Subsequent Electrode Implant Research
Other researchers have made notable contributions to this field.
Robert G. Heath, of Tulane University, who has implanted as many as 125 electrodes in his subjects, achieved his greatest notoriety by attempting to “cure” homosexuality through ESB. In his experiments, he discovered that he could control his patients’ memory, (a feat which, applied in the ufological context, may account for the phenomenon of “missing time”); he could also induce sexual arousal, fear, pleasure, and hallucinations.[34]
Heath and another researcher, James Olds,[35] have independently illustrated that areas of the brain in and near the hypothalamus have, when electronically stimulated, what has been described as “rewarding” and “aversive” effects. Both animals and men, when given the means to induce their own ESB of the brain’s pleasure centers, will stimulate themselves at a tremendous rate, ignoring such basic drives as hunger and thirst.[36] (Using fixed electrodes of his own invention, John C. Lilly had accomplished similar effects in the early 1950s.[37]) Anyone who has studied the abduction phenomenon will find himself on familiar territory here, for the abductee accounts are replete with stories of bewildering and inappropriate sexual response countered by extremely painful stimuli — operant conditioning, at its most extreme, and most insidious, for here we see a form of conditioning in which the manipulator renders himself invisible. Indeed, B.F. Skinner-esque aversive therapy, remotely applied, was Heath’s prescription for “healing” homosexuality.[38]
Ralph Schwitzgebel and his brother Robert have produced a panoply of devices for tracking individuals over long ranges; they may be considered the creators of the “electronic house arrest” devices recently approved by the courts.[39] Schwitzgebel devices could be used for tracking all the physical and neurological signs of a “patient” within a quarter of a mile,[40] thereby lifting the distance limitations which restricted Delgado.
In Ralph Schwitzgebel’s initial work, application of this technology to ESB seems to have been limited to cumbersome brain implants with protruding wires. But the technology was soon miniaturized, and a scheme was proposed whereby radio receivers would be mounted on utility poles throughout a given city, thereby providing 24-hour-a-day monitoring capability.[41] Like Heath, Schwitzgebel was much exercised about homosexuality and the use of intracranial devices to combat sexual deviation. But he has also spoken ominously about applying his devices to “socially troublesome persons”…which, of course, could mean anyone.[42]
Bryan Robinson, of the Yerkes primate laboratory has conducted fascinating simian research on the use of remote ESB in a social context. He could cause mothers to ignore their offspring, despite the babies’ cries. He could turn submission into dominance, and vice-versa.[43]
Perhaps the most disturbing wanderer in this mind-field is Joseph A. Meyer, of the National Security Agency, the most formidable and secretive component of America’s national security complex. Meyer has proposed implanting roughly half of all Americans arrested — not necessarily convicted — of any crime; the numbers of “subscribers” (his euphemism) would run into the tens of millions. “Subscribers” could be monitored continually by computer wherever they went. Meyer, who has carefully worked out the economics of his mass-implantation system, asserts that taxpayer liability should be reduced by forcing subscribers to “rent” the implant from the State. Implants are cheaper and more efficient than police, Meyer suggests, since the call to crime is relentless for the poor “urban dweller” — who, this spook-scientist admits in a surprisingly candid aside, is fundamentally unnecessary to a post-industrial economy. “Urban dweller” may be another of Meyer’s euphemisms: He uses New York’s Harlem as his model community in working out the details of his mind-management system.[44]
Abductee Implants
If we are to take seriously abductee accounts of brain implants, we must consider the possibility that the implanters, properly perceived, don’t look much like the “greys” pictured on Strieber’s dustjackets. Instead, the visitors may resemble Dr. Meyer and his brethren. We would thus have an explanation for both the reports of abductee brain implants and, as we shall see, the “scoop marks” and other scars visible on other parts of the abductees’ bodies. We would also have an explanation for the reports of individuals suffering personality change after contact with the UFO phenomenon.
Skeptics might counter that the time factor of UFO abductions disallows this possibility. If estimates of “missing time” are correct, the abductions rarely take longer than one-to-three hours. Wouldn’t a brain surgeon, operating under less-than-ideal conditions (perhaps in a mobile unit) need more time?
No — not if we accept the claims of a Florida doctor named Daniel Man. He recently proposed a draconian solution to the overblown “missing children problem,” by suggesting a program wherein America’s youngsters would be implanted with tiny transmitters in order to track the children continuously. Man brags that the operation can be done right in the office — and would take less than 20 minutes.[45]
Conceivably, it might take a tad longer in the field.
A Question of Timing
The history of brain implantation, as gleaned from the open literature, is certainly disquieting. Yet this history has almost certainly been censored, and the dates manipulated in a nigh-Orwellian fashion. When dealing with research funded by the engines of national security, one can never know the true origin date of any individual scientific advance. However, if we listen carefully to the scientists who have pioneered this research, we may hear whispers, faint but unmistakable, hinting that remotely-applied ESB originated earlier than published studies would indicate.
In his autobiography The Scientist, John C. Lilly (who would later achieve a cultish renown for his work with dolphins, drugs and sensory deprivation) records a conversation he had with the director of the National Institute of Mental Health — in 1953. The director asked Lilly to brief the CIA, FBI, NSA and the various military intelligence services on his work using electrodes to stimulate directly the pleasure and pain centers of the brain. Lilly refused, noting, in his reply:
Dr. Antoine Remond, using our techniques in Paris, has demonstrated that this method of stimulation of the brain can be applied to the human without the help of the neurosurgeon; he is doing it in his office in Paris without neurosurgical supervision. This means that anybody with the proper apparatus can carry this out on a person covertly, with no external signs that electrodes have been used on that person. I feel that if this technique got into the hands of a secret agency, they would have total control over a human being and be able to change his beliefs extremely quickly, leaving little evidence of what they had done.[46]
Lilly’s assertion of the moral high ground here is interesting. Despite his avowed phobia against secrecy, a careful reading of The Scientist reveals that he continued to do work useful to this country’s national security apparatus. His sensory deprivation experiments expanded upon the work of ARTICHOKE’s Maitland Baldwin, and even his dolphin research has — perhaps inadvertently proved useful in naval warfare.[47] One should note that Lilly’s work on monkeys carried a “secret” classification, and that NIMH was a common CIA funding conduit.[48]
But the most important aspect of Lilly’s statement is its date. 1953? How far back does radio-controlled ESB go? Alas, I have not yet seen Remond’s work — if it is available in the open literature. In the documents made available to Marks, the earliest reference to remotely-applied ESB is a 1959 financial document pertaining to MKULTRA subproject 94. The general subproject descriptions sent to the CIA’s financial department rarely contain much information, and rarely change from year to year, leaving us little idea as to when this subproject began.
Unfortunately, even the Freedom of Information Act couldn’t pry loose much information on electronic mind control techniques, though we know a great deal of study was done in these areas. We have, for example, only four pages on subproject 94 — by comparison, a veritable flood of documents were released on the use of drugs in mind control. (Whenever an author tells us that MKULTRA met with little success, the reference is to drug testing.) On this point, I must criticize John Marks: His book never mentions that roughly 20-25 percent of the MKULTRA subprojects are “dark” — i.e., little or no information was ever made available, despite lawyers and FOIA requests.
Marks seems to feel that the only information worth having is the information he received. We know, however, that research into psychoelectronics was extensive; indeed, statements of project goals dating from ARTICHOKE and BLUEBIRD days clearly identify this area as a high priority. Marks’ anonymous informant, jocularly named “Deep Trance,” even told a previous interviewer that, beginning in 1963, the CIA and military’s mind control efforts strongly emphasized electronics.[49] I therefore assume — not rashly, I hope — that the “dark” MKULTRA subprojects concerned matters such as brain implants, microwaves, ESB, and related technologies.
I make an issue of the timing and secrecy involved in this research to underscore three points: 1. We can never know with certainty the true origin dates of the various brainwashing methods — often, we discover that techniques which seem impossibly futuristic actually originated in the 19th century. (Pioneering ESB research was conducted in 1898, by J.R. Ewald, professor of physiology at Strasbourg.[50]) 2. The open literature almost certainly gives a bowdlerized view of the actual research. 3. Lavishly-funded clandestine researchers — unrestrained by peer review or the need for strict controls — can achieve far more rapid progress than scientists on “the outside.”
Potential critics should keep these points in mind should they attempt to invalidate the “mind control” thesis of UFO abductions by citing an abduction account which antedates Delgado.