Research of Alleged Alien Abduction: A Critical Perspective

I encourage all interested parties to conduct their own search for truth and make up their own mind about the mysteries surrounding alleged alien abduction. The challenge most fail at in their search is obtaining a wide sample of material representing a wide range of credible sources. The challenge exists not because the material is difficult to obtain, but because most people do not desire to find it.

It is rare for people within UFOdom to have a reasonably working knowledge of such diverse topics as mental health issues, physiological issues and the intelligence community in proportion to their knowledge of abduction lore. The irony, of course, is that the former can be substantiated while the latter cannot – and that brings us to the heart of the problem with many abduction researchers.

They often assert to “know” this or that absolutely fantastic item to be true, the same as you can look around the UFO community and observe any number of its members doing, while they can prove no such assertion whatsoever. You need look no further than the websites of some of the researchers to see they claim to have proof of one thing or another that perpetually never amounts to much of anything more than rumors of yesteryear. Worst of all, individuals such as David Jacobs and organizations such as MUFON often do so under the claim of conducting scientific research.

That is a primary problem. I invite others to identify it as such, and following is why:

If people just want to hang out and reinforce their shared beliefs, then fine. Ghost stories around the campfire and all that.

If, however, they claim to be conducting scientific investigation, they have a responsibility to conduct themselves in accordance with the scientific method of investigation. Witness testimony and particularly subjective assessment carries minimal weight as compared to physical evidence, authenticated documents and such – along with all the other dynamics recognized by the professional research community which must either apply or, of course, professional research is not actually being conducted.

Again, I will point out that is fine – as long as it is not called science or professional research, because, by definition, it simply is not. A big problem therefore lies in the abduction researchers continuing to cling to methods of investigation circa 1964 and rightfully not recognized as valid by the professional research community. More specifically, the problem lies in researchers' persistence to do so while demanding acceptance from a scientific community they either fail to understand or try to exploit. For those unaware, the American Medical Association issued a statement clearly establishing it does not recognize or endorse the use of hypnosis for any purposes at all, much less as an effective memory retrieval tool.

Methodology

Part of my point being there is no supposedly proper method whatsoever of hypnotizing traumatized individuals and exploring the likelihood they have abusers originating from another planet, at least not as recognized by academia. As a matter of fact, a good argument could be made that such activities are barbaric. In the situation of Jacobs, however, no such argument is required, as he claimed to have developed therapeutic methods of regressive hypnosis that can quickly be rejected. The facts of the matter include he is not professionally qualified (as a historian) to design or conduct any type of psychologically therapeutic activity. One can see the contradictions involved in trying to accept Jacobs' claims of conducting scientific research when, in fact, his views on hypnosis require assigning him qualifications to design and assess hypnosis procedures, which he academically simply does not possess. To add insult to injury, we would have to give Jacobs' assertions more validity than we assign the AMA stance on the issue, a body which of course practices scientific principles and is far more qualified to assess medical techniques than is a historian.

Jacobs and his followers are entitled to believe anything they want. They are not entitled to misrepresent such beliefs as scientifically credible, and we are most certainly not required to silently accept such misrepresentations.

One of the most important and typically overlooked points is that the scientific process, of which such researchers as Jacobs claim to recognize and endorse, does not require critical thinkers to invalidate his attachments to the use of hypnosis. Rather, it is his responsibility to validate a hypothesis through the process of collecting data, submitting it to proper channels for peer review and so on, which neither he, Hopkins nor any of their faithful ever successfully navigated. As a matter of fact, Jacobs demonstrated adamant opposition to such, as documented by Ted Goertzel of Rutgers, among others. 

That would be participating in the scientific process.

What about advances made in DNA research that could be implemented in abduction research? Dr. Tyler Kokjohn informs us important molecular evidence could be obtained long after the alleged fact, including testing those who suspect they may have been involved in breeding programs for many years after they may have carried some kind of hybrid fetus. Both Jacobs and Barbara Lamb repeatedly avoided such lines of discussion while often seeming largely unaware science had long since surpassed the circumstances required to keep the abduction narrative under a protective cloak of non-verifiable. The fact of the matter is such claims can now be verified – or shown to be unsubstantiated – if researchers care to do so.

Witnesses

Yet another principle point that should be emphasized involves the witness. Wild speculation and poor investigative procedures get us no closer to actually understanding what might be happening to people who may truly be experiencing circumstances of interest, and, much, much more importantly, witnesses are being injured in the process. In some cases, drastically and critically injured.

Suicides among self-described abductees are not particularly uncommon; UFO-related discussion forums typically have threads dedicated to tragic situations that should never have happened – but did; whatever one may choose to make of the Emma Woods case, it would seem painfully clear she was not helped by a historian conducting Skype-hypnosis about hybrids raping her night after night for days on end; Leah Haley was referred by Hopkins, after inquiring about a single childhood UFO sighting, to MUFON's John Carpenter who proceeded to 'help' her hypnotically construct an entire lifetime of alien and military torturous abductions, of which she may very well never fully recover from the emotional traumata experienced.

There are many more such circumstances. There is also no question that many people who find their ways into the UFO community would be much better served by a competent psychoanalyst than an overly enthusiastic hypnotist with grandiose dreams of alien-hunting, or, at the least, they would be better served by actual scientists or professional researchers than people masquerading as such under the camouflage provided by MUFON, ICAR or the like.

Summary 

In review:

- An inherent challenge to ufology, and particularly alleged alien abduction, is that its followers do not seek information that provides a balanced and objective point of view. Actually, they are often quite unaware of the current mental health paradigm, symptoms of emotional traumata, relevant physiological circumstances and similar subject matter, the absence of which substantially obstructs their abilities to form objective and more complete understandings of what became known as the abduction phenomenon.

- A primary problem is many researchers misrepresent their activities to be scientific, exploiting the less educated and poorly informed, intentionally or otherwise.

- It is not my responsibility or the responsibility of anyone else to invalidate hypotheses related to regressive hypnosis, but the responsibility of its practitioners to validate the activity as an effective memory retrieval tool, which has never been accomplished. Neither have proponents of hypnosis ever competently or thoroughly addressed the dangers of emotional suffering inherent to the activity, all of which futilely result in, at best, nothing more than witness testimony.

- A primary problem is self-described witnesses seeking support are being deeply hurt. This is taking place while those who subscribe to alien abduction as established, literal occurrences, often to fanatical extents, are damaging the injured parties even further, commonly lashing out at them while making excuses for the incompetence of irresponsible hypnotists.

- If researchers want to be accepted by academia, they must adhere to rules and practices, i.e., peer review, proper recognition of standards of evidence, accept hypnosis is not a reliable memory retrieval tool, etc., that are established by academia, else stop claiming their work to have scientific merit. Equally important would be members of the UFO community learning to more accurately identify misrepresentations of scientific merit.

Top Secret Projects and 'Top Secret Writers'

The UFO community has collectively been aware for quite some time of Project PALLADIUM, a now declassified operation nonetheless deserving periodic mention. The project involved the development of technology that created false radar paints.

Gene Poteat, formerly of the CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, composed a 1998 report titled, Stealth, Countermeasures, and ELINT, 1960-1975. Poteat, who was directly involved in PALLADIUM, wrote about the project, “I came up with a scheme to electronically generate and inject carefully calibrated false targets into the Soviet radars, deceiving them into seeing and tracking a ghost aircraft... [W]e could now simulate an aircraft of any radar cross section from an invisible stealth airplane to one that made a large blip on Soviet radar screens – and anything in between, at any speed and altitude, and fly it along any path...

“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 report went on to state that such operations were conducted all over the world. Readers familiar with the work of Mark Pilkington will recall he addressed such circumstances in his book Mirage Men. Pilkington expressed suspicions such technology was involved in the Washington, DC flap of 1952. He also noted in his book that as late as 1986 US intelligence officials considered conducting a PALLADIUM-like operation in Libya, the purposes of which would have included creating confusion and paranoia within the Khadafi regime.

Such circumstances provide food for thought in the grand scheme of ufology. This might particularly be the case when considered in the context of such instances as the apparent CIA involvement in the contactee movement of the fifties, as well as a 1950 RAND report, The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare, which described such strategies as an operation conducted in Italy that greatly resembled and predated the Flatwoods Monster incident of UFO lore. One way or another, it should be of interest to members of the UFO community that the US Defense Department was conclusively in the business of creating false UFO incidents.

Top Secret Writers

Stealth wear, according to
designer Adam Harvey

Ryan Dube maintains a site, Top Secret Writers, where a team reports on topics of interest to the more inquisitive and discriminating reader. Writer/researcher Gabrielle Pickard recently published an article, The Anti-Drone Hoodie – Has It Really Come to This?, exploring the latest counter-surveillance measure, a hoodie that makes its wearer undetectable to drones. Designed by Adam Harvey, the silver hooded top blocks thermal imaging used by drones to identify and track human targets.

Pickard concluded, “While anti-drone hoodies and invisibility cloaks will undoubtedly liven up the stands at tech exhibitions and make headline news, the plausibility of such items being able to effectively counteract the prying eyes of governmental drones seems unlikely. What is more certain, is the fact that the niche for such products shows just how painfully mistrustful society has become of the government.”

The CIA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate, Part Two of Two

In the midnight hour

The only operationally realistic way to test drugs and the manipulation of behavior was to experiment on involuntary human research subjects, veteran CIA man and former director Richard Helms explained in 1963 (see Church Committee Reports, Book I, Testing and Use of Chemicals and Biological Agents by the Intelligence Community). Warning the subject in advance, it was decided by key personnel, provided false results, no matter how competently and otherwise realistically the research may have been conducted.

Former Director of Central Intelligence
Richard Helms

The Inspector General objected, citing experiments which had resulted in physical and mental illness. “Attendant economic loss,” the Inspector General pointed out, “are inherent contingent effects of the testing.”

Helms remarkably countered that the Clandestine Services had been conducting a mission of “maintaining a capability for influencing human behavior.” The use of unwitting research subjects was a necessity, and, that being the case, Helms added, “there is only the question of how best to do it.”

Prior to Helms' comments on the record and in a move that would later prove to be among the most widely criticized of the entire MKULTRA scheme, the CIA employed a contact, George White of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, to operate a brothel. In 1953 White set up shop in adjacent apartments located in New York's Greenwich Village. He employed members of the world's oldest profession to assist him and the CIA in executing MKULTRA Subproject 3, which also became known as Operation Midnight Climax.

Agency personnel, such as Helms and MKULTRA project director Sid Gottlieb, reasoned that the venture, which included paying prostitutes to lure unsuspecting clients to the apartments, provided a steady stream of unwitting research subjects. It was considered particularly advantageous that the subjects could not easily be linked to the CIA. Also considered beneficial was the lack of probability they would ever report anything they might recall took place, and they would be low in credibility even if they ever complained to anyone.

MKULTRA project director
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb

Helms and Gottlieb were indeed confident the subproject provided at least a partial solution to trying out their schemes on the truly unwitting, while simultaneously navigating challenges inherent to securing and later discarding involuntary research subjects. The operation went about testing drugs, methods of covertly administering those drugs, surveillance equipment, a variety of spy gadgets, behavior manipulation (including its relations to sexual activity), combinations thereof, and, in all likelihood, a whole lot of other things that were never disclosed.

It was interestingly neither the concept nor questionable project personnel in themselves that resulted in the eventual criticism, but the methodology. The subproject was destined to be highly criticized, at least in part, due to its lack of scientific merit.

There commonly were no professional medical staff present, leaving unqualified personnel – a narcotics agent with a drinking problem and hookers - to conduct experiments and make observations. Additionally, the research subjects were not medically screened beforehand, and follow up observations were typically either not conducted, not documented and/or done from guarded points of view.

CIA key personnel obtained virtually no research data other than what literally took place during the time the subjects were present. That not only further jeopardized the health and well being of the subjects, but rendered the experiments nearly useless from a scientific perspective. Perhaps, as Helms later suggested, the development of operational practicality was held in much higher regard than anything else.

Nonetheless and for whatever reasons, the minds behind the operation valued it to the extent of expanding upon it, including opening a location in San Francisco and another across the bay in Marin County. The experiments were conducted, albeit with occasional battles over ethics and practicality, for the duration of Project MKULTRA. Even after the official closing of MKULTRA in 1964, George White and his adventures continued to be funded under its successor, Project MKSEARCH, specifically Subproject 4.

For further information about White and the CIA safehouses located in New York and San Francisco, see MKULTRA Subprojects 14, 16, 42 and 149, as well as the 1977 Washington Post article, The Gang That Couldn't Spray Straight. Readers might also find the more recent SF Weekly article from May of 2012 of interest, Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens With LSD.

According to John Marks in The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, George White eventually wrote to Sid Gottlieb, "I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steak rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?"

Terminal experiments

Dr. Maitland Baldwin

Given the prevailing mindsets among those in the American spy organization, it was only a matter of time until someone, in one subproject or another, would try to quantify just how far they would go with conducting research on the unwitting. The answer can be found in what is known of work conducted by such consultants as Dr. Ewen Cameron of McGill University and Dr. Maitland Baldwin of the US National Institutes of Health. Both men demonstrated a willingness to take their work to the limit in what were labeled “terminal type” experiments, or research resulting in the loss of human life.

Each man took an interest in sensory deprivation, including experiments in which research subjects were placed in a small room or large box. The subjects were deprived of sensory input, having their eyes covered and their ears were either muffed or exposed to monotonous sounds. Padding prevented touching and no odors were present.

Maitland Baldwin operated within MKULTRA Subproject 62. In 1955 he left an Army so-called volunteer in a box for over 40 hours, at which time the soldier hysterically kicked his way out. Baldwin later reported to CIA man Morse Allen that leaving someone in the box over six days would almost certainly cause irreparable damage. According to a report written by Allen, Baldwin nonetheless agreed he would conduct such experiments, including the terminal type, if the Agency would provide the cover and the subjects.

The work was reportedly axed by an Agency medical doctor, but perhaps it is worthy of mention that, as was the case with George White and his CIA-backed brothels, Maitland Baldwin later received funding within MKSEARCH, the successor to MKULTRA. The brain surgeon's continued research of behavior modification within MKSEARCH Subproject 1 reportedly included experiments involving sensory deprivation, radio frequency energy, an attempt to cut off a monkey's head and attach it to the decapitated body of another monkey, and work conducted at a CIA safehouse, the details of which were unspecified but involved $1450 worth of renovations.

Allan Memorial Institute

Dr. Ewen Cameron, unlike Baldwin and White, did not require either the Agency or prostitutes to provide him with research subjects, as he already had a supply of his own. As director of the Allan Memorial Institute, a hospital funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and located at McGill University, the prominent and respected psychiatrist eagerly conducted experiments upon those in need of mental health treatment.

Cameron began receiving CIA funds in 1957 through the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, conducting research pertaining to brainwashing and mind control. His work within MKULTRA Subproject 68 included sensory deprivation, the induction of paralysis, administration of experimental drugs, electroshock and a procedure termed “psychic driving.”

Basically, the doctor believed he could wipe a subject's mind of prior conditioning and reprogram it as desired, somewhat like deleting the contents of a file on a word processor and rewriting it. Apparently unconcerned about consequences and in the pursuit of validating his hypotheses, Cameron once documented leaving a woman in the sensory deprivation box for 35 consecutive days. Some researchers feel it is potentially significant that Cameron conducted his work and was employed until 1964 at McGill University in Montreal, the city which was the destination of the Hills during their fateful journey of 1961.

Morse Allen

BLUEBIRD project director Morse Allen is credited with being the Agency's first behavioral research czar. Well versed in the spy trade, the Navy intelligence man was known for looking beneath surface realities and having a fascination for hypnosis. He was also among those who supported the use of terminal type experiments.

Allen later became known among researchers of many interests for his role in a now declassified 1954 experiment involving hypnosis and a simulated murder. To summarize, a woman was hypnotized and ordered to shoot another woman with a pistol, which she demonstrated a willingness to do and while completely unaware the gun was not loaded. Perhaps equally of interest, the experimenters apparently successfully induced amnesia in the hypnotized 'shooter,' as it was documented that she later had no recall of the event.

It could be considered understandable why some researchers review such circumstances in the contexts of grand conspiracies, particularly if we consider another 1954 scheme reported by Marks and devised by Allen for ARTICHOKE. Allen wanted to capture an involuntary and unwitting subject from a social event, utilize the Agency's behavior modification methods and lead the subject to conduct an assassination attempt.

As intriguing as it was strange, successful completion of the proposed act, or assassination, was considered inconsequential to the overall project; operationally executing the chain of events was the objective. It should be noted that no more concern was expressed for what might become of the assassin - whom it was assumed would be arrested and “disposed of” - than was expressed for the potentially assassinated.

The operation reportedly never took place, but that did not weaken Allen's ambition. He tried to persuade the powers that be to support his desire for prolonged access to research subjects, as opposed to the shorter term opportunities of which he became accustomed. Allen warned that Manchurian Candidates were at risk of gradually becoming aware of otherwise unknown programming and activities, particularly during dream states, at which time information might leak from one persona to another. He therefore wanted to extensively work with subjects, putting them through rigorous conditioning and testing in attempts to remedy such challenges.

Morse Allen coined the phrase “terminal experiments” in 1954 while lobbying the CIA to approve a project that teetered between brilliance and insanity. The challenge, it was identified, involved confidently learning how well the Manchurian Candidate would hold up under hostile interrogation. Would they crack? Could they crack, even if they wanted? What would happen if they were interrogated by opposing skilled hypnotists?

To address such concerns, Allen proposed an operation in which a research subject would be hypnotically conditioned as a spy, unaware of his orders and dispatched to a friendly nation to conduct his mission. The CIA would then 'tip' intelligence officials in the allied nation that a spy was suspected to be in its midst, leading to the arrest of the subject. This, it was reasoned, would allow the Agency the benefit of full access to the subsequent interrogation conducted by unassuming, yet quite vested, third parties. CIA observers would then have the opportunity to watch the behavior of both the Manchurian Candidate and the interrogators, up to what was reasonably assumed might include the torture and death of the research subject.

It is unclear if the operation was ever conducted. Morse Allen's research within BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, and under Director Allen Dulles, who thoroughly subscribed to developing a Manchurian Candidate, was later turned over to Sid Gottlieb. MKULTRA was born, including the induction of amnesia, administration of implants and testing of effects of electronic frequencies, along with several more circumstances which supplied researchers with a great deal to consider in the context of alleged alien abduction.

Operating on the edge of madness

It would seem obvious enough that if the Agency was never involved in the production or circulation of alien story lines, it would not have been due to shying away from extreme ideas. Suffice it to say that if the likes of Baldwin, Cameron, Allen and Gottlieb left no one in their paths thinking themselves abducted by aliens, it was due in no part whatsoever to any concerns about doing so.

From Aztec priests and a quest for God's flesh to American men and their quest for women, CIA directors and project managers admittedly checked under every rock while trying to develop mind control techniques. The boundaries of reasonable behavior were briefly contemplated, considered to be limitations observed only by the weak and surpassed amid rationalizations the Russians would get us if we didn't get them first. From about 1947 to at least 1972, the CIA conducted a no holds barred attempt to control the human mind.

We are simply left to wonder what circumstances occurred that remain unknown to the public. John Marks later wrote that he believed skeletons were hidden – literally. We may never fully know what effects the CIA initiative may have had on those in its wake, or if any self-described alien abductees resulted from attempts to create Manchurian Candidates.

I find the following Marks description of his interactions with self-described mind control victims to be very reminiscent of dynamics typically found among self-described alien abductees, bringing to mind the extent the two demographics often seem virtually interchangeable:

While I was doing the research for this book, many people approached me claiming to be victims of CIA drugging plots. Although I listened carefully to all and realized that some might be authentic victims, I had no way of distinguishing between someone acting strangely and someone made to act strangely. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this whole technique is that anyone blaming his aberrant behavior on a drug or on the CIA gets labeled a hopeless paranoid and his case is thrown into the crank file. There is no better cover than operating on the edge of madness.

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The CIA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate, Part One of Two 

The CIA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate, Part One of Two

"Instead of turning to tough cops, whose methods repelled American sensibilities, or the gurus of mass motivation, whose ideology Americans lacked, the Agency's brainwashing experts gravitated to people more in the mold of the brilliant - and sometimes mad - scientist, obsessed by the wonders of the brain."

John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate

During the early 1950's, the Central Intelligence Agency allocated significant resources to furthering its understandings of chemical and biological weapons. Projects MKDELTA and MKNAOMI explored such applications, including the production of germ weapons. The projects culminated, along with such behavior modification operations as BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, into MKULTRA in 1953.

Controversial alleged
contactee Howard Menger

Nick Redfern and the late Philip Coppens are among the researchers who explored the possibilities that so called alien contactees may have been related to such psychological operations. There is reasonable evidence suggesting at least some of the higher profile contactees were significantly involved with – if not acting directly on behalf of - the CIA while publicly narrating their elaborate tales of interplanetary diplomacy. Much has also been made of the case of Antonio Vila Boas and its possible origins in quite terrestrial chemical and behavioral covert research.

Whether or not such theories are entirely accurate, exploring what is known of intelligence operations of the era provides insight into the related possibilities. A review of CIA activities reveals that if the 'company' was not conducting experiments involving the manufacture of alien story lines, it would certainly not have been due to a lack of willingness to try such things on for size. The Agency was neck deep in seemingly every other unconventional weapons and intelligence concept its personnel could conceive.

The 20^th century Central Intelligence Agency prioritized interests in hallucinogens, esoteric subject matter and mind control. One questionable idea and subsequent compromise at a time, it evolved to not only rationalize invasive experiments on involuntary human research subjects, but its leaders managed to conclude how and why it made sense for them to slip one another LSD without warning. Key personnel at the CIA were tripping, and when they weren't getting killed, as in the case of Frank Olson, they were developing the following brainchildren.

The quest for God's flesh

When American spies and their researchers first embarked upon using hallucinogens as a tool, the 'magical' properties of mushrooms were little more than myth, at least in the States. Committed to leaving no stone unturned, the Agency dispatched a scout to Mexico to learn more about such substances. The young CIA man returned with various materials and substances, as well as tales of extremely potent mushrooms which Aztec priests called teonanactl, or God's flesh.

In 1953 the Agency consulted with mushroom growers of Pennsylvania on its way to recruiting Dr. James Moore, a Detroit chemist entrusted with the classified operation. Moore would later tell John Marks, published in Marks' 1979 work, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, "If I had thought I was participating in a scheme run by a small band of mad individuals, I would have demurred."

Nonetheless, the quest for God's flesh, also known as MKULTRA Subproject 58, was financed through a grant provided by the Geshickter Fund, a nonprofit foundation acting as an undercover extension of the Agency, and Moore was soon on his way from Michigan to Mexico. He and some fellow travelers located and sampled the coveted mushrooms in a remote jungle, and before long Moore delivered a stash to his silent employer.

One of the roughly 190 types of
mushrooms containing psilocybin.

The active property of the fungus was eventually isolated, chemically reproduced and called psilocybin. Its fascinating qualities continue today to intellectually seduce and peak the interests of inquisitive professional researchers.

Within a few short years of its discovery by the CIA, psilocybin was being extensively tested, along with numerous other drugs, under the direction of Dr. Harris Isbell at the Addiction Research Center in Louisville, Kentucky (see MKULTRA document #151875, Comparison of the Reactions Induced by Psilocybin and LSD-25 in Man by Harris Isbell, which was also a 1959 published paper). Isbell was fascinated with the effects hallucinogens and various chemicals had on inmates, a literally captive group of subjects. A most eager and cooperative project manager, Isbell documented how at one point he kept seven inmates on LSD for a mind scorching 77 days straight.

Isbell administered psilocybin to exploited incarcerated subjects who reported experiencing anxiety and fear that something evil was about to happen. They also described perceptions of fantastic visions, including trips to the moon. Some subjects, Isbell wrote, reported thinking the experiences were caused by the experimenters controlling their minds.

Hypnosis

While no conclusive evidence has been presented to date that the Agency was responsible for any specific reports of alien abduction, nowhere do we find the cultures of the intelligence community and ufology to mirror one another more than in their explorations and uses of hypnosis. The resemblance is profound, actually, it has been for a long time now, and differentiating between the two communities at times becomes difficult, if even possible.

Hypnosis was extensively explored within MKULTRA Subproject 84, in which John Marks identified Boston psychologist and hypnosis expert Dr. Martin Orne as the lead researcher. A long time consultant for the Agency, the Austrian born Orne conducted research for the CIA at Harvard and his Institute for Experimental Psychiatry. The work was funded through grants provided by the Human Ecology Society and the Scientific Engineering Institute, both of which acted as fronts for the distribution of CIA funds.

MKULTRA document #17486_0001 stated Subproject 84 was designed “to study the nature of the hypnosis process as it may relate to induction of a changed motivational state,” while document #17486_0023 indicated that “an investigation of socially induced special states of consciousness” was prioritized and conducted. A May, 1960 memo (doc #17486_0040) qualified that hypnosis was “an area of direct use to the Sponsor,” or CIA, and was continually suggested “as the panacea to all the Sponsor's problems and needs to be examined exhaustively.”

Additional documents, such as a 1954 memo (doc #147025), explained manners a subject could be hypnotically led to carry out certain activities and have no recollection of doing so. The memo went on to describe (doc #147025_0004) what was termed the “quite practical” administration of split personality through hypnotism.

Orne's work and Subproject 84 were funded by the CIA during the first half of the 1960's. Alien abduction aficionados will easily recognize the time frame as that of the Hill era. A Subproject 84 report, viewable in doc #17486_0041, stated that the "essence of hypnosis" was believed to be "uniquely related to a variety of psychological experiences, such as mystical experiences, sensory deprivation effects, placebo effects, and, of course, hypnosis.”

The report went on to state (doc #17486_0042) that “a major investigation was undertaken on the suppression of pain by hypnosis.” Three major findings were said to have emerged, including circumstances in which “subjects showed far less signs of stress in this experimental situation than in other experiments at [redacted] using comparable amounts of electric shock.” It was declared that a very interesting point would be to determine “whether hypnosis as a process or state protects the individual experiencing intense anxiety or whether the hypnotic situation, regardless of the subjective experience, serves this function.”

Hypnosis and many drugs, including hallucinogens, were combined and the effects were studied at length. Pilot studies were undertaken that included the administration of direct suggestions to subjects.

The referenced report further stated “a rigorous study of the phenomenon” took place. Such rigorous study included a year-and-a-half long (and at the time continuing) investigation into what was labeled “the trance phenomena,” which the Agency identified as occurring among people attending Pentecostal churches. Considerable observational data was claimed to be in hand and in the process of being analyzed, which included comparisons between the personal experiences reported by Pentecostal church members and those described by what were termed “good hypnotic subjects.”

Former president of the American Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis Milton Kline acted as a consultant during such CIA studies. The New York psychologist agreed to speak with Marks.

Kline stated that he thought some research subjects could be directed by experienced hypnotists to execute specific Manchurian Candidate types of behavior and as described in referenced document #147025. He and other qualified consultants also stated that a lack of recollection of the related circumstances, or amnesia, could most certainly be hypnotically induced some of the time. Kline confidently claimed to Marks that he could create a patsy in three months and an assassin in six.

The much discussed Hill incident took place in 1961. According to Stanton Friedman in his book, Captured!: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, US Air Force Captain Ben Swett gave a public lecture on hypnosis attended by the Hills on September 7, 1963. The venue was the Unitarian Church of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and afterward the captain referred the couple to Dr. Benjamin Simon, a Boston psychiatrist. Simon taught at Harvard, was a hypnotist and conducted the Hill's now famous hypnosis sessions of 1964.

Betty and Barney Hill

Many are confident the most likely explanation for the Hill case, given the lack of conclusive evidence, is that the couple was simply confused, ultimately resulting in the epic – even if largely inaccurate – popular legend. If, however, we are willing to suspend judgment and entertain some less conventional possibilities, it is not difficult to understand why some researchers suspect that, rather than alien abduction, the Hills may have been the target of covert research. After all, we now know the CIA prioritized and funded exhaustive examination of hypnosis during the specific time the couple was encouraged to be hypnotized.

We also know the Hills were introduced to hypnosis by an Air Force captain while curiously lecturing on the topic at a church, just as described to be of interest to the Agency in the MKULTRA documents. Additionally, the couple was referred to a hypnotist who not only shared the same city, Boston, as MKULTRA Subproject 84 lead researcher Martin Orne, but also shared Orne's employer, Harvard, for a time, where CIA-sponsored drug, hypnosis and mind control research was taking place. It is understandable why some researchers would find such circumstances of interest, particularly as compared to otherworldly explanations.

Such circumstances might indeed deserve their fair share of attention, or at the least should not be completely omitted from discussion of the Hill saga as is typically the case. If nothing more, it would appear that, based on the actions of Captain Swett and Dr. Simon, the Agency significantly influenced the prevailing military interests and psychiatric practices of the era, whether or not the influence was intentional.

It is also reasonably clear that, during the early 1960's and in the circumstances of hypnosis and the Hills, the interests and experimental methods of interrogation practiced by the Agency became virtually indistinguishable from activities undertaken by individuals researching alleged UFO-related circumstances, for whatever reasons. While such blurring of roles and objectives may have initially been somewhat limited to Boston social circles traveled by Air Force captains, the dynamics spread and rather inexplicably continue today to be staples among numerous researchers of alleged alien abduction. This is of course in complete contradiction to well established fact that hypnosis is not a reliable memory retrieval tool.

Orne published segments of his work and went on to sit on the board of directors of the controversial False Memory Syndrome Foundation. He was featured in an article written by Dr. Patricia Greenfield, the sister of John Marks, appearing in the December 1977 edition of the American Psychological Association Monitor. Commenting on medical professionals acting as MKULTRA consultants and the search for the Manchurian Candidate, Orne told Greenfield, “We are sufficiently ineffective so that our findings can be published.”

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The CIA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate, Part Two of Two

Posts on Disclosure

The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure is inching ever closer. Meanwhile, related tensions are running high in the UFO community, as may be viewed in the comments and articles over at Orlando Paranormal Examiner.

Readers might find of interest my general assessment of the disclosure concept in Why official UFO disclosure impractical. That was followed up with some articles containing remarks from Steve Bassett, the guy heading up the mock hearing to be made into a movie, including Bassett: Former members of Congress compensated and terms are 'private.'

It has since come to light that our former elected officials are each pocketing about 20 grand plus expenses for their appearances. My interview with Nick Pope indicated those appearing at the event as witnesses, which include such figures as Steven Greer and George Filer, are also receiving various forms of compensation, whatever they may be.

Rounding out the recent posts is Kevin Randle weighs in on UFO disclosure, in which we see that Mr. Randle clearly does not share either my or Mr. Pope's interpretations of some of the relevant issues. Readers might also choose to take a look at Barbara Lamb and MUFON: 'ET-human hybrids: They are real and they are here.'

Comments and discussion most welcomed.

John Marks and 'The Search for the Manchurian Candidate'

“There isn't one great division between mainstream and fringe science, but rather, degrees of variation that blur, and sometimes overlap with one another. But the starting point for all of this, and the gateway into the scientific underworld, is a certain willingness to believe the impossible, and to be sympathetic to those who try.”

Sharon Weinberger, Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld

Those familiar with The UFO Trail and Orlando Paranormal Examiner are well aware of my interest in the intelligence community. Part of that interest was inspired by the extents I consistently find people within ufology to be largely uninformed of the histories of intelligence agencies. Such people are subsequently ill equipped to identify potential correlations between the intelligence community and ufology.

More than one well educated contact in the UFO community has told me that the vast majority of what they knew about Project MKULTRA they learned as a result of our interactions. Other contacts, well versed in matters of alleged aliens and their methods of operation, have often demonstrated comparatively very little knowledge of the intelligence community. Obviously, an accurate and comprehensive history of American intelligence matters is not included in either typical US college curriculum or popular UFO lore. It is for such reasons that I offer a bit of history on how the public gained access to what is known of Central Intelligence Agency ventures into behavior modification projects such as MKULTRA.

The family jewels

James Schlesinger was appointed director of the CIA in 1973. He abruptly ordered all personnel to advise his office of any circumstances in which Agency employees conducted illegal or improper activities. Just a few months and several hundred pages of reported misdeeds later, Schlesinger was transferred while the reports became known within the Agency as the “family jewels.”

Some of the jewels were leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh of The New York Times, resulting in a 1974 article about CIA illegal spying on domestic dissidents. A Presidential committee was formed and led by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to investigate misconduct.

The subsequent Rockefeller Report referenced an unnamed man who fell to his death from a New York hotel window after the CIA slipped him LSD. The press jumped on the story with both feet.

The family of the unnamed man, who was actually Frank Olson, read one of the resulting newspaper articles and recognized it to be about their deceased loved one. While the family was aware of some of the circumstances of the mysterious death, they had not been previously informed Olson was drugged or the subject of experiments.

Enter writer/researcher John Marks. He took interest in the Rockefeller Report and would later explain that he found the following two lines, otherwise virtually unnoticed and buried within the text, particularly intriguing, "The drug program was part of a much larger CIA program to study possible means for controlling human behavior. Other studies explored the effects of radiation, electric-shock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and harassment substances."

Frank Church and Senate committees

Marks submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all documents presented by the CIA to the Rockefeller Commission. It took more than a year for the Agency to disingenuously produce just 50 pages Marks described as “heavily censored.”

Meanwhile, Senator Frank Church conducted a probe into CIA activities. Key CIA personnel were interviewed but information was not easily obtained.

In 1975, hearings into CIA misconduct continued and were held by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research. Similarly to the probe conducted by the Church Committee, progress was again hampered by a combination of Agency personnel with supposedly poor memories and the lack of available documents. However, it had come to light by that point that Olson's death was part of some very questionable project activities conducted under Schlesinger's predecessors.

MKULTRA project director Sidney Gottlieb stated during inquiries that he ordered the destruction of all project files in 1973 with the agreement of then-Director Helms. Gottlieb further stated that he could not recall most of the project details.

Explaining why the documents were destroyed - in direct contradiction to standard policy guidelines - Gottlieb said there was a “burgeoning paper problem” within the CIA and that the files might be “misunderstood.” He added that he wanted to protect the reputations of collaborating researchers who had been assured secrecy.

The Search for the Manchurian Candidate

Unsatisfied with previous responses from the Agency, Marks obtained legal counsel to assist with his FOIA requests for relevant documents. His persistence paid off in 1977 when his attorneys were notified that seven boxes of MKULTRA files had been located. The CIA was then under the direction of Admiral Stansfield Turner, four years and three directors removed from James Schlesinger and his 1973 initial inquiry. The located documents were apparently originally misfiled and subsequently overlooked when all others were destroyed under the direction of Gottlieb and Helms.

The CIA informed attorneys for Marks that select documents would be available after proper protocol was followed, which included advising the office of then-President Jimmy Carter and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The files released eventually became known as the MKULTRA collection. They may be viewed on certain websites such as The Black Vault and may be obtained on disk directly from the CIA.

Marks soon conducted a press conference. He presented documents establishing the reality of behavior modification research conducted on involuntary human subjects. The conference gained wide media attention and the news resulted in another Senate hearing.

The covert experiments were again explored by the Select Committee on Intelligence, which was chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy and included Claiborne Pell. Also involved again was the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, which featured notables Gary Hart and eventual Vice President Joseph Biden. The hearing transcript is available on a variety of websites.

Some 16,000 pages of formerly classified material was initially released to Marks. He studied the documents and wrote about them in his 1979 book, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, which remains a valuable resource.

The title was selected due to Richard Condon's 1959 best-selling book, The Manchurian Candidate, which was made into a popular film. The plot revolved around an American soldier captured in Korea and brainwashed into an unassuming assassin while held at an installation located in Manchuria.

Marks specifically selected the title due to his discovery via the released docs of a CIA meeting conducted in 1953, curiously predating Condon's novel by some six years, in which just such a Manchurian scenario was discussed. Manchuria was even specifically named. Officials were apparently concerned about multiple reports received from released American prisoners of war who experienced blank periods of disorientation they associated with a particular section of Manchuria.

Such circumstances added to concerns held by CIA researchers in both the Office of Security and the Office of Scientific Intelligence that the US might have been lagging behind Communist achievements in mind control techniques. It was reasoned, sincerely or otherwise, that an effective defense against mind control would be gained by first accurately understanding offensive capabilities. The eventual result was a long and intensive effort to perfect mind control methods, including attempts to manipulate behavior while inducing amnesia that would prevent the subject from recalling their programming.

“Nearly every Agency document,” Marks wrote, “stressed goals like 'controlling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self preservation.' On reading one such memo, an Agency officer wrote to his boss: 'If this is supposed to be covered up as a defensive feasibility study, it's pretty damn transparent.'"

The search was on

Marks learned that the CIA exploration into mind control began in the late 1940's, was officially named BLUEBIRD in 1950 and was renamed ARTICHOKE in 1952. In 1953 Project MKULTRA was approved by CIA Director Allen Dulles.

MKULTRA consisted of some 149 known subprojects, contracting out work to over 80 locations. Such locations included 44 colleges or universities, 15 research facilities or private companies, 12 hospitals or clinics, three penal institutions and a number of 'safehouses,' in which operations ranged from interrogations to experiments involving prostitution. Military installations were also used.

MKULTRA was discontinued in June of 1964. Some MKULTRA subprojects were eliminated, while some were transferred into regular Agency funding channels. Yet others of particular interest were continued under Project MKSEARCH until at least 1972.

The known CIA mind control initiative included many operations and projects in addition to MKULTRA, such as QKHILLTOP, OFTEN and THIRD CHANCE. The search for the Manchurian Candidate admittedly spanned some 25 years, winding all the way from McGill University in Montreal to villages in the jungles of Mexico; from safehouses in Europe to the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland; from prison camps in Southeast Asia to prisons in the Southeast United States; from a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland to American nonprofit foundations, from Harvard to UCLA and from a New York City brothel to another in San Francisco.

What did the search find? It depends on who you ask.

Some CIA officials contended nothing of substance was learned in the decades of research. “That proposition,” Marks wrote, “is, on its face, ridiculous.”

Milton Kline, a New York psychologist who provided free consultation services to the Agency on such topics as hypnosis, agreed to speak with Marks about the possibility of achieving a Manchurian Candidate. It cannot be done by everyone or consistently, he told Marks, but it can be done.

Would researchers of alleged alien abduction be wise to consider the toll the search might have taken on those in its wake? Some think so, suggesting correlations might be worth considering, comparing certain dates, locations and circumstances contained in accounts of abduction to those of known operations involving involuntary human research subjects.

John Marks

The man who navigated the intelligence community and gained release of the MKULTRA collection is a 1965 graduate of Cornell University. Majoring in government, John Marks analyzed and reported on the Vietnam War while a member of the Foreign Service.

After returning stateside from Southeast Asia, Marks took a position in his home state of New Jersey as executive assistant for foreign policy to Senator Clifford Chase, an anti-war Republican. Marks subsequently played a key role in the drafting of an amendment that brought an end to direct US military involvement in Vietnam.

In 1974 he co-wrote the controversial book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, with Victor Marchetti, a former assistant to the deputy director of the CIA. Marks was published in such magazines as Rolling Stone prior to the 1979 release of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.

In 1982 Marks founded Search for Common Ground, a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the way the world deals with conflict. “I didn’t want to throw monkey wrenches into the old system my whole life,” he told Cornell Alumni Magazine in 2012. “I wanted to build a new system.”

Search for Common Ground began with just two employees and a handful of supporters, Marks recently wrote. The corporation now has a staff of over 400, directly serving thousands of program participants in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States. It is the largest non-governmental conflict transformation organization in the world.