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 with subproject 84.[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 icepick 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 pseudomemory. 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 pseudomemory to rationalize abduction claims, they cite experimental situations in which pseudomemory 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 pseudomemory creation prove my point: Pseudomemory 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 noted 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:

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.

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] 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.

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 précis 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:

“...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]

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.

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.

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 pseudomemory, 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 pseudomemory 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.

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 the 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 electromagnetic 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] has 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 disc underneath the dash of his car.

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 disk 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 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 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]
 

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 other tools, thoughtless and effective.

And it is my contention that to create this soldier of the future, the controllers 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. 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.

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