Brief History Of MK-Ultra
CIA Program On Mind Control Started during WWII with research on hypnosis for
interrogation, secure courier duties, and reducing fatigue. Also
research into effects of primitive drugs like barbiturates and
cannabis as far as drug-assisted interrogation goes.
George Estabrooks was the leading proponent of hypnosis
as the be-all and end-all of manipulating peoples minds. His book,
'Hypnotism', published in the early forties, has been decried as too
fantastic and improbable in terms of describing the capabilities of
hypnosis with certain very suggestible subjects, but his arguments and
examples remain valid to this
day.
Start of Cold War and Korean War in particular gave a
big boost to mind control research with the emergence of 'Brain
Washing' as a common term. Supposedly a development of the dastardly
Chi-Coms, the term was actually coined by a magazine writer later
found to be on the CIA payroll as an agent of influence. Postulating a
'brainwashing gap' The CIA got the go-ahead for research into
countering communist mind control efforts and developing their own to
aid in the espionage wars.
Hypnosis, drugs, and psycho-surgery; separately and
combined, were the tools of this quest for the ultimate truth serum on
the one hand, and the capability to create an agent who could not have
his or her mission tortured out of them, or even be aware that they
were carrying secret information given to them in an altered state of
consciousness. More and more sophisticated drugs were experimented
with, such as LSD, Ketamine, and Psilocybine. Lobotomy and the
implantation of electrodes were considered as methods for creating a
compliant agent. Electro-Convulsive Shock, combined with LSD, sedation
for days at a time, and constantly replaying the patient's own voice
through helmet-mounted headphones was a notorious Canadian
researcher's recipe for mind control.
One of the most remarkable cases of mind control
involves a famous model of the late 40's and 50's named Candy Jones.
In the book, "The Control of Candy Jones" the author reviewed hours of
tapes made by Candy Jones and her husband which revealed a systematic
program to create and manipulate alter
personalities as the foundation for programmed couriers resistant to
torture, where the primary personality would not even be aware of the
secret information being carried. The information could be summoned
forth via a post-hypnotic command or response to a pre-programmed cue.
Research continued into early 70's by CIA's own
admission during the Church hearings. John Marks, author of the best
study of CIA mind control experiments, makes the subtle
differentiation that the CIA congressional witnesses might truthfully
say that all research done by the TSS Directorate had ended, since the
programs were moved into other areas once
operational techniques had been developed. Many of the names mentioned
in reference to mind control research turn up in the few references to
supposed dead-end research in ESP.
There have been persistent rumors of Navy research
involving attempts at telepathy from submarines under water, the
Nautilus being the most famous of these. Detection of enemy
submarines, and communicating with our own, has continued to be an
important area of conventional research for the Navy, so it is no
surprise that researching the use of ESP for these purposes would be
of interest. Communicating with a submerged submarine is
the only kind of communications where the very act of receiving puts
the receiver in danger, since submarines must normally stick an
antenna out of the water for high speed radio traffic, or rely on
trailing a long wire antenna under water relatively near the surface
to receive very slow speed traffic using ELF radio waves. Newer
techniques may involve the use of blue-green wavelength lasers, but
evidently penetration to any depth is still a problem.
If you look at telepathy as a problem in the transfer of
information in a very noisy environment, then certain existing
solutions suggest themselves: There have already been experiments in
the transmission of five distinct symbols via telepathy, namely Zener
card symbols. I suggest that there is
already a way of transmitting information using two symbols only,
namely Morse Code. Current ELF or VLF radio transmission methods for
communicating with fleet ballistic missile submarines to issue them
their launch orders involve very low data transfer rates, on the order
of 3 to 30 bits per minute, if I am not mistaken. Messages are very
short, consisting of pre-formulated action or targeting codes. I
suggest that telepathic 'Zener Morse' is an operational technique for
information transfer under severe signal to noise conditions. In fact
the use of five Zener symbols would increase data transfer rates, but
at the expense of a higher error rate due to the problems in
discriminating between five and just two symbols.
CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS AND REPORTS
Reports of Project SCANNATE in 70's, most likely done by
Swann, since his method for RV is very similar to that reportedly used
in this project; namely providing latitude and longitude coordinates
and telling what is there. Later changed to assigning random number
for unique session number and Swann picked up location anyway.
"The New Age Army:" Over the past 10 - 15 years a number
of military personnel, most in significant positions in Military
Intelligence, have expressed interest in and directed programs or
projects that have explored paranormal activities and capabilities.
Several government studies on Enhancing Human Performance took place
during this time. Most, if not all of them, were savaged in the NRC
study on Enhancing Human Performance, but recent critiques and
rebuttals of this study have indicated severe irregularities in the
evaluation procedures for papers submitted to the NRC study,
suppression of favorable results, and a definitely one-sided
evaluation panel.
Much modern research in parapsychology tends to support
the idea that Enhanced Perception is a survival-related trait from our
distant past, not the tip of the iceberg as far as new emerging human
powers go. This is supported by the observation that many psychic
episodes center around catastrophic or traumatic events. Studies of
Siberian and Eskimo shamans also show the development of ESP or
similar shamanic powers due to injury, exposure to cold, and
isolation. Dissociation with tendencies towards Multiple Personality
Disorder also occurs in these Shamans due to their ordeals. This is in
contrast to the experiences of most tropical shamans who tend to find
their powers through exposure to mind-altering drugs.
The Vietnam war, with its exceedingly stressful combat
environment of no clear-cut enemies combined with ambush being the
normal way of making contact, produced a large body of individual
reports stressing enhanced perception and awareness. This showed up as
detecting ambushes and booby-traps before they were sprung; detecting
the presence of enemy soldiers without any conscious sign of them;
time dilation when bullets could be seen slowly traveling around the
battlefield, and even reports of
soldiers avoiding those bullets by jumping out of their paths as they
were shot at.
Dr. Ian Wickramasekera of Eastern Virginia Medical
School has studied the expansion of sensory input during trauma which
would lead to time dilation, etc. This gentleman has also studied the
effects of sensory deprivation on hypnotic susceptibility in young
women.
In a recent article in U.S. News & World Report, John
Gittinger, a CIA psychologist associated with a CIA front
organization, the Human Ecology Society admitted to knowledge of
experiments in developing ESP by giving electric shocks to subjects
when they gave wrong answers.
Recently, a Russian researcher in psychotronics, Dr.
Igor Smirnov, has helped to start up a new Virginia company, called
Psycho-Technologies, I believe. It is supposed to conduct research on
various kinds of LTL technology, with a concentration on
Soviet-developed psychotronic warfare capabilities involving the use
of electromagnetic and sonic waves to influence and disable
individuals or crowds. Supposedly this ranges from simply falling to
influencing peoples thoughts via audio or visual
subliminal messages.
SOME OF THE PLAYERS
The Monroe Institute, located near Charlottesville,
Virginia. Bob Monroe, author of many books on Out of Body experiences,
has long and close ties with the C.I.A. James Monroe, Bob's father, if
I'm not mistaken, was involved with the Human Ecology Society, a
C.I.A. front organization of the late 50's and 60's. The Monroe
Institute has done research on accelerated learning and foreign
language learning through the use of altered states of consciousness
for the C.I.A. and other government organizations. Government interest
in the more radical research going on at the institute remains only
tantalizing speculation. Official classified document storage boxes
have been seen at their mail-order outlet located in Lovingston, VA.
Albert Stubblebine and John Alexander. Both retired Army
officers, a General and Colonel respectively. Both worked at U.S. Army
Intelligence & Security Command, or INSCOM, Stubblebine as its head at
one time. Stubblebine has publicly stated that an enlisted man under
his command inadvertently 'mentally fried' an intelligence gathering
computer located in Augsberg Germany. This was Lynn Buchanan,
discussed later.
Alexander wrote the rebuttal to the NRC paper on
Enhancing Human Performance. He used this rebuttal as the basis for a
book he co-authored called "The Warrior's Edge" which describes
various techniques for enhancing performance and perception utilizing
the power of the mind. (Alexander headed up research on Less Than
Lethal weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratories until 'retiring.')
Jack Houk, Aerospace Engineer, and his Spoon bending
parties, done for last 12 - 15 years. Stubblebine, Alexander, and
others have attended and hosted these parties. While even Houk admits
that much of the bending activity that occurs is due to hysterical
strength, people getting excited, etc. there are always a few really
perplexing feats of bending at each party. Curled and twisted hacksaw
blades comes to mind, since these normally snap if they are bent.
S.A.I.C. involvement in 1993 American Parapsychological
Association meeting arrangements, via their 'Cognitive Sciences
Laboratory'. Science Applications International Corporation is a big
time defense contractor, has held the largest number of research
contracts of any defense
contractor. Bobby Ray Inman is on its board of directors, among
others.
Startup of TREAT, Center for Treatment and Research into
Experienced Anomalous Trauma, by Rima Leibow. Leibow is a psychiatrist
who started studying trauma associated with alien abductions, noting
its similarities to PTSD. She has hosted open and closed meetings for
the past six years. Leibow is a close friend of/or married to
Stubblebine, which certainly raises some interesting questions.
Another abduction researcher and friend
is Victoria Lacas, who happens to be married to Alexander.
One other TREAT hanger-on, and friend of Stubblebine's,
is Lynn Buchanan. Buchanan offers services similar to PSI-TECH and has
worked with Ed Dames on a contract basis. He taught a Remote Viewing
workshop at the latest TREAT conference. Also offers continued
training in RV skills to those whom he decides to work with. Veteran
of INSCOM, and the famous 'computer frier' mentioned by Stubblebine.
A real mystery man in all of this is C.B. Scott Jones:
Ex-Navy Intelligence officer, one time aide to Senator Claiborne Pell,
founder of the Human Potential Foundation; Jones appears to have his
fingers in every 'weird' pie around. He has been involved with several
UFO research organizations, dolphin-human communications research,
served on the boards of several scholarly parapsychological research
organizations. Jones strikes many people as a 'Cardinal Richelieu'
figure, manipulating events behind the scenes, but rarely emerging
into the spotlight.
There is literally no conference on parapsychology that
he does not attend. He has traveled and done research with Alexander
and Rima Leibow. He works at keeping very well informed about the
'pulse' of the New Age community and about UFO and parapsychological
research in particular. He rarely writes anything for print, but keeps
in contact with many of the players in the fields. He has presented
papers to many conferences, most of the examples I have seen are
complex, lengthy, and elaborate pieces of dis-information which leave
the listeners more confused than when he started. This is an
individual who bears watching.
By Tom Porter ©1996
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