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SECRET AND SUPPRESSED: BANNED IDEAS AND HIDDEN HISTORY
edited by Jim Keith
There had been an ongoing controversy over health effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) for years (e.g., extremely low frequency radiation and the Navy's Project Seafarer; emissions of high power lines and video display terminals; radar and other military and industrial sources of radio frequencies and microwaves, such as plastic sealers and molders.)
Less is known of Department of
Defense (DOD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
interest in anti-personnel applications of the invisible energies.
The ability of certain parameters of EMF to cause health effects,
including neurological and behavioral disturbances, has been part of
the military and CIA arsenal for years.
In the context of a controversy over reproductive hazards to Video Display Terminal (VDT) operators, he wrote of alterations in brain function of animals exposed to low intensity fields.
Offspring of exposed animals,
With VDT operators exposed to weak fields, there have been clusters of miscarriages and birth defects (with evidence of central nervous system damage to the fetus).
Byrd
also wrote of experiments where behavior of animals was controlled
by exposure to weak electromagnetic fields. "At a certain frequency
and power intensity, they could make the animal purr, lay down and
roll over."
Invariably,
brain tissue damage and skeletal deformation was observed in new
born chicks that had been exposed. He was concerned enough to check
emissions from the appliances in his kitchen.
He is
understandably concerned about environmental exposures within 1 to
30 Hz (cycles per second), either as a low frequency or an amplitude
modulation on a microwave or radio frequency, as these can
physiologically interact with the brain even at very low power
densities.
At times, up to 70-80% of the research was funded by the military.
From 1965 to 1970, a study dubbed Project Pandora was undertaken to determine the health and psychological effects of low intensity microwaves, the so-called "Moscow signal" registered at the American Embassy in Moscow.
Initially, there was confusion over whether the signal was an attempt to activate bugging devices or for some other purpose. There was suspicion that the microwave irradiation was being used as a mind control system.
CIA agents asked scientists involved in microwave research whether microwaves beamed at humans from a distance could affect the brain and alter behavior.
Dr. Milton Zarat who undertook to analyze Soviet literature on microwaves for the CIA, wrote:
Employees first learned of the irradiation ten years after Project Pandora began.
Before that,
information had been parceled out on a strict "need to know" basis,
which excluded most employees at the compound. Due to secrecy, and
probably reports like Dr. Zaret's, Jack Anderson speculated that the
CIA was trying to cover up a Soviet effort at behavior modification
through irradiation of the U.S. diplomats, and that the cover up was
created to protect the CIA's own mind control secrets.
A source at the State Department informally admitted that excessive radiation had been leaking from his telephone; an American high frequency radio transmitter on the roof of the building had, when operating, induced high frequency signals well above the U.S. safety standard through the phones in the political section, as well as in lines to Stoessel's office.
No doubt, National Security Agency or CIA electronic devices also contributed to the electromagnetic environment at the embassy, although values for these were never released, as they are secret.
Stoessel was reported as telling his
staff that the microwaves could cause leukemia, skin cancer,
cataracts and various forms of emotional illness. White blood cell
counts were estimated to be as high as 40% above normal in one third
of the staff, and serious chromosome damage was uncovered.
It was unthinkable, according to cruder
scientific theory, that non-thermal levels of microwaves could cause
harm. Impetus for a study of such effects came not from concern for
the public, but rather in the military and intelligence community's
suspicion of the Soviets, and their equally strong interest in
developing exploitable anti-personnel effects - an interest that
continues unabated today.
During Project Pandora, the Navy funded such projects of his, as how
to use low average power intensities, to: induce heart seizures;
create leaks in the blood brain barrier, which would allow
neurotoxins in the blood to cross and cause neurological damage or
behavioral disorders; and how to produce auditory hallucinations or
microwave hearing, during which the person can hear tones that seem
to be coming from within the head or from directly behind it.
The DIA, but not the CIA, is allowed to use "mirror imaging" and "net assessment" in their reports, i.e., respectively, the attribution of one's own motives and weapons capabilities to "the other side", in this case, the Soviets.
It follows, that there is nothing to
prevent them from releasing a report prepared in this manner, and
thus muddy the water of decision making, pervert public opinion,
stoke up congressional funding or enlist the support of naive
scientists to counter "the threat". There was strong concern over
CIA disinformation abroad, leaking back to the home front, through
the American press, but apparently the DIA, at least on some issues,
can dish it up with impunity.
The 1976 DIA report also credits the Soviets with other capabilities, stating,
Dr. Sharp, a Pandora researcher at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, some of whose work was so secret that he couldn't tell his boss, conducted an experiment in which the human brain has received a message carried to it by microwave transmission.
Sharp was able to recognize spoken words
that were modulated on a microwave carrier frequency by an
"audiogram", an analog of the words' sound vibrations, and carried
into his head in a chamber where he sat.
Lin mentions the Sharp experiment and comments,
What is frightening is that words, transmitted via low density microwaves or radio frequencies, or by other covert methods, might be used to create influence.
For
instance, according to a 1984 U.S. House of Representatives report,
a large number of stores throughout the country use high frequency
transmitted words (above the range of human hearing) to discourage
shoplifting. Stealing is reported to be reduced by as much as 80% in
some cases. Surely, the CIA and military haven't overlooked such
useful technology.
When asked about weapons applications of
his work, he answered by referring to himself as "just a biological
theorist", and his work for the Navy, "basic medical research."
Don Johnson lingered in the memory of one DOD official who sponsored microwave research in the 1970s. Johnson was enigmatically described as,
The next year, Heilmeier elaborated in a written response to an inquiry before Congress.
Lies Exposed
Richard Cesaro, initiator of Pandora and director of DARPA's Advanced Sensor program, justified the project in that,
Researchers had long ago established that direct stimulus of the brain could alter behavior.
The question raised by radio frequencies - microwaves or radio frequencies of the UHF or VHF band - was whether the electromagnetic could have a similar effect at very low levels.
Pandora's initial goal: to discover whether a carefully constructed microwave signal could control the mind. In the context of long term, low-level effects: Cesaro felt that central nervous system effects could be important, and urged their study "for potential weapons applications."
After testing a low-level modulated microwave signal on a chimpanzee, and within approximately a week causing stark performance decrements and behavioral disorganization.
Cesaro wrote,
On the basis
of the primate study, extensive discussions took place and plans
were made to extend the studies to humans.
He also asked,
Behavioral Effects
After noting that the U.S. microwave guideline in effect in 1970 for the public, 10,000 microwatts/2 (now the industrial and military "guideline"), is proscribed from consideration of the rate that thermal effects are dissipated, the author, a specialist in modeling neural networks, states that scientific studies have consistently shown that humans exhibit behavioral disturbances when subjected to non-thermal levels of microwaves, well below this level.
The symptoms that MacGregor lists for those humans exposed more or less regularly at work or in the living environment are insomnia, irritability, loss of memory, fatigue, headache, tremor, hallucination, autonomic disorders and disturbed sensory functioning.
He reports that swelling and distention of
nerve cells have been produced at intensities as low as 1,000
microwatts/cm2 (the current U.S. guideline for the
public).
Remotely Reinforcing
Specific Brain Rhythms
His work is more precise in inducing specific
behavior, rather than merely causing disorganization or decrements
in performance -that is, apart from his studies on inducing calcium
efflux in brain tissue, which causes interference with the
functioning of the brain and is one basis of "confusion weaponry."
During Adey's career, he has correlated a wide variety of behavioral
states with EEG, including emotional states (e.g., stress in hostile
questioning), increments of decision making and conditioning,
correct versus incorrect performance, etc., and he has imposed
electromagnetic fields that look like EEG, which has resulted in
altered EEG and behavior.
When the fields were
used on untrained animals, occurrence of the applied rhythm
increased in the animals' EEG.
The 4.5 theta rhythm that he applied was the natural reoccurring frequency that he had measured in the hippocampus during a phase of avoidance learning.
The hippocampus, as Adey wrote in an earlier paper,
One might add, to ensure survival.
All components necessary to produce
behavioral conditioning, including ways to provide contextual
significance, can be applied from a distance (i.e., without direct
brain contact, as was necessary in older behavior modification
experiments.)
Indeed, there are indications of applications. As we have seen, research that began in response to a security concern, transformed almost overnight into a search for weapons applications, while cloaked in disinformation about the Soviets.
What types of weapons?
There are strong indications that microwaves have been used to cause the decrements.
There is no question but that the U.S. military and the CIA know the behavioral or psycho-active significance of applied biological rhythms and other frequencies, as this was part of the thrust of their work during Pandora.
Inducing emotion or feelings through use of electromagnetic fields, and then synchronizing the feelings with words (symbolic of ideas) would be an effective way to induce preferences or attitude change, because it would mirror natural thought processes.
The question seems less whether
conditioning through use of covert technology is possible, than
whether there has been a policy choice to use it. If the results of
their research are used as part of a system that can condition
behavioral responses from a distance, it is a secret that they hold
close like a baby.
He found particularly notable,
Due to Project Pandora, it is now known that applied biological (and other) frequencies can also be used as direct "information inputs" (e.g., of feeling or emotion) and to reinforce brain rhythms associated with conditioning and information processing.
One way to get such a signal into a human may be through use of a high frequency carrier frequency.
Results of research into information
processing, unconscious processes, decision making, memory processes
and evoked brain potentials would likely be exploited or integrated
in an interdisciplinary system.
In other words, as Helms wrote of, verbal messages are delivered at frequencies above human hearing.
Technology for commercial applications is relatively sophisticated (one studio uses a "layered" approach and 31 channels in preparing tapes; some employ a "dual coding" approach, integrating scientific knowledge of information processing modes of the two brain hemispheres, and others use techniques where a consumer is spoken to as a three year old child.)
There is no U.S. law specifically
regulating these types of transmission (over radio and TV a Federal
Communication Commission "catch all" provision might apply). If
industry uses undetectable audio transmissions to meet security
concerns, it seems that the military and CIA would exploit the same
technology and would have developed much more sophisticated
technology for applications. The public's conception of "subliminals"
is naive compared to capabilities.
If there is technology available that could conceivably influence Central Americans toward the Soviets, then the U.S. would use the same kind of technology to "even the score." The same is true within the U.S.; if covert technological influence might be had against Americans, the same feared technology would be applied to counter the threat.
Special security risks might include
peace groups, whom are felt to be threatened by Soviet influence (a
big security concern in Western Europe and in the U.S.),
progressives, or any group or individual felt to pose a challenge to
U.S. goals subsumed under the rubric of "national security
interest."
Also, it would be too difficult to monitor behavior altering transmissions and to defend against them.
Short of exposing such technology there would be no way to defend except by having one's own "system" (of behavioral patterns consisting of a set of signals signifying "yes" and "no," or "good" feeling and "bad" feeling that can be linked to ideas).
Recall that apart from Project Pandora, the CIA spent decades during MKULTRA and related projects, devising operational techniques to surreptitiously influence and affect behavior.
Workable invisible weapons are too useful for arms
control talks, and don't readily lend themselves to proofs of use or
"verification" processes. Additionally, the importance of finding
ways to circumvent dissent may have been one of the most significant
lessons of Vietnam.
For difficult subscribers, perhaps in foreign parts, there are substances that have psychological or psychobiological effects ranging from subtle through devastating, and that cause increased susceptibility to conditioning. Some of these substances are similar to ones which are recognized by neuro-toxicologists or behavioral toxicologists as occupational hazards; some are variations of substances used experimentally in laboratories to produce selective damage in certain neuronal tracts.
Many substances needn't be injected or orally ingested, as they may be inhaled or applied with "skin transferal agents," i.e. chemicals like the popular industrial solvent, dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO), which can, in fact, enhance the applied substance's effect. For instance, some compounds cause damage that produces increased sensitivity to stimulus, distraction (or flooding of thought associations), and enhance susceptibility to influence. I.e., a state where automatic parallel information processing, which usually takes place outside of awareness, and interferes with conscious or more intentional limited channel processing.
While causing acute mental symptoms wouldn't be the goal in groups, producing mild distraction, an ego weakened blurring between the sense of "I" and "you", would enhance some kinds of conditioning and promote suggestibility; then, perhaps transmitted "thought associations," "the voice of God", "lucky advice" or whatever, can more easily get through and have an effect.
A side effect of lowered resistance to sub-threshold stimulus might be that some would become aware of illicit influence (even under normal circumstances there is a wide variation in sensitivity among individuals to sub-threshold stimulus; normal individuals whom psychology terms "reducers" are much more sensitive in this way; actually, most schizophrenics are extreme reducers, and therefore, much more aware of stimulus that others aren't cognizant of).
Convenient to the agencies involved in
covert influence, is that among primary symptoms of schizophrenia or
mental illness are ideas that one is being influenced by
"transmissions" (e.g. radio frequencies), "voices" or even
telepathy; unless complaints about covert psychological weapons are
well organized, they would tend to be discounted as indicative of
mental imbalance.
It is interesting to note that scientific studies have correlated exposure to electromagnetic fields alone with mental hospital admissions and worsening of symptoms of mental patients, even as an etiological factor in the onset of mental illness.
(A marker disease for
exposure to microwaves is damage behind the lens of the eye; a
disproportionate number of persons so damaged also suffer from
mental disease or neurological impairment.)
Safe to say, in order to enlist the aid of
scientists, the military and CIA would act true to form, that is, to
motivate and overcome reluctance due to dictates of conscience, they
would evoke a serious security risk, like the Soviets, during
initial phases of development. In fact, on the "unclassified" face
of it, a number of reports have openly suggested use of "microwaves"
against "terrorists".
At this point the cloak is donned, and the report continues:
Cable News Network recently aired a report on electromagnetic weapons and showed an official document that was a contingency plan to use electromagnetic weapons against terrorists.
It wasn't made clear who the terrorists were or what the
contingency was. Prior to the news show, however, reports had
surfaced, the source a DOD medical engineer, that in the content of
conditioning, microwaves and other modalities had regularly been
used against Palestinians.
For instance, to exacerbate discord between political factions, a "bad feeling" (biologically uncomfortable or threatening) would simply be associated through use of sound with the idea of the "other" faction. It is an easy psychological trick to induce negative attribution (where a "bad feeling" is caused to be misattributed to something in our environment): feeling, followed close in time with information input will color a thought, and become a conditioned emotional response (CER) if repeated.
An excitatory autonomic reaction
requires a cognitive appraisal or "labeling" of the inducing cause.
Both the autonomic reaction and the labeling can be transmitted from
a distance using electromagnetic fields, like radio frequencies or
microwaves and "sound."
Anger and other negative feelings are
easy to cause to be displaced, and most people believe in the
"trueness" of their feelings. Ideas including names can be
synchronized with the the feelings that the fields can induce.
They are protesting build-up of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Cruise missiles, which are nuclear warheads small enough to be mounted on the back of a truck called a launcher vehicle, arrived at the base in March, 1984.
Since then the women in the encampment
and members of the Cuisewatch network have insured that when the
launcher vehicle and its convoy are taken out into the British
countryside, the "dispersal exercises" aren't as secret as the
military intended them to be. The women of the network, non-violent
activists, have been subjected to intense harassment in an effort to
be rid of their presence.
In a report prepared by Rosalie Bertell,
commissioner for International Commission of Health Professionals
for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva,
Switzerland, the unusual patterns of illness ranged from "severe
headaches, drowsiness, menstrual bleeding at abnormal times or
post-menopausal, to bouts of temporary paralysis, faulty speech
coordination and in one case apparent circulatory failure requiring
hospitalization."
Psychobiological symptoms included lack of concentration,
disorientation, loss of memory, irritability and a sense of panic in
non-panic situations. The symptoms have virtually all been
associated in medical literature with exposure to microwaves and
most listed can be induced through low intensity or non-thermal
exposures.
The strength of the signals were also
found to reflect the activity of the women: e.g., they increased
rapidly when the women started a demonstration. Visitors to the
encampment, both men and women, reported experiencing the same types
of symptoms and the same pattern of variation as the Greenham women.
It may be revealing that British personnel who guard the perimeter
of the base work very short shifts (two hours at a time) and only
for two weeks.
If high frequency verbal transmissions are used in U.S. department stores and have a significant effect in meeting their security goals, it seems likely that the military would also exploit the same technology.
What would such a message tell the women?
Perhaps auditory transmissions would be
simultaneous with the transmissions that were making them feel
unwell.
The report stated,
The report fails to mention just as frequently cited low intensity microwave health effects as,
A reckless form of biological and psychological control has been perpetuated whether the source of the symptoms of the Greenham Commons is radar surveillance aimed at the women, or if there is conscious application of the microwaves as a "deterrent" or a means to drive the women away.
Calculated efforts were also directed at preventing or eroding community support. In the summer of 1985, women planning to visit the camp had to be notified that long term health effects might ensue for women who were pregnant or intended to be.
As activist Kim Bealy put it,
Health complaints similar to those of the women at Greenham Common are being made by women peace activists at Seneca, New York, and from activists at other locations.
The symptoms at Greenham seem to
occur on an occasional basis now, perhaps due to the Intermediate
Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which applies to the missiles
housed there, or due to somewhat increased public or congressional
awareness.
Propagation of microwaves has been very well studied and is very
sophisticated, e.g., a two inch beam can be sent from a satellite,
point to point, to a receiving dish on earth; and, it was reported
in 1978, that the CIA had a program called Operation Pique, which
included bouncing radio signals or microwaves off of the ionosphere
to affect the mental functions of people in selected areas,
including Eastern European nuclear installations.
With their ally "industry" they have won, at least for the time being, the right to perpetuate their interests, to the detriment of the public's best interests.
Scientists who have spoken up on the environmental impact of
military microwave or electromagnetic systems have been treated as
security risks, and have had their funds cut, so great is the
military's concern in protecting their communications systems by
ensuring themselves unlimited use of radio frequencies or
microwaves.
As
energy absorbed from their equipment flows to ground, so much heat
has been felt in the ankles of some workers that they have learned
to do their tasks with their feet elevated on plastic. They are not
provided metal shielding as workers are in more health conscious
countries.
Therefore, it is likely that they
are exposed to levels that have been proven to be unhealthful or
downright dangerous.
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