(MATILDA O'DONNELL MACELROY PERSONAL NOTE)
"The next morning I was escorted from my quarters, under the guard
of four MPs, to the interview room. Airl's overstuffed chair had
been removed from the room and replaced by a small desk and several
office chairs. I was asked to sit down and wait to be interviewed.
After a few minutes Dr. Wilcox came into the office together with
another man wearing a plain business suit. The man introduced
himself as John Reid. 237 (Footnote)
Dr. Wilcox explained to me that Mr. Reid had been flown in from
Chicago at the request of my superior officers to conduct a lie
detector 238 (Footnote) test on me! My surprise at this statement
was so obvious, that Dr. Wilcox noticed that I was obviously taken
aback, and insulted, at the insinuation that I had ever lied about
anything!
Nonetheless, Mr. Reid began to set up his polygraph device on the
desk next to my chair, while Dr. Wilcox continued to explain, in a
calm voice, that the test was being administered for my own
protection. Since all of the interviews with the alien had been
conducted telepathically, and Airl had declined to read and attest
that the typed transcripts were accurate, that the truth and
accuracy of the statements contained in the transcripts depended
entirely on my personal word alone.
There was no other reliable way
to test the accuracy of the transcripts without submitting me to a
battery of tests and psychological examinations to determine, in the
opinion of "experts", meaning himself, whether the transcripts
should be taken seriously, or not. The tone of his voice said very
clearly, "or dismissed as the delusional ranting of a mere woman!"
Mr. Reid proceeded to strap a rubber tube around my chest, as well
as an ordinary blood-pressure cuff around my upper arm. He then
placed electrodes on the fingers and surfaces of my hands. He
explained that he would be very objective during the interview
because he had been thoroughly trained in scientific interrogation.
This training was supposed to make his interrogation free from human
error.
Mr. Reid explained to me that, in response to the questions he and
Dr. Wilcox were going to ask me, that actual physiological changes
would be transmitted through a small panel unit. The readings would
then be tracked on moving graph paper, which he placed beside the
machine on the desk. The parallel graphs on the paper would then be
correlated and interpreted by Mr. Reid, with the "expert" assistance
of Dr. Wilcox, to determine whether or not I was lying.
Both Mr. Reid and Dr. Wilcox asked me a series of innocuous
questions to begin, which advanced into a more pointed interrogation
about my interviews with Airl.
Here is what I remember about the questions:
"What is your name?"
"Matilda O'Donnell", I replied.
"What is your date of birth?"
"June 12th, 1924", I said.
"What is your age?"
"Twenty-three".
"Where were you born?"
"Los Angeles, California", I said.
(And so on, and so forth.)
"Are you able to communicate by telepathy?"
"No. I have never been able to do this with anyone except Air." I
said.
"Were any of the statements you made to the stenographer
falsified?"
"No", I answered.
"Have you intentionally or unintentionally imagined or fabricated
any of the communication you claimed to have had with the alien?"
"No, of course not", I said.
"Are you intentionally attempting to deceive anyone?"
"Are you attempting to obstruct this test?"
"No."
"What color are your eyes?"
"Blue".
"Are you a Catholic?"
"Yes."
"Would you tell the same stories to your parish priest in a Catholic
church confessional that you told to the stenographer here at the
base?"
"Yes."
"Are you trying to hide anything from us?"
"No. Nothing."
"Do you believe everything the alien communicated to you?"
"Yes."
"Do you consider yourself to be a gullible person?"
"No."
The questions continued in this manner for more than an hour.
Finally, I was unhooked from the polygraph machine and allowed to
return to my quarters, still under guard by the MPs.
Later in the afternoon I returned to the interview room. This time
the desk was replaced by a hospital gurney. Dr. Wilcox was
accompanied by a staff nurse this time. He asked me to lie down on
the gurney. He said that he had been requested to ask me the same
series of questions that I answered for the lie detector test.
This time, however, I would respond to the questions under the
influence of a "truth serum", 239 (Footnote) known as
sodium
pentothal. As a trained surgical nurse, I was familiar with this
barbiturate drug as it was sometimes used as an anesthetic.
Dr. Wilcox asked me if I had any objection to submitting to such a
test. I told him that I had nothing to hide. I cannot recall
anything about this interview. I assumed that when I finished
answering the questions I was escorted back to my room by the
MPs, with their assistance this time, as I was too wobbly and woozy
from the drug to navigate by myself. However, I had a very peaceful
sleep that night.
Apparently neither of these interrogations yielded any suspicious
results as I was not asked any more questions after that.
Thankfully, I was left alone during the rest of my time at the
base."
237 "...introduced himself as Mr.
John Reid ..."
"John Edward Reid, American criminologist developed a Polygraph
in 1945 which was a scientific recording device designed to
register a person's bodily responses to being questioned.
Popularly known as a lie detector, the polygraph has been used
chiefly in criminal investigations, although it is also used in
employment and security screening practices.
Because no machine can unerringly
recognize when a person is lying, the polygraph results are used
in conjunction with other evidence, observations, and
information. Emotional stress reflected by this test, for
instance, need not be due to lying. On the other hand, a subject
may be a pathological liar and therefore show no measurable
bodily responses when giving false answers.
Ordinary
nervousness, individual physical or mental abnormalities,
discomfort, excessive pretest interrogation, or indifference to
a question also affect test accuracy. The polygraph can,
however, provide a basis for an evaluation of whether or not the
subject's answers are truthful. This test has also been helpful
in exonerating innocent persons accused of crimes.
A polygraph is actually several instruments combined to
simultaneously record changes in blood pressure, pulse, and
respiration. The electrical conductivity of the skin's surface
can also be measured—increased sweat-gland activity reduces the
skin's ability to carry electrical current."
-- Reference:
Wikipedia.org
238 "...lie detector testing..."
"Dr. William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 - May 2, 1947) was an
American psychologist, feminist theorist, inventor, and comic
book author who created the character Wonder Woman. Two strong
women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne, (who
lived with the couple in a polyamorous relationship), served as
exemplars for the character and greatly influenced her creation.
Dr. William Moulton Marston is credited as the creator of the
systolic blood-pressure test used in an attempt to detect
deception, which became one component of the modern polygraph.
According to their son, Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway
Marston, was also involved in the development of the systolic
blood-pressure test: "According to Marston's son, it was his
mother Elizabeth, Marston's wife, who suggested to him that
'When she got mad or excited, her blood pressure seemed to
climb'. This would be the basis for Wonder Woman's Lasso of
Truth.
The FBI considered William Moulton Marston, who invented the lie
detector and created the comic book character Wonder Woman under
the pseudonym Charles Moulton, to be a 'phony' and a 'crackpot.'
He is alleged to have misrepresented the result of a study he
conducted for the Gillette razor company in 1938, for which he
reportedly received some $30,000, a handsome sum in those days.
Despite these misgivings, the FBI
today uses Marston's creation (the polygraph, not the Lasso of
Truth) to guide investigations as well as to screen applicants
and employees."
-- Reference:
Wikipedia.org
239 "...truth serum... "
"Sodium thiopental, better known as Sodium Pentothal (a
trademark of Abbott Laboratories), thiopental, thiopentone
sodium, or trapanal, is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate
general anaesthetic. It is an intravenous ultra-short-acting
barbiturate. Sodium thiopental is a depressant and is sometimes
used during interrogations - not to cause pain (in fact, it may
have just the opposite effect), but to weaken the resolve of the
subject and make him or her more compliant to pressure.
Thiopental is still used in some places as a truth serum. The
barbiturates as a class decrease higher cortical brain
functioning. Psychiatrists hypothesize that because lying is
more complex than telling the truth, suppression of the higher
cortical functions may lead to the uncovering of the "truth".
However, the reliability of
confessions made under thiopental is dubious; the drug tends to
make subjects chatty and cooperative with interrogators, but a
practiced liar or someone who has a false story firmly
established would still be quite able to lie while under the
influence of the drug."
-- Reference:
Wikipedia.org