The term
'conspiracy theory' invokes certain reactions. It tends
to stir true believers, the skeptically cynic and a few demographics
in between.
On the
one extreme, we have people all too willing to accept unsubstantiated
claims as factual. Obvious enough.
The
other extreme consists of people proudly proclaiming they do not
subscribe to c-theories of any shape or size. This demographic tends
to dismiss all conspiracy theories as fodder for the delusional while
often selectively omitting confirmed conspiracies from discussion.
Perhaps
extreme perspectives are often poorly conceived. A well balanced
middle ground might provide a more rational and productive approach
to examining information.
What,
exactly, is a conspiracy theory? For the record, it is defined as “a
belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible
for a circumstance or event.”
That
doesn't sound so delusional to me. As a matter of fact, it sounds
much more like common sense.
If the anti-conspiracy demographic is trying to communicate that it doesn't accept wild claims without supporting evidence, then I'm on board.
If, however, some people literally deny the validity of any
conspiracy theories, I must adamantly disagree. Following are just a
few examples why.
Operation
Mockingbird
What
would you do if I told you the PTB were controlling significant
segments of the news and media? Roll your eyes? Suspend judgment? Or
would you say, 'yeah, I knew that'?
Original project director of Mockingbird, Cord Meyer |
Well,
Operation Mockingbird was a covert CIA initiative to influence and
manipulate key members of the media beginning in the 1950's. Pages
191-192 of a 1976 Senate report on intelligence activities
stated:
“In
pursuing its foreign intelligence mission the Central Intelligence
Agency has used the U.S. media for both the collection of
intelligence and for cover. Until February 1976, when it announced a
new policy toward U.S. media personnel, the CIA maintained covert
relationships with about 50 American journalists or employees of U.S.
media organizations. They are part of a network of several hundred
foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the
CIA and at times attempt to influence foreign opinion through the use
of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct
access to a large number of foreign newspapers and periodicals,
scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television
stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media
outlets.”
The
report went on to document that Senator Frank Church criticized such
operations. He noted that the CIA was spending an estimated $265
million per year of taxpayers' money to misinform them.
Completely
old news? Not so fast.
In much
more recent years, The
Washington Post reported
that intelligence officials acknowledged paying media outlets to
allow them to plant stories in efforts to shape political views and
control opinions. It has since become public knowledge that
state-sponsored information operations regularly include the
distribution of thousands of military-authored stories per year to
mainstream media outlets, and The
New York Times reported
that consultants working for military contractors are routinely
misrepresented to be objective analysts of military operations.
The Guardian informed us
that “sock puppet” software allows a single U.S. soldier to
covertly control multiple separate Internet identities so they can,
basically, troll louder and faster than adversaries while
distributing propaganda.
It just
doesn't happen to be a classified conspiracy anymore. Neither can we
any longer spend as little as 265 mil to get misinformed. It now
costs us a whole lot more to be misled.
COINTELPRO
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation began Counterintelligence Program, or
COINTELPRO, in 1956 in order to survey, infiltrate, discredit and
disrupt domestic political organizations. As suggested, the operation
largely broke the laws it claimed to uphold and abused the citizens
it claimed to protect.
FBI czar J. Edgar Hoover |
The
public learned of the operation in 1971 after the Citizens'
Commission to Investigate the FBI broke in to a Bureau field office
in Media, Pennsylvania. Files were obtained, copied and delivered to
news outlets documenting that the FBI infiltrated such groups as the
Socialist Workers Party, Ku Klux Klan and Black Panther Party.
Objectives included intentionally creating dissension within and
between the groups, inciting violence and similar disruptions.
MIT
professor and political activist
Noam Chomsky explained, “"COINTELPRO was a program of subversion
carried out not by a couple of petty crooks, but by the national
political police, the FBI, under four administrations...”
By
the time it was discovered, Chomsky added, “It was aimed at the
entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black
movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as
political assassination.”
A
1976 Select Committee final report indicated
FBI investigations included conspiring with other intelligence and
law enforcement agencies while employing vague standards and vicious
tactics. Attorney and writer Brian Glick explained in his book, War
at Home,
that the Bureau used four primary strategies during COINTELPRO:
infiltration, psychological warfare, harassment through the legal
system and illegal force, the latter of which included burglary,
vandalism, assault, beatings and assassination. A 1976 final report
completed by the Church Committee (see page 5) stated that targeting and directing such actions at various
political groups had “continued for decades, despite the fact that
those groups did not engage in unlawful activity.”
MKULTRA
No
writer worth their keep could address confirmed conspiracies without
referencing the CIA mind control venture, Project MKULTRA. The efforts of researcher John Marks resulted in the release of FOIA docs and contributed to Congressional hearings during the 1970's that revealed a 25-year CIA effort to control the human organism. The operation included the exploitation of involuntary human research subjects who underwent experiments involving the administration of drugs, hypnosis,
torture, psychological conditioning and combinations thereof. Project
MKULTRA was a primary component of the effort in which funds were covertly funneled through nonprofit foundations in order
to finance some 149 known sub-projects. Research and experiments were conducted at over 80 facilities including - but not limited to -
military bases, prisons, hospitals, universities and even CIA funded
and operated brothels.
MKULTRA Project Director Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (left) with his attorney in 1977 |
Several lawsuits spanning many years resulted from such circumstances as the
death of CIA man Frank Olson, the abuse of psychiatric patients at
the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University and research called
“terminal experiments” in which methodology included loss of
human life. Numerous court judgments have subsequently been
issued against the CIA, Department of Defense and associates, the
latest of which occurred in July on behalf of Vietnam Veterans of
America.
False
Flag UFOs
While
segments of the UFO community perpetually argue the validity of the
possibility Uncle Sam is tainting the well of UFO data, the fact of
the matter is that has long been the case. Page 9 of the USAF Project
Grudge final report of August, 1949, noted, “Planned
release of unusual aerial objects coupled with the release of related
psychological propaganda could cause mass hysteria.”
The
report added, “Employment of these methods by or against an enemy
would yield similar results.”
Dr. Leon Davidson |
As
writer/researcher Mark O'Connell wrote about at his blog, High Strangeness,
the Air Force then continued developing an aspect of electronic
warfare known as electronic countermeasures, or ECM. Chemical
engineer, scientist and Manhattan Project participant Dr. Leon
Davidson explained in a work titled, ECM + CIA = UFO,
by 1950 ECM was standard equipment on advanced bombers. The
technology soon evolved into providing “simulated targets for
training radar operators,” or, in other words, false radar paints.
“I
contend that since 1951,” Dr. Davidson wrote, “the CIA has caused
or sponsored saucer sightings for its own purposes.”
Whether
or not Davidson was entirely correct, ECM research and development
indeed culminated into Project PALLADIUM. In a 1998 report titled,
Stealth, Countermeasures, and ELINT, 1960-1975, CIA
man Gene Poteat explained how the project
worked. Teams consisting of intelligence personnel and military
support would calibrate and inject false targets onto radars. Phantom
aircraft of whatever size desired could appear to travel on any
flight path at any speed and altitude.
The
capabilities were combined with planned release of unusual aerial
objects, similarly to how Project Grudge had foreseen in 1949, and one
particular operation was conducted off the coast of Cuba during the
missile crisis of 1962. The report explained how the coordination of
PALLADIUM equipment and strategically placed personnel baffled the
enemy, and descriptions might ring more than a few bells with UFO
buffs.
“The
false aircraft was made to appear to be a U.S. fighter plane out of
Key West about to fly over Cuba,” Poteat wrote. “A Navy submarine
slipped in close to Havana Bay, and it was to surface just long
enough to release a timed series of balloon-borne metalized spheres
of different sizes. The idea was for the early warning radar to track
our electronic aircraft and then for the submarine to surface and
release the 'calibrated' spheres up into the path of the oncoming
false aircraft.”
Describing
how the operation unfolded, Poteat explained, “We had no trouble in
manipulating the PALLADIUM system controls to keep our ghost aircraft
always just ahead of the pursuing Cuban planes. When the Cuban pilot
radioed back to his controllers that he had the intruding aircraft in
sight and was about to make a firing pass to shoot it down, we all
had the same idea at the same instant. The technician moved his
finger to the switch, I nodded yes, and he switched off the PALLADIUM
system.”
The
report additionally stated, “Every
PALLADIUM operation consisted of a CIA team with its ghost aircraft
system, an NSA team with its special COMINT and decryption equipment,
and a military operational support team.”
The CIA,
NSA and DoD apparently found it advantageous as early as the mid 20th
century to create false UFO incidents. Similar options were included
in the IC bag of tricks until at least the 1980's, as documented by
Mark Pilkington in his book, Mirage
Men.
National
Security Agency
It turns
out the U.S. government, specifically the NSA and associates,
actually were eavesdropping and intercepting email after all.
You may have heard about it. If not, you can research that one
yourself. Be advised that you might choose to save some credible sources, because a few years from now people will be saying things like, "If that really happened, wouldn't some of them have been arrested?"
Neither
side of a debate is absolved of responsibility to do its homework and
conduct competent investigation when further research is justified.
Let us not forget that premature conclusions, either supporting or
negating reasonable theories, can each be found on different sides of
the same coin of bias. Let us support efforts to conduct credible
research with sincere intentions, allowing the data a chance to speak
for itself.
People
do lie. Intel agencies do conduct classified
operations. That is not delusion, but realism.
What we
must guard against is taking the mounting - and at times justifiable
- distrust of the government and confusing it with evidence that any
given conspiracy theory is founded. That is not always the case,
but neither should reasonable possibilities be dismissed out of hand.
Sometimes
there are conspiracies, and if no one ever investigated the
possibilities, we would never have heard of some of
the circumstances described above. Sometimes a covert
but influential organization is
responsible for a circumstance or event – and when it is
competently researched and proven, a conspiracy theory becomes a matter of historic record.
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