Chapter Fifteen - My Interrogation
 

(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."

 

 

Footnotes

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

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