"It should still be classified – if nothing else, to keep information the division developed out of the hands of some nut."
- Dr. Andrew Cowan, former chief of Fort Detrick Special Operations Division, as quoted by Hank P. Albarelli Jr.
In a series of articles,
blog posts and books spanning the last few years, researchers
reported significant aspects of past and current psychological
operations conducted by the US intelligence community. Author Hank
Albarelli Jr., psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Kaye and investigative
journalist Jason Leopold reported on such topics as previously
unknown aspects of efforts to control the human mind. They collectively covered the CIA use of
drugs as tools of interrogation, events surrounding the violent death
of Frank Olson and the manner the activities and duration of Project
ARTICHOKE were intentionally misrepresented to the public for
decades. During the course of their research, which included dozens
of FOIA requests, it became increasingly clear these were not
exclusively matters of distant yesteryear, but circumstances of which
correlations could be directly drawn to ongoing and current events.
It was discovered
by Kaye and Leopold in 2012 that detainees in the custody of the US
military were currently being forced to take powerful drugs while
incarcerated and during the course of interrogation. A white paper
previously published by Physicians for Human Rights concluded that "possible human experimentation" was being conducted during such operations, and suggested a thorough investigation
should be launched. Detainees were in some instances forced to submit
to injections upon arrival at sites, sometimes without being informed
of what they were taking, and in at least one circumstance a detainee
was given an injection during an interrogation in a "deliberate
ruse" in which he was told it was "truth serum".
Further research indicated the CIA had long played a deceptive shell game of moving activities from one project to another. This seemed to include changing the titles assigned to certain procedures to more politically acceptable terms when the expressions fell out of public and Congressional favor, while in actuality continuing to conduct virtually unrestricted operations.
Did this mean "mind
control", which became "behavior modification", had eventually
evolved to become the current buzz phrase, "enhanced interrogation
techniques"? Was it all the evolution of the same general chain of
research? And is it not a reasonable perspective that, by any other
name, it all amounts to torture?
What might the work of
such researchers as Albarelli, Kaye and Leopold indicate about the
mysteries perennially explored on blogs such as this? And,
ultimately, is the UFO angle a relatively insignificant aspect of the
overall topic, at least as compared to the violations of human
rights?
Consideration should
indeed be given to the questions of ethics that are bound to arise
when medical doctors and similar professionals become employed in the
administration of torture and experimentation of involuntary research
subjects. That may well be considered the primary issue. Even so, does it not remain apparent – and relevant, at
least to the UFO community - that lines between the activities conducted by intelligence officers and UFO-researchers are subject to blurring?
In order to formulate
answers to such questions, let us review some of the events that took
place from the last several decades to present. Our review will
include operations conducted by the IC, the work of some leading
writer/researchers, and events of potential interest occurring within
the UFO community.
Cries From the Past
Initial CIA efforts to
perfect ways to manipulate and control human behavior included
projects titled BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA, among others.
Beginning in the late 1940's, the IC undertook experimenting with
hypnosis, drugs and a wide variety of factors that might assist in
achieving objectives such as creating Manchurian Candidate-type
operatives and advancing interrogation techniques.
The late Senator Frank Church of the Church Committee |
Such projects and their
exploitation of unwitting human subjects continued for some known 25
years. It was then, in the 1970's, that a series of Congressional
hearings and the work of writer/researcher John Marks took place,
bringing to light some of the details of the disturbing
circumstances. The covert operations were ordered ceased by Congress.
A number of posts on this
blog explored aspects of CIA mind control ventures and efforts to
successfully create Manchurian Candidates. Posts can be located by
using the search feature or browsing the 'Labels' section in
the sidebar to the right.
Morse Allen is credited
with being the CIA's first behavioral research czar. He was the
project director for BLUEBIRD as well as ARTICHOKE. According to John Marks,
in 1954 Allen coined the phrase "terminal experiments", or
research resulting in the loss of human life, while proposing an
operation to his superiors.
Allen attempted to
persuade the Agency to carry out a scheme in which a research subject
would be programmed to conduct a mission abroad, but then detained
when the CIA would "tip" the friendly country that a suspected
spy was in its midst. Allen reasoned this would afford the CIA the
opportunity to observe firsthand how its programmed man would hold up
under interrogation and torture that would presumably result in
death. It was unclear if the operation was ever conducted.
Hank Albarelli and Dr.
Jeffrey Kaye co-authored a 2010 truthout article titled, Cries From the Past: Torture's Ugly Echoes.
The article contained a summary of Allen's activities, which included
devising plans for the exploitation as research subjects of military
personnel detained in brigs, as well as inmates at federal prisons.
Facilities equipped with medical staff were considered to be
particularly attractive options.
Albarelli and Kaye noted
the influence of Nazis recruited during Operation Paperclip from the
outset of such projects, explaining that Agency objectives included
securing control over segments of society perceived to be weaker
and less intelligent. It should be noted that Paperclip recruits were indeed established to have been among the original architects of
CIA mind control operations.
"That the CIA's initial
mind control activities show a close kinship with many prominent
characters within the racist and anti-immigration eugenics movement
is no coincidence," Albarelli and Kaye explained.
Cries From the Past also explained how
Project ARTICHOKE included a series of experimental field assignments
followed by dispatching specialized team members to locations
throughout Europe and Asia. Some 257 specific assignments were
reportedly carried out between 1954 and 1961. Albarelli and Kaye
wrote:
A February 6, 1954 team report, delivered to CIA headquarters by "Diplomatic Courier," provides partial insight into one seemingly unique Artichoke field assignment in Europe. The report states: "These two subjects [foreign agents] are disposal problems, one because of his lack of ability to carry out a mission and the other because he cannot get along with the chief agent of the project. Both have extensive information concerning (other) assets and thus are security risks wherever they are disposed of. Anything that can be done in the Artichoke field to lessen the security risk will be helpful since the men must be disposed of even at maximum security risk. The urgency of consideration of this case is due to the fact that one of the men is already somewhat stir crazy and has tried to escape twice."
Another field report reads: "Subject was given a sedative suppository to increase his resistance to pain, this in order to intensify his ordeal midway through the planned session." Another reads in part: "This A [Artichoke] session involved four subjects all of whom present serious disposal problems after results are produced."ARTICHOKE teams were also charged with conducting operations within the United States. Objectives included "contacting" certain aliens, or immigrants, by infiltrating targeted groups and setting up "sympathetic fake left-wing organizations" to attract members of demographics of interest. Attempts were made to indoctrinate individuals as "hypnotically controlled agents".
Allen Dulles, who served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1953-1961 |
Moreover,
Cries From the Past
indicated that ARTICHOKE operated from 1954 until at least 1970. That
would mean it continued many years after MKULTRA was initiated,
running simultaneously and relatively independently of the now more
widely known project.
Might
such circumstances give us glimpses of insight into events in UFO
Land such as those reported by Betty and Barney Hill, circa 1961? The
Hills were of course an inter-racial couple involved in the civil
rights movement and might indeed have landed on the radar of an
agency setting up bogus left-wing organizations in attempts to lure
persons of interest. Before considering that further, let us continue
our review of the IC and what might be suggested by ARTICHOKE
operating longer than was previously revealed.
Long
Term Cover-Up of ARTICHOKE
Albarelli
and Kaye reported in their 2010 article that members of the 1975 Ford
administration conspired in an operation informally titled Dormouse
to downplay and distract attention from ARTICHOKE. This apparently
included releasing information related to MKULTRA due to a chain of
events that included the Rockefeller Commission report and Church
Committee hearings.
It
was then, according to Albarelli and Kaye, that CIA General Counsel
Lawrence Houston, a man with direct experience in such circumstances
as the investigation of the death of Frank Olson, informed Ford's
chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld, and the chief assistant, Dick
Cheney, that MKULTRA was far less problematic than ARTICHOKE. The
perspective seemed to partially include the mentality that MKULTRA
involved farming out operations to respected universities and similar
otherwise credible contractors, while the blood of violence born of
ARTICHOKE was solely on the hands of the Agency.
"Houston
stressed that deliberate exposure of the MK/ULTRA program by
essentially offering it to the press would serve to placate the
brewing feeding frenzy over so-called mind control projects," Albarelli and Kaye wrote, "and would divert any investigative
attempts into the multi-faceted Artichoke Project."
This
writer recently emailed Albarelli and requested further clarification about sources and documents used to obtain such information. He
promptly responded that the info resulted from FOIA requests spanning
15 years to the CIA and other government agencies. Much of the
Dormouse information came from a Ford administration letter, he
stated. The ARTICHOKE info, including the 1954 team report, was
obtained from a CIA briefing book on the project and from lawsuit
depositions. Albarelli added that some, if not all, of the docs were
cited in the footnotes of his last two books.
Present Day Experimentation
Albarelli
and Kaye are among the writer/researchers who point out that
operations such as ARTICHOKE directly led to policies and procedures
employed today in the intelligence community. What's more, they tell
us, the involuntary human experimentation continues. They wrote:
CIA interest in exotic and abusive methods of detecting deception continues to the present day. In July 2003, the CIA, the Rand Corporation and the American Psychological Association conducted a series of workshops on detecting deception. One of these workshops considered the use of truth drugs ("pharmacological agents are known to affect apparent truth-telling behavior") and the use of sensory overloads. The workshop asked its classified participants, "How might we overload the system or overwhelm the senses and see how it affects deceptive behaviors?"
In
a 2010 article titled, Obama Interrogation Official Linked to Mind Control Research,
Kaye explored circumstances surrounding the workshop mentioned above.
He noted how classified participants were invited to discuss
techniques for experimentation and that information previously
published about the workshop on the American
Psychological Association website was removed, along with all references to
the event.
Kaye co-authored a 2012
article with Jason Leopold titled, EXCLUSIVE: DoD Report Reveals Some Detainees Interrogated While Drugged, Others "Chemically Restrained". The two cited a 2009 inspector general's report they obtained through a FOIA request that took two years to complete.
Psychologist James Edgar Mitchell (R), architect of interrogation methods now considered torture, according to a 2014 article in The Tampa Tribune |
In an article published in April of this year, Dr. Kaye
cited DoD directives to establish "control, dependency, compliance
and cooperation" in detainees. July 24 it was reported
in The Washington Post that a European court found Poland
complicit in CIA torture and held the nation responsible for
compensating victims. That is just one such ruling of
many.
We have learned via
declassified documents that ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA involved detaining
persons of interest throughout the world. Individuals were then
subjected to experiments and interrogations involving powerful drugs,
extreme sensory deprivation, hypnosis and resulting trance states,
among other trial by fire activities. Given recent official probes
into exploitation of involuntary human research subjects - along with
current IC doublespeak terminology and procedures involving global
black sites, enhanced interrogation techniques and forced ingestion
of drugs - it is not difficult to understand the correlations drawn
between Cold War-era mind control operations and current events.
Developments in Washington
Perhaps the work of such
journalists as Albarelli, Kaye and Leopold provide insights into
circumstances often contemplated by the UFO community and those who
describe themselves as Targeted Individuals. An item making the
rounds in such circles was a 2006 Navy doc outlining research protocol involving human subjects.
It established the
Secretary of the Navy as the approval authority for protocols
involving "waivers for the requirement of informed consent".
Additionally addressed were approval procedures for circumstances
involving "severe
or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human
subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control
techniques)", "prisoners", "potentially or inherently
controversial topics" that might "attract significant media
coverage or that might invite challenge by interest groups", and "classified human research".
Author Sharon Weinberger ambitiously tackled the mind control issue in her 2007 article, Mind Games.
The WaPo piece contained an interview with Col. John "Mr.
Non-Lethal" Alexander, who, among other statements of potential
interest, declared he would argue the baby was thrown out with the
bathwater when MKULTRA was axed. Weinberger wrote:
Alexander also is intrigued by the possibility of using electronic means to modify behavior. The dilemma of the war on terrorism, he notes, is that it never ends. So what do you do with enemies, such as those at Guantanamo: keep them there forever? That's impractical. Behavior modification could be an alternative, he says.
"Maybe I can fix you, or electronically neuter you, so it's safe to release you into society, so you won't come back and kill me," Alexander says. It's only a matter of time before technology allows that scenario to come true, he continues. "We're now getting to where we can do that." He pauses for a moment to take a bite of his sandwich. "Where does that fall in the ethics spectrum? That's a really tough question."
The
colonel, who has long been a UFO Land attraction, stated during the interview that members
of the national security community were once again expressing
interest in mind control. He suggested that was particularly the case
after 9/11 for a younger generation that wasn't around for MKULTRA.
"It's
interesting, that it's coming back," Alexander told Weinberger.
Perhaps he was indeed
referring, at least in part, to such operations as reported in recent
years by Albarelli, Kaye and Leopold. But was there actually much
more of an ongoing evolution of such research, as suggested in the
similarities between ARTICHOKE and present day interrogation
procedures?
Dennis Kucinich |
Perhaps more importantly,
career politician and lawmaker Kucinich proposed the Space Preservation Act of 2001.
Whatever he may have thought about his 1990's UFO sighting or
whatever intelligence he may have gathered in the mean time, his bill
sought to ban space-based weapons. That included the "use of
land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation,
electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies
directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the
purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such
persons or populations." The bill additionally proposed the banning
of "exotic weapons systems such as high altitude ultra low
frequency weapons systems".
The Space Preservation
Act of 2001 was not passed. In order to consider how such circumstances may have developed, let us review some specific examples of covert CIA activity and how it ties in to UFO matters.
Frank Olson and Pont St.
Esprit
Hank
P. Albarelli Jr. is the author of the 2009 book, A Terrible
Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War
Experiments. He summarized the work in a 2010 post at
Voltaire Network.
The Hotel Statler, later renamed the Hotel Pennsylvania and the site of Olson's death |
While
researching such circumstances, Albarelli became increasingly
suspicious that Olson may have been involved in yet another event
that had been the focus of researchers and conspiracy theorists, the
mystery of Pont St. Esprit. The French village experienced a mass outbreak of insanity in 1951.
Nearly 500 people were effected, including five deaths and two
suicides. Victims reportedly thrashed wildly about, experienced
intense hallucinations and obviously suffered tremendously.
Possible
explanations included ergot poisoning, which could have resulted from
consuming bread with psychedelic mold. Researchers would eventually
suspect the town was the target of some kind of psychological
operation and weapons testing.
Undated White House doc considered by Albarelli to be "the smoking gun" |
The
link to Olson, as Albarelli reported, included an undated White House
document apparently provided to the Rockefeller Commission during its
1970's investigation of CIA abuses. Under a specific reference to
Frank Olson, the doc contained the names of two French nationals
employed covertly by the CIA, a direct mention of the "Pont St.
Esprit incident", and reference to the Fort Detrick Special
Operations Division, which conducted now infamous experiments on
exploited enlisted men.
Additional
items of interest included declassified docs indicating the Special
Operations Division, which Olson directed, planned and in some cases
executed ops strikingly similar to what apparently occurred at Pont
St. Esprit. In 1956, for example, the Division conducted experiments involving the aerosol spraying of chemicals through the
exhaust pipe of a car driven around New York City. In 1952 and 1953,
the CIA similarly released chemicals in the New York subway. See
operations titled Big City and Mad Hatter for more information.
Another
declassified doc studied by Albarelli contained a 1953 report composed by an unnamed CIA informant. A
meeting is described between the informant and a Sandoz Chemical
Company official whose name is redacted. The informant explained how
the Sandoz official stated that some were
aware the Pont St. Esprit "secret" did not involve bread at all.
It was an experiment involving a man-made compound, the Sandoz man
stated, and that he allegedly knew that to be the case because the
French had occupied Sandoz laboratories for weeks conducting
analysis. This writer has personally viewed a copy of the document, as it was included in the MKULTRA collection released by the CIA.
Numerous
additional docs were cited by Albarelli in his 900-page book,
including some that demonstrated CIA interests in pursuing the use of
LSD as a weapon for use on mass populations. A 1954 scientific intelligence memorandum, for instance, addressed capabilities of "rendering whole groups of people, including military forces, indifferent to their surroundings and situations, interfering with planning and judgment, and even creating apprehension, uncontrollable confusion and terror".
A very compelling case
can indeed be made that Frank Olson and his Special Operations
Division were involved in what some might describe as the
unconscionable drugging of Pont St. Esprit. Some, possibly,
including what may have become an intolerably guilt ridden Frank
Olson.
Albarelli
explained that in 2005, he and a former Baltimore
Sun reporter by the name of Scott
Shane made inquiries into why the CIA destroyed virtually all
records of operations involving chemicals and aerosols conducted by
the Fort Detrick Special Operations Division. The CIA explained that "people would not understand or misconstrue the reasons for many of
the projects the Agency carried out". When Shane asked former top
ranking Special Operations Division officer Dr. Andrew M. Cowan to
address such projects, Cowan stated, "I just don't give interviews
on that subject. It should still be classified – if nothing else,
to keep information the division developed out of the hands of some
nut."
Montreal
Dr.
Ewen Cameron was a prominent and well respected mid 20th
century psychiatrist. He served as president of both the American and
Canadian Psychiatric Associations, as well as director of the Allan
Memorial Institute, the psychiatric treatment arm of McGill University. Cameron also
incredibly shared Morse Allen's willingness to conduct terminal
experiments.
It
was in Montreal at the Rockefeller Foundation-initiated Allan Memorial
Institute that Cameron exploited psychiatric patients in the pursuit
of "psychic driving". MKULTRA Subproject 68
included efforts to erase and reprogram the personal conditioning of research
subjects.
Methodologies included use of a wide variety of physically and mentally
incapacitating drugs. "Patients" were strapped down and subjected
to up to 16 hours per day of recorded looping suggestions and
monotonous programming, often carrying relentlessly
repeated negative messages.
Extreme
sensory deprivation was also employed, which included confining
subjects to boxes, sometimes weeks at a time. It was clearly
understood by the CIA that such experiments would almost certainly
cause irreparable damage. The Agency was informed so by its own
consultant, brain surgeon Dr. Maitland Baldwin, who shared the willingness of Cameron
and Allen to conduct terminal experiments.
It
took quite some time for the circumstances at McGill to begin to
become more widely known and accepted as reality, and lawsuits
eventually resulted. The DoD shelled out millions in compensation,
and legal battles continued well into this century.
An
interesting aside of the Cameron saga involves its direct relation to a
future writer on the topic of UFOs and alien abduction. In 1962, while Cameron
remained employed at the facility, McGill brought on a young
psychologist as a lecturer in the psych department, Dr. Don Donderi.
According to his resume, Donderi rose through the ranks to eventually become a leader at
McGill. He remained associated with the university for decades,
including fielding questions
and addressing issues about the events surrounding Cameron.
Donderi
developed a relationship with the late pro-hypnosis and alien abduction icon Budd Hopkins. This included Donderi assigning much
credibility to such aspects of Hopkins' work as the otherwise highly questionable circumstances surrounding "symbols" reportedly seen aboard alien craft and subsequently sketched
by alleged abductees. Donderi authored the 2013 book, UFOs,
ETS, and Alien Abductions: A Scientist Looks at the Evidence,
which received very poor reviews by venues such as Magonia
Blog,
where it was considered to fall well short of providing readers with a scientific assessment as implied in the title.
The Hill Case
Betty and Barney Hill |
The
story of the Hill alleged alien abduction is a complex affair. The
gist of the matter is that African American Barney Hill and his
Caucasian wife Betty perceived something extraordinary happened to
them while driving home from Montreal. The event
involved what the couple thought to be a UFO sighting and a
significant amount of what came to be known as missing time, or short
term amnesia.
Later,
under hypnosis conducted by Boston psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon in
apparent efforts to treat the couple for trauma, they recounted what
they felt to be deeply buried memories of an alien abduction
occurring during the missing time in question. The case drew a great
deal of public interest and became known as the grandfather of alien
abductions.
Coincidentally
or otherwise, another highly respected psychologist, Dr. Martin Orne,
was covertly conducting MKULTRA Subproject 84, the focus of which was
hypnosis, in Boston, the same city where Simon held his practice.
This is but one in a long list of curiosities that arguably deserve
more attention, or, at the least, should not be entirely omitted from
mention when considering potentially relevant aspects of the Hill case.
A declassified 1950 CIA memo offers a glimpse into the deceptive and manipulative mindsets of those who developed such projects as ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA. While considering a "candidate for indoctrination" - a professional man to be involved in regressive hypnosis-like work on behalf of the Agency - the memo read in part:
A declassified 1950 CIA memo offers a glimpse into the deceptive and manipulative mindsets of those who developed such projects as ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA. While considering a "candidate for indoctrination" - a professional man to be involved in regressive hypnosis-like work on behalf of the Agency - the memo read in part:
This man recently took training at [redacted] He has given up all connections with dianetics because we do not consider dianetics medically ethically [sic] but the technique of so called dianetic auditing is an interesting one in that the subject, lying on a couch with his eyes closed, is regressed in such a way as to relive incidents, either pleasant or unpleasant at various times in his life. This is accomplished, usually without medication, and is said to be non-hypnotic.
[Redacted] would like to be re-called to active duty in his rank. I feel sure that his personality is such that he would be adaptable to indoctrination. At present, he knows nothing of what might be desired of him.
Intriguing as some of that may be, in recent months writer/researcher Nick Redfern
made some interesting remarks about events that provide direct implications into the Hill case, as well as the IC manipulation of public perception of such topics as alien abduction. In order to tie some
of this together, let us consider Redfern's comments about an author
who published books on both the Pont St. Esprit tragedy and the Hill
case, and, according to Nick, was well paid to frame events in
manners that were advantageous to the Agency.
John
G. Fuller
Commenting
in January at The UFO Iconoclast(s) blog, Redfern indicated
he believed the Hill case to be the result of MKULTRA. He went on to
discuss circumstances related to writer John G. Fuller, author of The
Interrupted Journey, which is about the Hill case, and The Day of St.
Anthony's Fire, a book on the events of Pont St. Esprit.
"There
are actually some very interesting threads involving Fuller and
MKUltra," Redfern explained. "He actually met some of the CIA
personnel involved, back in the late 1950s, and he wrote the book
'The Day of St. Anthony’s Fire,' all about the early 1950s
Pont-Saint-Esprit, France affair, which was almost certainly a
pre-MKUltra-type event."
Redfern
continued:
But there is something to remember: one of the reasons why so many CIA botched events (or even successful events) have been uncovered is because the mainstream media has looked into them and uncovered the facts.
The problem is that mainstream media (with its finances and staff available to investigate in-depth) hardly ever do in-depth probing of the UFO issue, because it's not seen as worthwhile.
If the mainstream media gave the same persistence as that which was given to looking into Iran-Contra, WMD, Watergate etc, then we might actually find more of this MK/UFO angle surfacing.
That's the problem: the regular media is conditioned to think the UFO issue is bullshit. So, it steers away from it.
If the major funding and manpower that has been devoted to issues like those above was also applied to UFOs, the[y] might find something very interesting. But, they won't do it.
As for us, as a UFO community, we are limited in terms of time available and funding.
Plus, regardless of what people might think, there IS a MAJOR MKULtra-John Fuller link - Fuller being the man who wrote the Hill's story up in his "The Interrupted Journey."
Fuller's private notes show he was fascinated by MKUltra, LSD and the Pont-Saint-Esprit, France affair, and how people's minds could be transformed to see something fantastic - which was the absolute crux of Pont-Saint-Esprit.
Not many have looked into all this, but I have. And I have something coming out on all this in a few months, something which will present Fuller in a whole new light... And not a positive light. The man is going to come crashing down like a ton of bricks.
Redfern
concluded, "Fuller was paid well to help nurture the imagery of
'alien abductions' via The Interrupted Journey. And I don't mean paid
well by his publisher..."
That's
a Wrap
Perhaps
time will tell about matters related to the Hill case suggested by
Nick Redfern. But what about his views on UFOs and the media? Are his
points legitimate?
It
is the opinion of this writer that the UFO community has long
collectively suffered from a lack of ability to accurately
contextualize certain concepts and matters of historical record. That is of course a detriment.
Journalists
are making valid points about similarities between Cold War
operations such as ARTICHOKE and the current drugging and
interrogation of detainees. An alarming number of detainees are being very questionably defined as persons of interest and should have never been incarcerated in the first place. Anticipate more lawsuits. The tactics between black ops of yesteryear and
activities of today are indeed similar to the extents that one might question if, in some instances, interrogation may virtually not be taking place at all as compared to experimentation.
William Moore, an author in the UFO community who proclaimed himself a disinformation agent |
Journalists
now report that the CIA spied on the very Congressional oversight committee charged
with monitoring and assessing its activities. The circumstances were acknowledged by
the Agency – after they were initially denied yet later proven. A
member of the Michigan House of Representatives conceded he has no idea what goes on in the CIA.
Neither
does the UFO community. The prevailing question is how relevant the circumstances would
be if it did.
What? No comments?? Come on people. this is fascinating, important stuff!! Oh well, can't say people weren't warned ...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, fascinating post, Jack. I have thought for a number of years that there is a definite cross-over between the worlds of politics, "conspiracy", mind-control, ufos ... maybe from a distance, they're all part of some over arching ... program. I don't really know but it does look like that some very real connections between all of these disparate fields, can indeed be made. Nothing is totally in a vacuum.
But as you mention Nick Redfern as saying, I have thought for quite a while that the Betty and Barney Hill case was possibly some sort of psychological operations incident like he has said.
[Disclaimer: I have not read any of the Hill literature, as of yet, but I do intend at some point to start a blog, and comment on classic UFO literature. "The Interrupted Journey" etc will probably be part of it ... I just know what I have seen on documentaries about the case, and what people have said about it on blogs and forums, podcasts etc ...]
I have come to understand, that the people (the amorphous "powers that be") who are behind these kind of events (like the 9/11 and the JFK assassination) do these sort of things for a number of reasons. And I'm starting to think that the Hill case is nothing different.
As I say, I think the Hill case may have covered a number of areas, and these are just a few quick thoughts as to what they may have been:
1. They were a mixed race couple. It was the early 1960s. They were a very uncommon sight. They would have made a very interesting case for the eugenicists and people interested in racial profiling etc.
2. They were part of the (left wing) civil rights movement. Again quite handy, if you were right wing, and wanted to co-opt the movement. What a great way to make people think different of "them socialists" if a well-known couple in the movement suddenly went all ... funny.
3. "They" needed to instill fear in the population. Fear is always a good way of controlling the masses. And a so-called "alien abduction" would be a good place for people living in the "space-age" to get scared over.
4. Maybe having a space-craft land and abduct some people would give them Ruskies something to think about too(??) This was a new thing, and as far as anyone knows, it hadn't happened before the Hills were "taken". Maybe the Soviets would even be a little bit jealous about Americans being abducted. Americans are better for study them them damned Ruskies ...
5. Maybe the "aliens" were friendly and concerned for our safety. Again nice place to start a new religion. The contactee movement had pretty much fizzled out by then, and nothing had really changed that much in the greater populace. Better do something new to make people sit up and really notice.
6. Maybe the "aliens" weren't so friendly, after all. Better militarise space, guys! The people will be behind you.
Maybe someone could come up with more on this, and this is a pretty rushed post (as all my posts really are :D). But it would be a great event for a number of reasons. And it may be that all these ideas I have rattled off the top of my skull are all interlinked in a number of ways, anyway.
Sometimes these things need a bit of time before you can start joining the dots in the right way. Maybe we will finally figure out what went happened a hundred years after the event. Maybe never at all(?). I think the internet, though, has been something that the powers that be had not counted on, and it may speed up our insights into such events, a tad.
Anyway, fascinating stuff Jack. I am going to try to make an attempt to go through all your posts. What I have seen so far, I think, is really good stuff that more people should be noticing and researching for themselves ... oooh look a shiny thing ... wanders off to look at Dr Greer's shiny biceps ...
Best wishes
Harvey P.
ps just saw an interview with Robert Hastings from 2013, and he said that he didn't think there was any MK-Ultra kind of shenanigans going on in the UFO field. Hmm ... but you (ie Hastings) think there really ARE aliens coming to our planet(!) even though you are a stickler for evidence and documentation and you haven't got a shred of evidence for this conjecture. Just another one of those strange little things, maybe(??) There's none stranger than folk. Thought I might mention it, anyhow. Best wishes HP.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Harvey! I very much appreciate your interest and encouragement. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI agree there are many aspects of the Hill case that deserve much more attention. I think that is particularly the case if the UFO community is going to entertain extraordinary explanations such as literal doctors from the stars.
I think a relevant point is that the UFO community largely averts from the subject matter. That is of course the case due to such reasons as the ETH is a preferred explanation for reports of high strangeness, thus those who desire to remain in public favor often prefer to not make waves. Another reason is that those who support the ETH are better ticket draws to conferences, etc.
Ultimately, what this tells us is that ufology is not taken seriously - at least in part - because it does not take itself seriously. As long as its investigators claim conclusions while blatantly ignoring evidence contained and circumstances implied in valuable resources such as FOIA docs, UFO-researchers will fail to be given any respect or credibility among other professional researchers. Rightly so, a reasonable argument could be made.
Very good post, Jack. Necessary, even.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of military and civilian intelligence agencies being involved at times in ufological matters is rife with and ripe for potential investigation and very overdue, IMHO. I'd like to see that post about John G. Fuller's role in the Hill abduction, and Fuller's other connections and interests in the things you mentioned, like MK Ultra and the Pont-Saint-Esprit debacle. Perhaps you and Nick Redfern could co-author a cross-posted blog about that at some point.
Keep up the good work -- although you don't get nearly as much feedback in comments as the quality of your work here deserves, don't be discouraged. You're talking about things many within "ufology" don't really want to hear or know, due to their preconceived notions about the standard-issue ETH and related forms of confirmation bias, unfortunately. Or so it would seem.
This is important stuff, and I really do appreciate your manner of "peeling back the layers of the onion" and objective perspective in trying to better discern the roots of the mythos of much of the UFO phenomenon, as it is all too often these days covered in the detritus of unfounded belief and emotion, and reexamining cases and going to original source materials, or real investigation, is required to uncover to whatever extent is possible what the truth might be.
We need more "canaries in the coal mine" of "ufology" to chirp up when the deadly gasses of distortion, manipulation, and egocentric myth creation build up to the point of suffocating all reason and reality in this difficult field of endeavor.
While I consider myself an honest, objective skeptic of sorts, or really a kind of "ufo agnostic," even after having been involved in a multiple-witness close encounter of some almost inexplicable kind, I do know that aspects of the UFO phenomenon are real, and that's not a belief, and that further some of those aspects do point to at least the possibility, or potential, of involving some form or forms of advanced non-human intelligence perhaps being involved in relatively rare cases. And that fact is that should also be what be more thoroughly considered and explored as part of this process of scientific and empirical investigation. We need to be better able to separate the "wheat from the chaff" in order to find the signal within the noise, as it were. Good luck, and keep on doing what you can to help out in that process.
"And that fact is that should also be what be more thoroughly considered and explored as part of this process of scientific and empirical investigation."
ReplyDeleteThat should have said: "And that fact is what should also be more thoroughly considered and explored..."
I'd add that, to be completely objective, I don't know for a "fact" if any UFO incidents reported, or my own, necessarily connote the presence of any advanced non-human intelligence. That's speculation, or potential hypothesis, only. But, it should also not be ruled out, as some debunkers or pseudo-skeptics do, to remain objective. It is a distinct possibility, given all the data available.
I guess, to paraphrase what Carrion suggested in one of your earlier posts, one should not just seek the "signal within the noise," but also observe and consider the nature and origins of the noise possibly obscuring the signal(s).
Or, that one who takes this subject seriously must pay attention to both the wheat and the chaff, and explore both the signal and the noise.
The real difficulty, of course, is sometimes being able to clearly distinguish one from the other. I'm often reminded of Angleton's infamous phrase, "a wilderness of mirrors." 8^}
If the "Shadow Government" goes nuts, how will we know?
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