won't go away -- and we certainly
have enough to allow for comparisons. I maintain that an
unprejudiced overview of abduction reports in the popular
press and the less-familiar material on mind control will
demonstrate a striking correlation. Once other abduction
researchers have been educated
Yin the ways of MKULTRA (and this paper is intended as an
introductory text) they may note a similar pattern. If so,
we can then begin to write a revisionist history of the
phenomenon.
The abduction enigma contains within it sub-mysteries
that slide into the mind control scenario with surprising
ease, even elegance -- mysteries which fit the E.T.
hypothesis as uncomfortably as a size 10 foot fits into a
size 8 shoe. As we have seen, the MKULTRA thesis explains
the reports of abductee intracerebral implants (particularly
reports involving nosebleeds), unusual scars, "telepathic"
communication (i.e., externally induced intracerebral
voices) concurrent with or following the abduction
encounter, allegations that some abductees hear unusual
sound effects (similar to those created by the hemi-synch
and cognate devices), haywire electronic devices in abductee
homes, personality shifts, "training films," manipulation of
religious imagery, and missing time. Needless to say, the
thesis of clandestine government experimentation readily
accounts for abductee claims of human beings "working" with
the aliens, and for the government harassment that plays so
prominent a role in certain abductee reports.
Let's look at some more correlations.
THE HILL CASE AND THE "ADVANCED" ALIENS
Earlier, I asked, "Do the aliens also watch black-and-
white television?" in reference to their alleged use of old-
fashioned, Terra-style brain implantation devices.
Abduction accounts abound in other examples of alien "retro-
technology." The most striking example can be found in the
Betty and Barney Hill incident, the details of which are too
well-known to recount here[156]. As we have already glimpsed
during our discussion of the Rex Niles affair, the Hills'
"interrupted journey" abounds in data which, taken together,
permits the construction of an alternative explanation.
At one point during the alleged UFO abduction, the
"examiners" inserted a needle in Betty Hill's navel, telling
her that this practice constituted a test for
pregnancy[157]. Some ufologists[158] rashly assume that
Betty Hill's "pregnancy test" is evidence of advanced
extraterrestrial technology, since her 1961 account pre-
dates the official announcement of amniocentesis, which does
indeed make use of a needle inserted into the navel. But we
now have much less invasive means of testing for pregnancy
than amniocentesis. True, amniocentesis is still sometimes
used to gather information about the fetus, but the wielders
of a highly evolved technology would certainly use other
methods of determining the existence of pregnancy in the
first place.
Betty Hill's testimony reminds us of certain other
abduction accounts, which contain descriptions of "healings"
surprisingly similar to the procedures associated with
still-experimental electromagnetic therapy techniques, such
as those described in Robert O. Becker's THE BODY ELECTRIC.
For example, abductee Deanna Dube described for me an
abduction-related "regeneration" of her long-damaged heart;
had she been familiar with Becker's work[159], she might
have been a bit less rapid to ascribe her healing to
otherworldly influences.
Medical breakthroughs often undergo years of testing
before their official "discovery." For some of these tests,
finding volunteers present a major obstacle. If we accept
the proposition that the Hill incident originated in an
external and objective stimulus, we must then ask ourselves
which scenario is more likely: Did Betty Hill encounter
human beings using a technique ten years ahead of its time?
Or did she encounter aliens (reputedly a "billion years
ahead of us") using science from eons before THEIR time?
One must also ask why Betty Hill's aliens seemed to
have no grasp of basic human concepts (such as how we
measure time) -- yet they knew enough about us to speak
English fluently and had even mastered our slang. Were
these real aliens, or humans engaging in theatricals (and
occasionally muffing their lines)? For that matter, why did
Betty Hill originally recall her abductors as humanoid,
only later describing them as aliens?
The Hill case provided a particularly controversial
piece of evidence -- the celebrated "star map" recalled by
Betty Hill under hypnosis. In later years, an Ohio
schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish made an ingenious and
laudable attempt to discover a match for this map by
constructing an elaborate three-dimensional model of nearby
star systems; whether she succeeded remains a matter for
keen debate[160]. For now, I prefer to avoid taking sides
in this dispute and will confine myself to insisting that
pro-ET ufologists answer (WITHOUT resorting to glib
ripostes) a point first raised by Jacques Vallee: THE MAP
MAKES NO SENSE AS A NAVIGATIONAL AID. Vallee notes that,
even if we grant the Fish interpretation, the stars are not
drawn to scale -- and at any rate, alien spaceships would
surely be navigated the same way we guide our own
spacecraft: via computers and telemetry[161]. The validity
of the Fish interpretation is irrelevant; the point is that
ANY such chart would have NO value to an interstellar star-
farer.
Fish's work raises other controversies: Allegedly, the
map points to Zeta Reticuli as the aliens' home system and
pictures Zeta Reticuli as a single star, a view consistent
with scientific opinion of the 1960s. Yet in later years
scientists discovered that Zeta Reticuli is binary[162].
Moreover, how did our abductee manage to remember so
accurately a complex chart glimpsed in passing? Even
allowing for the possibility of increased accuracy of
recollection under hypnotic regression, the memory feat here
seems remarkable. Consider the circumstances of the
abduction: Kafka on hallucinogens couldn't have conceived of
the nightmare vision confronting Betty Hill that night --
yet for some reason this particular arrangement of stars
emerged as her most intensely-detailed recollection of the
experience.
This memory (if not confabulated during regression, a
possibility we should always weigh) is comprehensible only
as an example of ARTIFICIALLY-INDUCED HYPERMNESIA. In other
words, Betty Hill was DIRECTED to store that chart within
her subconscious. The celebrated star map ought to be
recognized for what it was: a prop, a seemingly-confirmatory
circumstantial detail meant to convince her -- and perhaps
US -- of the reality of her abduction. [cf. Strieber's
citation of the woman with the memory of ancient Celtic
"fairy speak." -jpg]
The question of motive arises. Why -- if my thesis is
correct -- were these two fairly innocuous individuals
chosen for this new variation on the old MKULTRA tricks?
The selection might, of course, have been arbitrary.
Or perhaps circumstances now irretrievably lost to history
rendered the couple a convenient target. Interestingly,
Barney Hill had become acquainted (through church functions)
with the head of Air Force intelligence at Pease Air Force
Base; perhaps this relationship first brought the Hills to
the attention of members of the intelligence community.
Arguably, the Hills could have been fingered for a wide
variety of reasons; as a general rule, the clandestine
services prefer to satisfy a number of itches with one
scratch.
In fact, the espionage establishment had one
particularly compelling reason to focus on the Hills.
Barney Hill (a black man) and his wife held important
positions in several civil rights organizations, including
the NAACP[163]. The abduction took place during the 1960s,
when the NAACP and allied groups fell victim to an
increasingly paranoid series of attacks from the FBI and
other governmental agencies (under operations COINTELPRO,
CHAOS, GARDEN PLOT, etc.)[164]. At that time, infiltration
of civil rights groups proved a difficult chore; while most
left-leaning groups provided easy targets for FBI stooges,
the average undercover operative would have had an
exceptionally difficult time posing as a black activist.
(In 1961, the only black people on the FBI's payroll were
the servants in J. Edgar Hoover's home.)
In light of these facts, we should recall Victor
Marchetti's anecdote about the cat that the CIA had "wired
for sound." Perhaps an ambitious covert scientist proposed
a similar experiment, in which a human being would play the
role that had once been assigned to the unfortunate feline?
As Estabrooks noted, the ultimate espionage agent would be
the spy who doesn't KNOW he is a spy. Barney Hill, a well-
regarded figure with a near-genius-level IQ, was a safe bet
to obtain a leadership role in any group he joined; he would
have been remarkably well-positioned, had any outsiders
wished to use his ears to overhear prominent black
organizers in confidential discussion.
Of course, many intelligence professionals would
counter this suggestion by reminding us that eavesdroppers
on the civil rights movement had plenty of less-flamboyant
methods: Bugging, "black bag" jobs, paying for information,
etc. The point is valid. But if the technology to create a
"human bug" was developed circa 1961 -- and there is
documentation suggesting that such is indeed the case[165] -
- the intelligence agencies would surely have wanted to test
the possibilities in the field. And considering the expense
of such a test, why not conduct the experiment in such a way
as to reap the maximum benefits? Why NOT choose a Barney
Hill?
ARMS AND THE ABDUCTEE
Budd Hopkins told the following story during his
lecture at the Los Angeles "Whole Life Expo."[166] He
considers the case "very good...lots of corroborating
witnesses for parts of it." Though not, presumably, for THIS
part:
Hopkins' informant, after the by-now familiar UFO
abduction, was given a gun by the aliens. Not a Buck Rogers
laser weapon -- this was something Dirty Harry might have
packed.
The abductee was also given someone to shoot. Not a
little grey alien -- another human being, tied to a chair.
The "visitors" told their armed abductee that this captive
had done "evil on earth, and he's a bad person. You have to
kill him." If the abductee didn't do as asked, he would
never leave the ship.
The captive proclaimed his innocence, and pleaded for
his life. The abductee, caught in the middle of all this,
became quite upset. (Worth noting: he seems to have at
least CONSIDERED the aliens' request to shoot someone he had
never met.) Ultimately, the abductee turned the gun on the
aliens and said, "Nobody's going to get shot here."
According to Hopkins, "The aliens said 'Fine. Very
good.' They took the gun from him; the man [presumably, the
captive] got up, walked away, disappeared, and they went on
to the next thing." Obviously, this little drama had been
staged -- a test of some sort.
I submit that this surreal incident is incomprehensible
as either an example of alien incursion or of "Klass-ical"
confabulation. The scenario described here EXACTLY
parallels numerous experiments in the hypnotic induction of
anti-social action as revealed both in the standard hypnosis
literature and in declassified ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA documents.
For example, compare Hopkins' account to the following, in
which Ludwig Mayer, a prominent German hypnosis researcher,
describes a classic experiment in the hypnotic induction of
criminal action:
I gave a revolver to an elderly and readily suggestible
man whom I had just hypnotized. The revolver had just been
loaded by Mr. H. with a percussion cap. I explained to [the
subject], while pointing to Mr. H., that Mr. H. was a very
wicked man whom he should shoot to kill. With great
determination he took the revolver and fired a shot directly
at Mr. H. Mr. H. fell down pretending to be wounded. I
then explained to my subject that the fellow was not yet
quite dead, and that he should give him another bullet,
which he did without further ado[167].
Of course, if a conservative hypnosis specialist were
asked to comment on the above account, he would quickly
point out that hypnotic suggestions which work in an
experimental situation would not easily succeed outside the
laboratory; on some level, the subject will probably sense
whether or not he's playing the game for real[168].
Similarly, a conservative abduction researcher would, in
reviewing Hopkins' material, emphasize the problems inherent
in using testimony derived during regression, where the
threat of confabulation lurks. I'll concede both arguments -
- for the moment -- only to insist that they are beside the
point. The matter of primary importance, the sticking point
which neither Klass nor Hopkins can comfortably confront, is
the convergence of detail between Mayer's hypnosis
experiment and the testing event related by Hopkins'
abductee. WHY ARE THESE TWO STORIES SO SIMILAR? Did the
good Dr. Mayer take pupils from Sirius?[169].
Hopkins says he knows of other instances in which
abductees found themselves in similar crucibles. So do I.
One person I spoke to can remember (SANS hypnosis)
being handed a gun inside a zip-lock baggy and receiving
instructions that she will have to use this weapon "on a
job." Early in my interviews with her (and with no
prompting from me) she recited an apparent cue drilled into
her consciousness by the "entities" (as she calls them):
"When you see the light, do it tonight," followed by the
command, "Execute." (One can only speculate as to how such
commands would be used in the field; we will discuss later
the use of photovoltaic hypnotic induction.) Though her
personal feelings toward firearms are decidedly negative,
she vividly describes periods in her "everyday" life when
she feels an uncharacteristic, yet overpowering urge to be
near a gun -- a quasi-sexual desire to pick one up and touch
the metal[170].
She is not alone. Another has been so affected by gun
fever that he became a security guard, just to be near the
things[171]. The abductees I have spoken to connect this
sudden surge of Ramboism to the UFO experience. But I
suggest that the UFO experience may be merely a cover story
for another type of training entirely.
One of the primary goals of BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, and
MKULTRA was to determine whether mind control could be used
to facilitate "executive action"-- i.e., assassination[172].
It isn't difficult to imagine the media's reaction if a
public figure were murdered by someone acting at the behest
of the "space brothers." Who would dare to speak of
conspiracy under such circumstances? The hidden controllers
could choose a myth structure that conform's to the
abductee's personality, then pose as higher beings, who
would whisper violence into the ear of the percipient.
Using this ruse, the trick that scientists such as Ludwig
Mayer could perform in the lab might now be accomplished in
the field. As Estabrooks' associate Jack Tracktir
(professor of hypnotherapy at Baylor University) explained
to John Marks, anti-social acts can be induced with "no
conscience involved" once the proper pretext has been
created[173].
"THEY WILL THINK IT'S FLYING SAUCERS"
Jenny Randles contributes an anecdote from Great
Britain which dovetails nicely with this hypothesis.
In 1965, "Margary" (a pseudonym) lived in Birmingham
with her husband, who one night told her to prepare for a
"shock and a test." As Randles describes what she calls a
"rogue case":
They got into his car and drove off, although her
memory of the trip became hazy and confused and she does not
know where they went. Then she was in a room that was dimly
lit and there were people standing around a long table or
flat bed. She was out on it and seemed "drugged" and unable
to resist. The most memorable of the men was tall and thin
with a long nose and white beard. He had thick eyebrows and
supposedly said to Margary, "Remember the eyebrows, honey."
A strange medical examination, using odd equipment, was
performed on her.
Both the husband and the scientists, using (apparently)
hypnotic techniques, flooded her mind with images that, she
was told, would be understood only in the future. According
to Randles, "At one point one of the 'examiners' in the room
said to Margary in a tone that made it seem as if he were
amused, "THEY WILL THINK IT'S FLYING SAUCERS." The husband
also revealed that he had a second identity. After the
abduction, this husband (am I going too far to assume his
employment with MI6 or some cognate agency?) left, never to
be seen again[174]. Margary did not recall the abduction
until 1978.
This affair can only baffle a researcher who insists on
fitting all abduction accounts into the ET hypothesis; once
we free ourselves from that set of assumptions, explanations
come easily. I interpret this incident as a case in which
the controllers applied the flying saucer cover story
sloppily, or to an insufficiently receptive subject. If my
thesis is correct, the UFO "hypnotic hoax" technique would
still have been fairly new in 1965, particularly outside the
United States; perhaps the manipulators hadn't yet got the
hang of it. The odd comment about the scientist's eyebrows
may refer to an item of disguise donned for the occasion.
The unscrupulous hypnotist, unsure about his ability to
induce an impenetrable amnesia -- and mindful of the price
paid by his forerunners in mesmeric criminality[175] --
would understandably want to hedge his bets; by indulging in
the British penchant for theatrics, he could further protect
his anonymity.
A similar incident was brought to my attention by
researcher Robert Durant. The relevant excerpt of his letter
follows:
Now I want to turn to a case that I have been
investigating for several months. The subject is an
abductee. Standard abduction scenario. Twice regressed
under hypnosis, the first time by a well-known abduction
researcher, the second time by a psychologist with
parapsychology connections.
In the course of many hours of listening to the
subject, I discovered that she has had close personal
contact over a long period of time with several individuals
who have federal intelligence connections. She was
hypnotized many years ago as part of a TV program devoted to
hypnosis. Her abductions began shortly after she attended
several long sessions at a laboratory where, ostensibly, she
was being tested for ESP abilities. Two other people who
were "tested" at this same laboratory have also had
abductions. All three were told by the lab to join a local
UFO group. During her abductions, the principal alien spoke
to the subject in the English language in a normal manner,
not via telepathy. She recognized the voice, which was at
one time that of her very close friend of yesteryear who was
then and is now employed by the CIA. The other voice was
that of an individual who works in Washington, has what I
will call very strong federal connections as well as a
finger in every ufological pie, and who just happened to
bump into her at the aforementioned laboratory. He also
anticipated, in the course of telephone conversations, her
abductions. When the subject confronted him about this and
the voice, he claimed to be psychic. (!)[176]
The "ESP" connection is suggestive; the MKULTRA
documents betray an astonishing interest on the part of the
intelligence agencies in matters parapsychological.
Some researchers would object that examples such as
this are rare; most abductions contain no such overt
indications of intelligence involvement. But have
investigators looked for them? As mentioned in the
introduction, a false dichotomy limits much ufological
thought; as long as the abduction argument swings between
the ET hypothesis and purely psychological theories,
researchers will not recognize the relevance of certain key
items of background data.
GLIMPSES OF THE CONTROLLERS
In an interview with me, a northern-California abductee
-- call him "Peter" -- reported an experience which was
conducted NOT by a small grey alien, but by a human being.
The percipient called this man a "doctor." He gave a
description of this individual, and even provided a drawing.
Some time after I gathered this information, a
southern-California abductee told me her story -- which
included a description of this very same "doctor." The
physical details were so strikingly similar as to erase
coincidence. This woman is a leading member of a Los
Angeles-based UFO group; three other women in this group
report abduction encounters with the same individual[177].
Perhaps those three women were fantasists, attaching
themselves to another's narrative. But my northern
informant never met these people. Why did he describe the
same "doctor"?
One of the abductees I have dealt with insisted, under
hypnosis, that her abduction experience brought her to a
certain house in the Los Angeles area. She was able to
provide directions to the house, even though she had no
conscious memory of ever being there. I later learned that
this house is indeed occupied by a scientist who formerly
(and perhaps currently) conducted clandestine research on
mind control technology.
This same abductee described a clandestine brain
operation of some sort she underwent in childhood. The
neurosurgeon was a human being, not an alien. She even
recalled the name. (Note: This is not the same individual
referred to above.) When I heard the name, it meant nothing
to me -- but later I learned that there really was a
scientist of that name who specialized in electrode implant
research.
Licia Davidson is a thoughtful and articulate abductee,
whose fascinating story closely parallels many found in the
abductee literature -- except for one unusual detail. In an
interview with me, described an unsettling recollection of a
human being, dressed normally, holding a black box with a
protruding antenna. This odd snippet of memory did NOT
coincide with the general thrust of her abduction narrative.
Could this remembrance represent an all-too-brief segment of
accurately-perceived reality interrupting her hypnotically-
induced "screen memory"? Peter clearly recalls seeing a
similar box during his abduction.
Interestingly, Licia resides in the Los Angeles suburb
of Tujunga Canyon, a prominent spot on the abduction map;
Many of the abductees I have spoken to first had unusual
experiences while living in this area. Near Tujunga Canyon,
in Mt. Pacifico, is a hidden former Nike missile base; more
than one abductee has described odd, seemingly inexplicable
military activity around this location[178]. The reader
will recall the connection of Nike missile bases to the
disturbing story of Dr. L. Jolyon West, a veteran of
MKULTRA.
CULTS
Some abductees I have spoken to have been directed to
join certain religious/philosophical sects. These cults
often bear close examination.
The leaders of these groups tend to be "ex"-CIA
operatives, or Special Forces veterans. They are often
linked through personal relations, even though they espouse
widely varying traditions. I have heard unsettling reports
that the leaders of some of these groups have used hypnosis,
drugs, or "mind machines" on their charges. Members of
these cults have reported periods of missing time during
ceremonies or "study periods."
I strongly urge abduction researchers to examine
closely any small "occult" groups an abductee might join.
For example, one familiar leader of the UFO fringe -- a man
well-known for his espousal of the doctrine of "love and
light" -- is Virgil Armstrong, a close personal friend of
General John Singlaub, the notorious Iran-Contra player, who
recently headed the neo-fascist World Anti-Communist League.
Armstrong, who also happens to be an ex-Green Beret and
former CIA operative, figured into my inquiry in an
interesting fashion: An abductee of my acquaintance was told
-- by her "entities," naturally -- to seek out this UFO
spokesman and join his "sky-watch" activities, which, my
source alleges, included a mass channelling session intended
to send debilitating "negative" vibrations to Constantine
Chernenko, then the leader of the Soviet Union. Of course,
intracerebral voices may have a purely psychological origin,
so Armstrong can hardly be held to task for the abductee's
original "directive."[179] Still, his past associations
with military intelligence inevitably bring disturbing
possibilities to mind.
Even more ominous than possible ties between UFO cults
and the intelligence community are the cults' links with the
shadowy I AM group, founded by Guy Ballard in the
1930s[180]. According to researcher David Stupple, "If you
look at the contactee groups today, you'll see that most of
the stable, larger ones are actually neo-I AM groups, with
some sort of tie to Ballard's organization." [181] This
cult, therefore, bears investigation.
Guy Ballard's "Mighty I AM Religious Activity," grew,
in large part, out of William Dudley Pelly's Silver Shirts,
an American NAZI organization[182]. Although Ballard himself
never openly proclaimed NAZI affiliation, his movement was
tinged with an extremely right-wing political philosophy,
and in secret meetings he "decreed" the death of President
Franklin Roosevelt[183]. The I AM philosophy derived from
Theosophy, and in this author's estimation bears a more-
than-cursory resemblance to the Theosophically-based
teachings that informed the proto-NAZI German occult
lodges[184].
After the war, Pelley (who had been imprisoned for
sedition during the hostilities) headed an occult-oriented
organization call Soulcraft, based in Noblesville, Indiana.
Another Soulcraft employee was the controversial contactee
George Hunt Williamson (real name: Michel d'Obrenovic), who
co-authored UFOs CONFIDENTIAL with John McCoy, a proponent
of the theory that a Jewish banking conspiracy was
preventing disclosure of the solution to the UFO
mystery[185]. Later, Williamson founded the I AM-oriented
Brotherhood of the Seven Rays in Peru[186]. Another famed
contactee, George Van Tassel, was associated with Pelley and
with the notoriously anti-Semitic Reverend Wesley Swift
(founder of the group which metamorphosed into the Aryan
nations).[187]
The most visible offspring of I AM is Elizabeth Clare
Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant, a group best-
known for its massive arms caches in underground bunkers.
CUT was recently exposed in COVERT ACTION INFORMATION
BULLETIN as a conduit of CIA funds[188], and according to
researcher John Judge, has ties to organizations allied to
the World Anti-Communist League[189] Prophet is becoming
involved in abduction research and has sponsored
presentations by Budd Hopkins and other prominent
investigators. In his book THE ARMSTRONG REPORT: ETs AND
UFOs: THEY NEED US, WE DON'T NEED THEM[sic][190], Virgil
Armstrong directs troubled abductees toward Prophet's group.
(Perhaps not insignificantly, he also suggests that
abductees plagued by implants alleviate their problem by
turning to "the I AM force" within.[191])
Another UFO channeller, Frederick Von Mierers, has
promulgated both a cult with a strong I AM orientation[192]
and an apparent con-game involving over-appraised gemstones.
Mierers is an anti-Semite who contends that the Holocaust
never happened and that the Jews control the world's wealth.
UFORUM is a flying saucer organization popular with Los
Angeles-area abductees; its founder is Penny Harper, a
member of a radical Scientology breakaway group which
connects the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard with pronouncements
against "The Illuminati" (a mythical secret society) and
other BETES NOIR familiar from right-wing conspiracy
literature. Harper directs members of her group to read THE
SPOTLIGHT, an extremist tabloid (published by Willis Carto's
Liberty Lobby) which denies the reality of the Holocaust and
posits a "Zionist" scheme to control the world[193].
More than one unwary abductee has fallen in with groups
such as those listed above. It isn't difficult to imagine
how some of these questionable groups might mold an
abductee's recollection of his experience -- and perhaps
help direct his future actions.
Some modern abductees, with otherwise-strong claims,
claim encounters with blond, "Nordic" aliens reminiscent of
the early contactee era. Surely, the "Nordic" appearance of
these aliens sprang from the dubious spiritual tradition of
Van Tassell, Ballard, Pelley, McCoy, etc. Why, then, are
some modern abductees seeing these very same other-worldly
UEBERMENSCHEN?
One abductee of my acquaintance claims to have had
beneficial experiences with these "blond" aliens -- who, he
believes, came originally from the Pleiades. Interestingly,
in the late 1960s, the psychopathically anti-Semitic Rev.
Wesley Swift predicted this odd twist in the abduction tale.
In a broadcast "sermon," he spoke at length about UFOs,
claiming that there were "good" aliens and "bad" aliens.
The good ones, he insisted, were tall, blond Aryans -- WHO
HAILED FROM THE PLEIADES. He made this pronouncement long
before the current trends in abduction lore.
Could some of the abductions be conducted by an extreme
right-wing element within the national security
establishment? Disagreeable as the possibility seems, we
should note that the "lunatic right" is represented in all
other walks of life; certainly hard-rightists have taken
positions within the military-intelligence complex as well.
GROUNDS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
John Keel's ground-breaking OPERATION TROJAN HORSE,
written in an era when abductees still came under the
category of "contactees," includes the following intriguing
data, gleaned from Keel'a extensive field work:
Contactees often find themselves suddenly miles from
home without knowing how they got there. They either have
induced amnesia, wiping out all memory of the trip, or they
were taken over by some means and made the trip in a
blacked-out state. Should they encounter a friend on the
way, the friend would probably note that their eyes seemed
glassy and their behavior seemed peculiar. But if the
friend spoke to them, he might receive a curt reply.
In the language of the contactees this process is
called being used...I have known silent contactees to
disappear from their homes for long periods, and when they
returned, they had little or no recollection of where they
had been. One girl sent me a postcard from the Bahama
Islands -- which surprised me because I knew she was very
poor. When she returned, she told me that she had only one
memory of the trip. She said she remembered getting off a
jet at an airport -- she shouldn't recall getting on the jet
or making the trip -- and there "Indians" met her and took
her baggage... The next thing she knew she was back home
again[194].
Puzzling indeed -- unless one has read THE CONTROL OF
CANDY JONES, which speaks of Candy's "blacked out" periods,
during which she travelled to Taiwan as a CIA courier,
adopting her second personality. The mind control
explanation perfectly solves all the mysteries in the above
excerpt -- save, perhaps, the odd remark about "Indians."
Hickson and Mendez' UFO CONTACT AT PASCAGOULA contains
the interesting information that Charles Hickson awakes at
night feeling that he is on the verge of re-awakening some
terribly important memory connected with his encounter --
yet ostensibly he can account for every moment of his
adventure.
Hickson also received a letter from an apparent
abductee who claims that the grey aliens are actually
automatons of some sort -- perhaps an unconscious
recognition of the unreality of the hypnotically-induced
"cover story."[195] In this light, the film version of
COMMUNION -- whose screenplay was written by Whitley
Strieber -- takes on a new interest: The abduction sequences
contain inexplicable images indicating that the "greys" are
really props, or masks.
COMMUNION and TRANSFORMATION contain passages detailing
what seems to be a hazily-recalled Candy-Jones-style
espionage adventure, in which Strieber was shanghaied by a
"coach" and a "nurse" (both human beings) who apparently
drugged him[196]. Recall the example of Keel's informants.
Moreover, TRANSFORMATION contains lengthy descriptions of
alien beings working in apparent collusion with human
beings.
Abductee Christa Tilton also recalls both human beings
and aliens playing a part in her experience. Ever since her
abduction, she claims, she has been "shadowed" by a
mysterious federal agent she calls John Wallis[197].
Christa's husband, Tom Adams, has confirmed Wallis'
existence[198].
In his REPORT ON COMMUNION, Ed Conroy -- who seems to
have become a participant in, and not merely an observer of,
the phenomenon -- describes harassment by helicopters, which
as we have already noted, seems to be quite a common
occurrence in abductee situations[199]. Researchers
blithely assume that these incidents represent governmental
attempts to spy on UFO percipients. But this assertion is
ridiculous. Helicopters are extremely expensive to operate,
and the engines of espionage have perfected numerous
alternative methods to gather information. After all, we
now have a fairly extensive bibliography of FBI, CIA, and
military efforts to spy on numerous movements favoring
domestic social change. Why have no veterans of CHAOS or
COINTELPRO (either victim or victimizer) spoken of
helicopters? Obviously the choppers serve some other
purpose beyond mere surveillance. One possibility might be
the propagation of electromagnetic waves which might affect
the perceptions/ behaviors of an implanted individual.
(Indeed, I have heard rumors of helicopters being used in
electronic "crowd control" operations in Vietnam and
elsewhere; alas, the information is far from hard.)
Contactee Eldon Kerfoot has written of his suspicions
that human manipulators, not aliens, may be the ultimate
puppeteers engineering his experiences. He describes a
sudden compulsion to kill a fellow veteran of the Korean
conflict -- a man Kerfoot had no logical reason to distrust
or dislike, yet whom he "sensed" to have been a traitor to
his country. Fortunately, the assassination never
materialized[200]. But the situation exactly parallels
incidents described in released ARTICHOKE documents
concerning the remote hypnotic induction of anti-social
behavior.
One last speculation:
Renato Vesco's INTERCEPT BUT DON'T SHOOT[201] outlines
a fascinating scenario for the "secret weapon" hypothesis of
UFOs. Vesco points out that if these devices are one day to
be used in a superpower conflict , the attacking power would
be well-served by the myth of the UFO as an extra-
terrestrial craft, for the besieged nation would not know
the true nature of its opponent. Perhaps, then, one purpose
of the UFO abductions is to engender and maintain the legend
of the little grey aliens. For the hidden manipulators, the
abductions could be, in and of themselves, a propaganda
coup.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I do not insist dogmatically on the scenario that I
have outlined. I do not wish to dissuade abduction
researchers from exploring other avenues -- indeed, I
strongly encourage such work to continue. Nor can I easily
account for some aspects of the abduction narratives -- for
example, any suggestions I could offer concerning the
reports of genetic experimentation would be extremely
speculative.
But I DO insist on a fair hearing of this hypothesis.
Criticism is encouraged; that which does not destroy my
thesis will make it stronger. I ask only that my critics
refrain from intellectual laziness; mere differences in
world-view do not constitute a valid attack. God is found
in the details.
I recognize the dangers inherent in making this thesis
public. New and distressing abductee confabulations may
result. I would prefer that the audience for this paper be
restricted to abduction RESEARCHERS, not victims, who might
be unduly influenced. However, in a society that prides
itself on ostensibly free press, such restrictions are
unthinkable. Therefore, I can only beg any abduction
victims who might read this paper to attempt a super-human
objectivity. The thesis I have outlined is promising, and
(should trepanation ever provide us with an example of an
actual abductee implant) susceptible of proof. But mine is
not the only hypothesis. The abductee's unrewarding task is
to report what he or she has experienced as truthfully as
possible, untainted by outside speculation.
Whether or not future investigation proves UFO
abductions to be a product of mind control experimentation,
I feel that this paper has, at least, provided evidence of a
serious danger facing those who hold fast to the ideals of
individual freedom. We cannot long ignore this menace.
A spectre haunts the democratic nations -- the spectre
of TECHNOFASCISM. All the powers of the espionage empire and
the scientific establishment have entered into an unholy
alliance to evoke this spectre: Psychiatrist and spy, Dulles
and Delgado, microwave specialists and clandestine
operators.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste -- and a worse
thing to commandeer.
NOTES
1. Budd Hopkins, MISSING TIME (New York: Richard Marek
Publishers, 1981) and INTRUDERS (New York: Random House,
1987).
2. Whitley Strieber, COMMUNION (New York: Beech Tree
Books, 1987).
3. Cannon, "Psychiatric Abuse of UFO Witness," UFO
magazine, vol. 3, no. 5 (December, 1988)
4. Philip Klass, UFO ABDUCTIONS: A DANGEROUS GAME
(Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988). Klass makes some sharp
observations, which are undercut by his refusal to interview
abductees directly. The work has no footnotes and depends
heavily on the work of Dr. Martin Orne -- of whom more anon.
5. See bibliography.
6. New York: Bantam Books, 1979.
7. See generally PROJECT MKULTRA, THE CIA'S PROGRAM OF
RESEARCH IN BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, joint hearing before the
Select Committee on Health and Scientific Research of the
Committee on Human Resources, Unites States Senate
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977).
8. Robert Eringer, "Secret Agent Man," ROLLING STONE,
1985.
9. John Marks interview with Victor Marchetti (Marks
files, available at the National Security Archives,
Washington, D.C.).
10. In an interview with John Marks, hypnosis expert
Milton Kline, a veteran of clandestine experimentation in
this field, averred that his work for the government
continued. Since the interview took place in 1977, years
after the CIA allegedly halted mind control research, we
must conclude either that the CIA lied, or that another
agency continued the work. In another interview with Marks,
former Air Force-CIA liaison L. Fletcher Prouty confirmed
that the Department of Defense ran studies either in
conjunction with or parallel to those operated by the CIA.
(Marks files.)
11. Estabrooks, HYPNOSIS (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.,
Inc., 1957 [revised edition]), 13-14.
12. A copy of this letter can be found in the Marks
files.
13. Estabrooks attracted an eclectic group of friends,
including J. Edgar Hoover and Alan Watts.
14. Interview with daughter Doreen Estabrooks, Marks
files, Washington, D.C.
15. Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, ACID DREAMS (New
York: Grove Press, 1985) 3-4; Marks, THE SEARCH FOR "THE
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE", 6-8
16. Marks, ibid. 4-6.
17. Edward Hunter, BRAINWASHING IN RED CHINA (New York:
Vanguard Press, 1951.). Hunter invented the term
"brainwashing" in a September 24, 1950 Miami NEWS article.
18. "Japan's Germ Warfare Experiments," THE GLOBE AND
MAIL (Toronto), May 19, 1982.
19. Walter Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL (New York:
Dell, 1978), 191-2, quoting Warren Commission documents. We
cannot fairly derive from this statement a sanguine attitude
about PRESENT Soviet capabilities; in this field, even
outdated technology suffices for mischief.
20. Marks, THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE",
60-61. A folk etymology has it that the "MK" of MKULTRA
stands for "Mind Kontrol." According to Marks, TSS prefixed
the cryptonyms of all its projects with these initials.
Note, though, that MKULTRA was preceded by a still-
mysterious TSS program called QKHILLTOP.
21. Marks, THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE",
224-229. Seven MKULTRA sub-projects were continued, under
TSS supervision, as MKSEARCH. This project ended in 1972.
CIA apologists often proclaim that "brainwashing" research
ceased in either 1962 or 1972; these blandishments refer to
the TSS projects, not to the ORD work, which remains TERRA
INCOGNITA for independent researchers. Marks discovered that
the ORD research was so voluminous that retrieving documents
via FOIA would have proven unthinkably expensive.
22. For a description of the research into
parapsychology, see Ronald M. McRae's MIND WARS (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1984). The best book available on a
subject which awaits a truly authoritative text.
23. Abduction researcher and hypnotherapist Miranda
Park, of Lancaster, California, reports that she has viewed
such anomalies in abductee MRI scans. See also Whitley
Strieber, TRANSFORMATION (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1988)
246-247. At this writing, both Strieber and Hopkins report
initially promising results in their efforts to document the
presence of these "extras" in abductees.
24. Allegedly, the experiment took place in 1964.
However, in WERE WE CONTROLLED? (New Hyde Park, NY:
University Books, 1967), the pseudonymous "Lincoln Lawrence"
makes an interesting argument (on page 36) that the
demonstration took place some years earlier.
25. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Much of Delgado's
work was funded by the Office of Naval Intelligence, a
common conduit for CIA funds during the 1950s and '60s.
(Gordon Thomas' JOURNEY INTO MADNESS (New York: Bantam,
1989) misleadingly implies that CIA interest in Delgado's
work began in 1972.)
26. J.M.R. Delgado. "Intracerebral Radio Stimulation
and Recording in Completely Free Patients," PSYCHOTECHNOLOGY
(Robert L. Schwitzgebel and Ralph K. Schwitzgebel, editors;
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973): 195.
27. David Krech, "Controlling the Mind Controllers,"
THINK 32 (July-August), 1966.
28. Delgado, PHYSICAL CONTROL OF THE MIND
29. Delgado, "Intracerebral Radio Stimulation and
Recording in Completely free patients," 195.
30. Note, for example, Charles Hickson's account of the
Pascagoula Incident. Charles Hickson and William Mendez,
UFO CONTACT AT PASCOGOULA (Tuscon: Wendelle C. Stevens,
1983).
31. John Ranleigh, THE AGENCY (New York: Simon and
Shuster, 1986): 208. Marchetti casts this story in the form
of an amusing anecdote: After much time and expense, a cat
was suitably trained and prepared -- only, on its first
assignment, to be run over by a taxi. Marchetti neglects to
point out that nothing stopped the Agency from getting
another cat. Or from using a human being.
32. Of course, this suggestion raises the knotty
question of whether the abductees suffer from a form of
schizophrenia, which may also be characterized by "voices."
I refer the reader to the work of Hopkins, Strieber, Thomas
Bullard, and others who have described the difficulties of
ascribing all abductions to psychotic states.
33. Alan W. Scheflin and Edward M. Opton, Jr., THE MIND
MANIPULATORS (London: Paddington Press, 1978), 347.
34. Thomas, JOURNAY INTO MADNESS, 276.
35. James Olds, "Hypothalamic Substrates of Reward,"
PHYSIOLOGICAL REVIEWS, 1962, 42:554; "Emotional Centers in
the Brain," SCIENCE JOURNAL, 1967, 3 (5).
36. Vernon Mark and Frank Ervin, VIOLENCE AND THE BRAIN
(New York: Harper and Row, 1970), chapter 12, excerpted in
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND THE FEDERAL ROLE IN BEHAVIOR
MODIFICATION, prepared by the Staff of the Subcommittee on
Constitutional Rights of the Committee of the Judiciary,
United States Senate (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1974).
37. John Lilly, THE SCIENTIST (Berkeley, Ronin
Publishing, 1988 [revised edition]), 90. Monkeys allowed to
stimulate themselves continually via ESB brought themselves
to orgasm once every three minutes, sixteen hours a day.
Scientific gatherings throughout the world saw motion
pictures of these experiments, which surely made spectacular
cinema.
38. Scheflin and Opton, THE MIND MANIPULATORS, 336-337.
Heath even monitored his patient's brain responses during
the subject's first heterosexual encounter. Such is the
nature of the brave new world before us.
39. Robert L. Schwitzgebel and Richard M. Bird,
"Sociotechnical Design Factors in Remote Instrumentation
with Humans in Natural Environments," BEHAVIOR RESEARCH
METHODS AND INSTRUMENTATION, 1970, 2, 99-105.
40. Thomas, JOURNEY INTO MADNESS, 277. In the BEHAVIOR
RESEARCH METHODS AND INSTRUMENTATION article referenced
above, Schwitzgebel details how the radio signals may be fed
into a telephone via a modem and thus analyzed by a computer
anywhere in the world.
41. Scheflin and Opton, THE MIND MANIPULATORS, 347-349.
42. Louis Tackwood and the Citizen's Research and
Investigation Committee, THE GLASS HOUSE TAPES (New York:
Avon, 1973), 226.
43. Perry London, BEHAVIOR CONTROL (New York: Harper
and Row, 1969), 145
44. Scheflin and Opton, THE MIND MANIPULATORS, 351-353;
Tackwood, THE GLASS HOUSE TAPES, 228.
45. "Beepers in kids' heads could stop abductors," Las
Vegas SUN, Oct. 27, 1987.
46. Lilly, THE SCIENTIST, 91.
47. Marks, THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE",
151-154.
48. Interestingly, Lilly has come out of the closet as
a sort of proto-Strieber; THE SCIENTIST recounts his close
interaction with alien (though not necessarily
extraterrestrial) forces which he labels "solid state
entities."
49. The story of Deep Trance, an MKULTRA "insider" who
provided invaluable information, is somewhat involved. I do
not know who Trance is/was and Marks may not know either.
He contacted Trance via the writer of an article published
shortly before research on THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN
CANDIDATE" began, addressing his informant "Dear Source
whose anonymity I respect." I respect it too -- hence my
reticence to name the aforementioned article, which may mark
a trail to Trance. The fact that I have not followed this
trail would not prevent others from doing so. [And if Trance
were a CIA disinformation source a la William Cooper, this
is precisely the behavior they would count on. -jpg]
50. London, BEHAVIOR CONTROL, 139.
51. See generally, UFO magazine, Vol. 4, No. 2;
especially the interesting contribution by Whitley Strieber.
52. Lawrence, WERE WE CONTROLLED?, 36-37; Anita
Gregory, "Introduction to Leonid L. Vasilev's EXPERIMENTS IN
DISTANT INFLUENCE," PSYCHIC WARFARE: FACT OR FICTION
(editor: John White) (Nottinghamshire: Aquarian, 1988) 34-57.
53. Lawrence, WERE WE CONTROLLED?, 38.
54. Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL, 261-264.
55. Ibid. 263.
56. Lawrence, WERE WE CONTROLLED?, 52.
57. HUMAN DRUG TESTING BY THE CIA, 202.
58. Note especially the Supreme Court's decision in
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ET Al. V. SIMS, ET AL. (No. 83-
1075; decided April 16, 1986). The egregious and dangerous
majority opinion in this case held that disclosure of the
names of scientists and institutions involved in MKULTRA
posed an "unacceptable risk of revealing 'intelligence
sources.' The decisions of the [CIA] Director, who must of
course be familiar with 'the whole picture,' as judges are
not, are worthy of great deference...it is conceivable that
the mere explanation of why information must be withheld can
convey valuable information to a foreign intelligence
agency." How do we square this continuing need for secrecy
with the CIA's protestations that MKULTRA achieved little
success, that the studies were conducted within the
Nueremberg statues governing medical experiments, and that
the research was made available in the open literature?
59. Letter, P.A. Lindstrom to Robert Naeslund, July 27,
1983; copy available from Martti Koski, Kiilinpellontie 2,
21290 Rusko, Finland. Lindstrom writes that he fully agrees
with Lincoln Lawrence, author of WERE WE CONTROLLED?
60. Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL, 265. I have
attempted without success to contact Dr. Lindstrom.
61. Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL, 233-249. This
interview was repinted without attribution in a bizarre
compendium of UFO rumors called THE MATRIX, compiled by
"Valdamar Valerian" (actually John Grace, allegedly a
captain working for Air Force intelligence).
62. Robert Anton Wilson, "Adventures with Head
Hardware," MAGICAL BLEND, 23 [of course], July 1989.
63. Michael Hutchison, MEGA BRAIN (New York:
Ballantine, 1986); Gerald Oster, "Auditory Beats in the
Brain," SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, September, 1973.
64. Marilyn Ferguson, THE BRAIN REVOLUTION (New York:
Taplinger, 1973), 90.
65. Ibid., 91-92. The presence of delta in a waking
subject can indicate pathology.
66. Bio-Pacer promotional and price sheet, available
from Lindemann Laboratories, 3463 State Street, #264, Santa
Barbara, CA 93105.
67. Hutchison, MEGA BRAIN, 117-118. Compare Light's
observations about "the grant game" to Sid Gottlieb's
protestations that nearly all "mind control" research was
openly published.
68. Thomas Martinez and John Gunther, THE BROTHERHOOD
OF MURDER (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 230.
69. Interview, Sandy Monroe of the Los Angeles office
of the Christic Institute.
70. See generally Paul Brodeur, THE ZAPPING OF AMERICA
(Toronto, George J. MacLeod, 1977).
71. Until recently, the American Embassy was on a
street named after the composer.
72. It was finally determined that the microwaves were
used to receive transmissions from bugs planted within the
embassy. DARPA director George H. Heimeier went on record
stating that PANDORA was never designed to study "microwaves
as a surveillance tool." See Anne Keeler, "Remote Mind
Control Technology," FULL DISCLOSURE #15. I would note that
the Soviet embassy was "bugged and waved" in Canada during
the 1950s, and according to the Los Angeles TIMES (June 5,
1989), the Soviet embassy in Britain had been similarly
affected.
73. Ronald I. Adams R.A. Williams, BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION (RADIO WAVES AND MICROWAVES)
EURASIAN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES, (Defense Intelligence Agency,
March 1976.) Brodeur notes that much of the work ascribed to
the Soviets in this report was actually first accomplished
by scientists in the United States. Keeler argues that this
report constitutes an example of "mirror imaging" -- i.e.,
parading domestic advances as a foreign threat, the better
to pry funding from a suitably-fearful Congress.
74. Keeler, "Remote Mind Control Technology."
75. R.J. MacGregor, "A Brief Survey of Literature
Relating to Influence of Low Intensity Microwaves on Nervous
Function" (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1970).
76. Keeler, "Remote Mind Control Technology."
77. Larry Collins, "Mind Control," PLAYBOY, January
1990.
78. Allan H. Frey, "Behavioral Effects of
Electromagnetic Energy," SYMPOSIUM ON BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS AND
MEASUREMENTS OF RADIO FREQUENCIES/MICROWAVES, DeWitt G.
Hazzard, editor (U.S. Department of Health, Education and
Welfare, 1977).
79. quoted in THE APPLICATION OF TESLA'S TECHNOLOGY IN
TODAY'S WORLD (Montreal: Lafferty, Hardwood & Partners,
Ltd., 1978).
80. Keeler, "Remote Mind Control Technology."
81. L. George Lawrence, "Electronics and Brain
Control," POPULAR ELECTRONICS, July 1973.
82. Susan Schiefelbein, "The Invisible Threat,"
SATURDAY REVIEW, September 15, 1979.
83. E. Preston, "Studies on the Nervous System,
Cardiovascular Function and Thermoregulation," BIOLOGICAL
EFFECTS OF RADIO FREQUENCY AND MICROWAVE RADIATION, edited
by H.M. Assenheim (Ottawa, Canada: National Research Council
of Canada, 1979), 138-141.
84. Robert O. Becker, THE BODY ELECTRIC (New York:
William Morrow, 1985) 318-319.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid., 321.
87. See Bowart's OPERATION MIND CONTROL, page 218, for
an interesting example of this "rationalization" process at
work in the case of Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted for the
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. In prison, Sirhan was
hypnotized by Dr. Bernard Diamond, who instructed Sirhan to
climb the bars of his cage like a monkey. He did so. After
the trance was removed, Sirhan was shown tapes of his
actions; he insisted that he "acted like a monkey" of his
own free will -- he claimed he wanted the exercise.
88. Keeler suggests that the proposal was revealed only
because Schapitz' sensationalistic implications may have
worked to his discredit -- and therefore hide -- the REAL
research. Personally, I don't accept this argument, but I
respect Keeler's instincts enough to repeat her caveat here.
89. Margaret Cheney's TESLA: A MAN OUT OF TIME (New
York: Dell, 1981), the most reliable book in the sea of wild
speculation surrounding this extraordinary scientist,
confirms Tesla's early work with the psychological effects
of electromagnetic radiation. See especially pages 101-104;
note also the afterword, in which we learn that certain
government agencies have kept important research by Tesla
hidden from the general public.
90. Noted in Lawrence, WERE WE CONTROLLED?, 29.
91. Particularly one Thomas Bearden of Huntsville,
Alabama; I have in my possession a document written by
Bearden associate Andrew Michrowski which identifies Bearden
as an intelligence agent for an undisclosed agency.
92. Kathleen McAuliffe, "The Mind Fields," OMNI
magazine, February 1985.
93. May 5, 1985.
94. I refer to an individual who later wrote a very
clear-headed and thoughtful letter to Dr. Paul Lowinger, who
has graciously made his files available to me. For now, I
feel compelled to withhold this person's name.
95. Cameron became president of the American
Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Psychiatric
Association, and the World Association of Psychiatrists, He
previously sat on the Nueremberg panel, helping to draw up
the statutes governing ethical medical behavior!
96. In particular, Opton and Scheflin's overview,
though excellent in scope and detail, continually seeks
reassurring interpretations of evidence which points toward
more distressing conclusions.
97. Martin T. Orne, "Can a hypnotized subject be
compelled to carry out otherwise unacceptable behavior?"
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL HYPNOSIS,
1972, Vol. 20, 101-117.
98. Marks mentions, in a letter to Orne, the latter's
claim to have been an unwitting participant in sub-project
84. Yet the papers released concerning sub-project 84
clearly establish the Agency's willingness to put Orne in
the know; Orne later admitted to Marks that he was made
aware of his CIA sponsorship (Marks, THE SEARCH FOR "THE
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE", 172-173). In an interview with
Marks, Orne discounted the story of Candy Jones (which we
shall recount later) by insisting that if such an experiment
had occurred "someone in some agency would have come to me."
Why would they come to him about a super-secret project,
unless Orne had a high security clearance and worked
extensively with intelligence agencies? Note also that Orne
conducted extensive studies for the Office of Naval Research
from June 1, 1968 to May 31, 1971. He has also been funded
by DARPA. Moreover, I consider noteworthy the fact that
Orne somehow became president of the Society for Clinical
and Experimental Hypnosis despite the fact that the
organization had decided not to have a president. (This
fact was related to Marks by a prominent hypnosis specialist
in an off-the-record interview that I probably wasn't
supposed to see.)
99. The story has been told many times. See Turner and
Christian's THE KILLING OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY, 207-208; also
Peter J. Reiter, ANTISOCIAL OR CRIMINAL ACTS AND HYPNOSIS
(Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1958).
100. John G. Watkins, "Antisocial behavior under
hypnosis: Possible or impossible?" INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
FOR CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL HYPNOSIS, 1972, Vol. 20, 95-
100.
101. Milton H. Erickson, "An experimental investigation
of the possible anti-social use of hypnosis," PSYCHIATRY,
1939, vol. 2. Erickson argues that if a hypnotist has
convinced his subject to misperceive reality, then resulting
actions cannot be considered "anti-social," for the actions
would be acceptable within the subject's internal reality
construct. This argument strikes me as semantic quibbling.
[not me -jpg]
102. See generally Flo Conway and Jim Seigelman,
SNAPPING (New York: Lippincott, 1978).
103. Lee and Schlain, ACID DREAMS, 8-9.
104. John Marks interview with Victor Marchetti,
December 19, 1977 (Marks files).
105. Martin T. Orne, "On the Mechanisms of Posthypnotic
Amnesia," THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND
EXPERIMENTAL HYPNOSIS, 1966, vol. 14, 121-134. Orne's work
with post-hypnotic amnesia was funded by NIMH, the Air Force
Office of Scientific Research, and the Office of Naval
Research. I should like to hear what innocent explanation,
if any, the Air Force has to offer to explain their interest
in post-hypnotic amnesia. ["We must not allow a post-
hypnotic-amnesia gap!" of course. -jpg]
106. Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL, 242-243.
107. Obviously Allan Dulles. This may have been a
hypnotically-induced delusion; on the other hand, Dulles'
legendary sexual rapacity makes this claim rather less
unlikely than one might first assume.
108. Always the best indicator of whether or not
hypnosis is genuine; I can't understand why Orne didn't use
this test in the Blanchi case.
109. Herbert Spiegel, "Hypnosis and evidence: Help or
hindrance," ANN. N.Y. ACAD. SCI.; 1980, 347, 73-85.
110. See, for example, Kroger, HYPNOSIS AND BEHAVIOR
MODIFICATION, 21-22
111. See especially Klass, UFO ABDUCTIONS: A DANGEROUS
GAME, 60-61. Orne, interviewed here, makes reference to the
work summarized in his article "The use and misuse of
hypnosis in court" (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL
HYPNOSIS, 1979, vol. 27, 311-341.)
112. Klass argues that ufologists, in conducting
hypnotic regression sessions, inadvertently cue their
subjects. A close reading of his text reveals that he never
proves or claims that such "cues" have taken place in any
individual instance; he simply believes that cuing MIGHT
have occurred. Had Klass been more willing to deal with
abductees directly, he might have found evidence of cause
and effect; as it stands, his argument really amounts to no
more than a suggestion. For all that, I find his ideas
regarding the running of "clean" hypnotic regression
sessions potentially valuable.
113. Marks, THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE",
34-37.
114. Donald Bain, THE CONTROL OF CANDY JONES (Chicago,
Playboy Press, 1976).
115. The use of hypnotized couriers in warfare goes
back to the 19th century.
116. Estabrooks, HYPNOTISM, 193-214.
117. John Marks interview with Milton Kline, December
22, 1977 (Marks files). In another interview, Professor
Clare Young (a colleague of Estabrooks' at Colgate
University) confirmed that Estabrooks' hypnosis work for the
government has never been published.
118. Or could her marriage have been part of the
program? "Long John," as he was popularly known, was famous
in UFO circles, and had provided a forum for such early-day
contactees as Howard Menger. He also knew Jackie Gleason, a
prominent (if unlikely) name in the "crashed disc" rumor
vaults. Could Candy have been assigned to discover what
Nebel knew?
119. Marks files. John Marks did excellent work on the
Candy Jones story; he erred -- almost unforgivably -- on the
side of conservatism when he refused to include information
about this incident in his book. I know the name of the
institute involved; however, since Candy saw fit to keep
this aspect of her story secret (probably for sound legal
reasons), I shall follow her lead.
120. Scheflin and Opton, THE MIND MANIPULATORS, 446-
447.
121. Interviews, Marks files. One of Marks' informants
offered the interesting speculation that Candy's torture
sessions were not conducted in the field, but in the lab --
her entire mission might have been a hypno-programmed
fantasy.
122. The information about Candy's CIA files stems from
a telephone interview with Candy Jones. A problem looms
here: CIA cover stories unravel like the skin of an onion;
once you remove the outer layer, the next lie is revealed.
[For this reason, I don't think this paper "reveals" the
whole truth; that, I suspect, is far worse. -jpg] In the
case of Candy Jones, the substrata of buncombe involves
allegations that she WILLINGLY complied with the CIA, and
used Jensen's hypnosis experiments as a rationalization for
her compliance. Such is the explanation offered by certain
of Marks' informants; alas, Opton and Scheflin seem to have
bought this line. Anyone familiar with the vile acts of
self-degradation to which Candy's programmers subjected her
will laugh this story out of court. No one, short of a
severely psychotic masochist, would willingly undergo what
she went through.
123. Marks files.
124. William Kroger, CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL HYPNOSIS
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963), 299.
125. Recently, ufologist Jim Moseley, an acquaintance
of Candy's, has claimed that an unidentified source on
Nebel's "inner circle" once, off-the-record, pronounced
Candy's story "a crock." This assertion deserves careful and
respectful consideration. Still, Moseley won't identify his
source, and we have no way of telling if this insider spoke
from instinct or certain knowledge, or indeed, what he
really meant. Did he feel Candy was fantasizing or fibbing?
If the former, why did her hallucinations match details of
MKULTRA released only after publication of her book? If the
latter, how are we to explain the many hypnotic regression
tapes, at least some of which were made available to outside
investigators? (Fairly elaborate, for a hoax.) In any
case, how could Candy have known the fact (confirmed by
Marks' associates) that Kroger taught "Jensen" at a certain
West-coast institute? Why, if the story was "a crock," would
Candy risk libel suits by naming -- to associates and
investigators, if not to the general public -- real-life
hypnotherapists? All in all, I would suggest that Moseley's
"insider" was speaking glibly, and did not know the true
facts. [Or was speaking disinformationally. -jpg]
126. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1976.
127. Ibid., 415.
128. Similar paranoid outbreaks led to the dissolution
of Dr. Richard Neal's UFO abductee group in Los Angeles,
according to a phone interview I had with Dr. Neal.
129. Affidavit of Dr. Simpson-Kallas in the case of
Sirhan-Sirhan, 1973; see Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL,
225.
130. All true MPs have experienced some form of abuse
or trauma, psychological or physical, during childhood.
131. One was ritually abused in an occult setting. If
I were a "spy-chiatrist" scouting potential fodder for mind
control experiments, I would seek out abused children from
military families. (A military background would ensure that
the "right" doctor gets access to the child.) Abduction
researchers should look for such a pattern.
132. I refer here to the vast upsurge in alien
abductions which took place that year; see generally Kevin
Randle, THE OCTOBER SCENARIO (Middle Coast, 1988). Of
course, abductions (or, according to my hypothesis,
disguised mind control operations) occurred previous to this
year.
133. John Marks interview with Milton Kline, December
22, 1977 (Marks files).
134. Brenda Butler ET AL., SKY CRASH, expanded edition
(London: Grafton Books, 1986), 305-321, 354-355.
135. Telephone interview with Nancy Wright.
136. Telephone interview with Miranda Parks.
137. William Moore, "UFOs and the U.S. Government,"
FOCUS, vol. 4, June 30, 1989. Moore's role in the affair
strikes me as highly questionable, even scandalous --
although at least here we have one instance of direct and
irrefutable "insider" testimony of government harassment.
138. Some have also raised questions about his
psychiatric treatment of Oswald assassin Jack Ruby. I find
it odd that a CIA mind control veteran -- who did NOT reside
or practice in Dallas -- should have been assigned to the
Ruby case.
139. Samiel Chavkin, THE MIND STEALERS (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 96-107.
140. Raymond Fowler, THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR (New York:
Prentice Hall, 1979).
141. New York: Warner Books, 1989; 198-202.
142. Ruth Montgomery, ALIENS AMONG US (Ballantine,
1985), 49. My article "Psychiatric Abuse of UFO Witness,"
referred to earlier, also documents this phenomenon.
143. Chung-Kwang Chou and Arthur W. Guy, "Quantization
of Microwave Biological Effects," SYMPOSIUM OF BIOLOGICAL
EFFECTS AND MEASUREMENT OF RADIO FREQUENCY/MICROWAVES,
edited by Dewitt G. Hazzard (U.S. Department of Health,
Education and Welfare, 1977).
144. MIAMI HERALD, May 28, 1984 and June 6, 1984;
NATIONAL EXAMINER, vol. 22, no. 18, April 30, 1985.
Although the EXAMINER is a supermarket tabloid, and
therefore a questionable source, this periodical has
rendered researchers the service of printing the X-ray of
Petit's brain, showing the implant. [Ever heard of
airbrushing? -jpg]
145. Los Angeles TIMES, March 28, 1988.
146. Raymond Fowler, THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR, PHASE TWO
(Reward, 1982). This book includes rare photographs of the
unmarked helicopters which have plagued this abduction
victim and her family.
147. A mutual friend described for me an incident in
which the former SEAL, mistakenly perceiving a threat,
almost instantly felled, and nearly killed, a man twice his
size. Whatever the truth of my informant's other
statements, he certainly has received advanced combat
training.
148. Fenton Bresler, WHO KILLED JOHN LENNON? (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1989), 45-46.
149. Bowart, OPERATION MIND CONTROL, 27-42.
150. Denise Winn, THE MANIPULATED MIND (London, Octagon
Press, 1983), 72-73; Bresler, WHO KILLED JOHN LENNON?, 41;
see generally: Peter Watson, WAR ON THE MIND (London:
Hutchison, 1978) (Watson broke the story on Narut for the
London TIMES).
151. Larry Collins, "Mind Control," PLAYBOY, January
1990.
152. John Marks interview with Milton Kline, December
22, 1977 (Marks files).
153. Richard A. Gabriel, NO MORE HEROES (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1987), 124.
154. Ibid., 150-151.
155. See generally: Mark Lane, CONVERSATIONS WITH
AMERICANS (Simon and Shuster, 1970); A.J. Langguth, HIDDEN
TERRORS (New York: Pantheon, 1978).
156. John G. Fuller, THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY (New York:
Dell, 1966).
157. This detail plays a part in other abductions --
for example, it crops up in the Betty Andreasson Luca case.
See Raymond Fowler, THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR (New York: Bantam,
1980), 50-51.
158. Stanton Friedman, for example; the reader is
referred to his 1988 Whole Life Expo lecture, "UFOs: A
Cosmic Watergate."
159. THE BODY ELECTRIC, 196-202.
160. The Fish map has received wide discussion; for a
representative sampling, the reader is directed to the
aforementioned Friedman lecture (note 158); Terence
Dickenson, "The Zeti Reticuli Incident," ASTRONOMY,
December, 1974; Klass, UFO ABDUCTIONS: A DANGEROUS GAME, 20-
23; and John Rimmer, THE EVIDENCE FOR ALIEN ABDUCTIONS
(Weillingborough: Aquarian, 1984), 88-92. Incidentally,
Klass has proposed to Friedman a test regarding the ability
to recall such material accurately under hypnotic
regression; Friedman, for reasons best known to himself,
declined the offer to participate.
161. Jacques Vallee, DIMENSIONS (Chicago: Contemporary,
1988), 266.
162. See Rimmer, THE EVIDENCE FOR ALIEN ABDUCTIONS, 91-
92. None of this is meant to denigrate Marjorie Fish, whose
work has received universal praise.
163. Fuller, THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY, 18-19.
164. Athan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, THE BOSS:
J. EDGAR HOOVER AND THE GREAT AMERICAN INQUISITION
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 325; Chip
Berlet, "The Hunt for the Red Menace," COVERT ACTION
INFORMATION BULLETIN, no. 31 (winter, 1989); J. Edgar
Hoover, COINTELPRO (memo), March 4, 1968.
165. For example, Delgado's work pre-dates the Hill
incident. Moreover, one of the few pages released on MKULTRA
sub-project 119 concerns "a critical review of the
literature and scientific developments related to the
recording, analysis and interpretation of bioelectric
signals from the human organism, and activation of human
behavior by remote means." The review took place in 1960-
61. Presumably, the CIA wanted to DO something with the
information so derived.
166. "UFO Abductions Workshop," Whole Life Expo, March,
1988.
167. Ludwig Mayer, DIE TECHNIC DER HYPNOSE (Munich:
J.H. Lehmanns Verlag, 1953), 225; quoted in: Heinz E.
Hammerschlag (translation: John Cohen) HYPNOTISM AND CRIME
(Hollywood: Wilshire Book Company, 1957), 24-25.
168. Numerous articles discuss this possibility; see,
for example, William C. Coe ET AL. "An Approach Toward
Isolating Factors that Influence Antisocial Conduct in
Hypnosis," THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND
EXPERIMENTAL HYPNOSIS, 1972, vol XX, no. 2, 118-131, as well
as other reports in that issue. The difference between the
laboratory and the "field" settings may account for the
success of Mayer's experiment and the apparent failure of
the "aliens." [Or perhaps Hopkins' informant REALIZED he
was in Miniluv and his autonomy was on the line; he reacted
against this standard Gestapo procedure as best he could: by
turning the gun on O'Brien. -jpg]
169. For a description of a quite similar experiment
conducted under CIA auspices in 1954, see "CIA able to
control minds by hypnosis, data shows," THE WASHINGTON POST,
February 19, 1978.
170. Abductee interview, "Veronica." The reader will,
I hope, forgive my use of a pseudonym here. For the most
part, I hope to deal in this work with published cases.
Suffice it to say, Veronica's testimony proved fascinating,
troubling, convoluted, problematical; in spite of all the
questions raised by this case, I still believe it to have
substantial bearing on my thesis. The reader will forgive
me for severing relations with this abductee before
completing an investigation; she keeps a mini-armory next to
her bed.
171. Abductee interview, "Veronica," At one point, she
ran an informal abductee/contactee group; as a result, she
was able to describe many other cases to me.
[Pseudomemories programmed into her? -jpg]
172. One ARTICHOKE document explicitly details a failed
attempt to use hypnosis to induce the assassination of a
foreign leader. The document is undated; the experiment
took place January 8-January 15, 1954. Document reproduced
in CIA PAPERS, vol. 1 (Ann Arbor, MI: Capitol Information
Associates, 1986),39-41.
173. John Marks interview of Prof. Jack Tracktir (Marks
files).
174. Jenny Randles, ABDUCTIONS (London: Robert Hale,
1988), 52-53.
175. As in, for example, the Palle Hardrup affair.
176. Private correspondence, Robert Durant to the
author.
177. Abductee interview, "Polly." I won't give the
facial details here; suffice it to say that this abductor,
like Margary's (noted earlier), has something of the smell
of greasepaint about him.
178. The base is mentioned in Ann Druffel's and D.
Scott Rogo's THE TUJUNGA CANYON CONTACTS (New York: Signet,
1989) [expanded edition], 157.
179. On the other hand, Armstrong asks us to accept his
own channelled material, so he would have an awkward time
should he choose to challenge the "psychic impressions" of
others.
180. Jacques Vallee, MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION (Berkeley:
And/Or Press, 1979), 192-193.
181. Curtis G. Fuller (editor), PROCEEDINGS OF THE
FIRST INTERNATIONAL UFO CONGRESS (New York: Warner Books,
1980), 307.
182. For information of Pelley, see John Roy Carlson,
UNDER COVER (New York: Dutton, 1943).
183. Gerald B. Bryan, PSYCHIC DICTATORSHIP IN AMERICA
(Los Angeles: Truth Research, 1940). An essential book-
length expose of Ballardism. One of Bryan's sources alleges
that Ballard, before founding the I AM group, may have
practiced some variety of black magic.
184. The student should carefully compare the I AM
dogma with the available information on pre-Third Reich
occultism; the best sources are James Webb's masterful
analyses, THE OCCULT ESTABLISHMENT and THE OCCULT
UNDERGROUND (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing,
1976).
185. Vallee, MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION, 192-194.
186. Even a cursory examination of Williamson's SECRET
OF THE ANDES (London: Neville Superman, 1961), written under
the pseudonym Brother Philip, will reveal the I AM
connections.
187. Personal sources. Van Tassell's "Integration," a
domed structure allegedly built under extra-terrestrial
guidance (located near 29 Palms, California) prominently
displays, to this day, key I AM artifacts such as the
portraits of Jesus and Saint Germain (commissioned by
Ballard).
188. "The Afghan Arms Pipeline," COVERT ACTION
INFORMATION BULLETIN, no. 30 (summer, 1988).
189. Telephone interview with John Judge.
190. Village of Oak Creek, Arizona: Entheos, 1989, 119.
I can't recall ever encountering another book title which
contained so many grammatical errors. Armstrong's
accomplishment is genuinely impressive.
191. For further information on I AM, Prophet's
organization, saucer cults, and other groups, see the
appropriate sections of J. Gordon Melton's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
AMERICAN RELIGION.
192. Ruth Montgomery, ALIENS AMONG US (New York:
Ballantine, 1985), 128-188.
193. Penny Harper, "Are Aliens Taking Over the Earth?"
WHOLE LIFE TIMES, January 1990.
194. John Keel, WHY UFOS: OPERATION TROJAN HORSE (New
York: Manor Books, 1970) [paperback edition], 228.
195. Hickson and Mendez, UFO CONTACT AT PASCAGOULA,
242.
196. Strieber, COMMUNION, 134; TRANSFORMATION, 109.
197. "Contactee: Firsthand," UFO magazine, vol. 4, no.
2, 1989.
198. Telephone conversation, Tom Adams.
199. Ed Conroy, REPORT ON COMMUNION (New York: William
Morrow, 1989), 365-385.
200. "Contactee: Firsthand," UFO magazine, vol. 3, no. 3.
201. New York: Zebra, 1971. See especially note 2,
Chap. 9.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MIND CONTROL
ACID DREAMS, by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain (Grove,
1985). Outstanding work on MKULTRA and drugs.
THE BODY ELECTRIC, by Robert Becker (Morrow, 1985).
Important.
THE BRAIN CHANGERS, by Maya Pines (Signet, 1973). Outdated,
but an excellent chapter on the stimoceiver and related
technologies.
BRAIN CONTROL, by Elliot Valenstein (John Wiley and Sons,
1973). Highly conservative; outdated; still worth reading.
CIA PAPERS, compiled by Capitol Information Associates (POB
8275, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48107). Interesting selection of
MKULTRA documents.
THE CONTROL OF CANDY JONES, by Donald Bain (Playboy Press,
1976). Mandatory reading.
HUMAN DRUG TESTING BY THE CIA, hearings before the
Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research on the
Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate
(Government Printing Office, 1977).
HYPNOTISM, by George Estabrooks (Dutton, 1957). See
especially the chapters on hypnosis in warfare and crime.
Some modern experts in clinical hypnosis decry Estabrooks'
work. These "experts" tend to have a history of funding by
CIA cut-outs and military intelligence. I suspect they
denounce Estabrooks not because his work was shoddy, but
because he let the cat out of the bag.
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND THE FEDERAL ROLE IN BEHAVIOR
MODIFICATION, by the Staff of the Subcommittee on
Constitutional Rights of the Committee of the Judiciary,
United States Senate (Government Printing Office, 1974).
MEGABRAIN, by Michael Hutchison (Ballantine, 1986). The
only popular book on modern mind machines.
MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION, by Jacques Vallee (And/Or, 1979).
Vallee has been criticized, correctly, for including in this
book invented "conversations" with a composite character he
calls Major Murphy. But the section on cults in this book
bears a haunting resemblance to stories I have heard in my
own investigations.
THE MIND MANIPULATORS, by Opton and Scheflin
(Paddington Press, 1978). Conservative, but extremely
useful as a reference work.
MIND WARS, by Ronald McCrae (St. Martin's Press, 1984).
OPERATION MIND CONTROL, by Walter Bowart (Dell, 1978). The
best single volume on the subject. Difficult to find;
indeed, this book's rapid disappearance from bookstores and
libraries has aroused the suspicions of some researchers.
(Tom David Books, POB 1107, Aptos, CA 95001, carries this
work.)
PHYSICAL CONTROL OF THE MIND, by Jose Delgado (Harper and
Row, 1969). Outdated but still essential.
PROJECT MKULTRA, joint hearing before the Select Committee
on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human
Resources, United States Senate (Government Printing Office,
1977).
PSYCHIC WARFARE: FACT OR FICTION? edited by John White
(Aquarian, 1988). See especially Michael Rossman's
contribution.
PSYCHOTECHNOLOGY, Robert L. Schwitzgebel and Ralph K.
Schwitzgebel (Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1973).
THE SCIENTIST, by John Lilly (expanded edition: Ronin,
1988). Bizarre -- Lilly is an ex-"brainwashing" specialist
who claims to be in contact with aliens. Is he controlled
or controlling?
THE SEARCH FOR "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE", by John Marks
(Bantam, 1978). An invaluable book. However, many people
have made the mistake of assuming it tells the full story.
It does not.
WERE WE CONTROLLED? by Lincoln Lawrence (University Books,
1967). Explores possible connections to the JFK
assassination. Dr. Petter Lindstrom's endorsement of this
work makes it mandatory reading.
WHO KILLED JOHN LENNON? by Fenton Bresler (St. Martin's
Press, 1989). Interesting thesis concerning the possible
use of mind control on Mark David Chapman. Better in its
analysis of Chapman than in its history of mind control. In
my own work, I have encountered data which may help confirm
Bresler's theory.
THE ZAPPING OF AMERICA, by Paul Brodeur (MacLeod [Canadian
edition], 1976). Contains a good chapter on microwave mind
control technology.
The important stories of Martti Koski and Robert
Naeslund can be obtained by sending three dollars to Martti
Koski, Kiilinpellontie 2, 21290 Rusko, FINLAND. Koski's
description of his "programming" sessions should not be
taken at face value; we cannot always trust the perception
of someone whose perception has been altered. His research
into the technology of mind control is solid.
The Technology - A Brief Overview
Part III.
Implants
Abductee Implants
A Question of Timing
The Quandary
Remote Hypnosis
That's Entrainment
Wave Your Brain Goodbye
Final Thoughts on "The Wave"
Applications
Part IV
Palle Hardrup's "Guardian Angel"
Screen Memory
The Super Spy
The Scandinavian Connection
Helicopters and Disks
The Military and Mind Control
The Ultimate Motive for Mind Control
Abductions
Notes
The Hill Case and the "Advanced" Aliens
Arms and the Abductee
"They Will Think It's Flying Saucers"
Glimpses of the Controllers
Cults
Grounds for Further Research
Final Thoughts
1. Although misleading (and occasionally perjured)
testimony before Congress indicated that the CIA's
"brainwashing" efforts met with little success[7], striking
advances were, in fact, made in this field. As CIA veteran
Miles Copeland once admitted to a reporter, "The
congressional subcommittee which went into this sort of
thing got only the barest glimpse." [8]
1. We can never
know with certainty the true origin dates of the various
brainwashing methods -- often, we discover that techniques
which seem impossibly futuristic actually originated in the
19th century. (Pioneering ESB research was conducted in
1898, by J.R. Ewald, professor of physiology at
Straussbourg[50].)
Potential critics should keep these points in mind
should they attempt to invalidate the "mind control" thesis
of UFO abductions by citing an abduction account which
antedates Delgado.
SCHWEICKER: Some of the projects under MKULTRA
involved hypnosis, is that correct?
Schweicker went on to mention that he had heard
testimony that radar (i.e., microwaves) had been used to
wipe out memory in animals; Gottlieb responded, "I can
believe that, Senator."[57]
I have developed a technic which is safe and secure
(free from international censorship). It has to do with the
conditioning of our own people. I can accomplish this as a
one-man job.
Even if the above memorandum DOES describe an operational
failure (and the tactics described in this memo do not seem
very feasible to me), we should not rest complacent. We now
know that, in at least ONE case, more sophisticated
techniques made the above scenario a reality.
...a good subject can be hypnotized to deliver secret
information. The memory of this message could be covered by
an artificially-induced amnesia. In the event that he
should be captured, he naturally could not remember that he
had ever been given the message...however, since he had been
given a post-hypnotic suggestion, the message would be
subject to recall through a specific cue.[124]
1. Her torture sessions -- inflicted during her
programming by her CIA masters, and on missions by as-yet
mysterious persons -- seem strikingly like the otherwise
senselessly painful "examinations" allegedly conducted
aboard alien spacecraft.
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