SOME ASPECTS OF ANTI PERSONNEL ELECTROMAGNETIC WEAPONS

Synopsis prepared for the International Committee of the Red Cross Symposium:

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND THE EFFECTS OF WEAPONS - FEBRUARY 1996

By David Guyatt

Background - 1940 through 1995

The background to the development of anti-personnel electromagnetic weapons can be traced by to the early-middle 1940’s and possibly earlier.  The earliest extant reference, to my knowledge, was contained in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific Survey, Military Analysis Division, Volume 63) which reviewed Japanese research and development efforts on a “Death Ray”.

 Whilst not reaching the stage of practical application, research was considered to be sufficiently promising to warrant the expenditure of Yen 2 million during the years 1940-1945.  Summarizing the Japanese efforts allied scientists concluded that a ray apparatus might be developed that could kill unshielded human beings at a distance of 5 to 10 miles.  Studies demonstrated that, for example, automobile engines could be stopped by tuned waves as early as 1943.[1] It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that this technique has been available for a great many years?   Research on living organisms ( mice and ground hogs) revealed that waves from 2 meters to 60 centimeters in length caused hemorrhage of lungs, whereas waves shorter than two meters destroyed brain cells.

However, experiments in behaviour modification and mind manipulation have a grisly past.  Nazi doctors at the Dachau concentration camp conducted involuntary experiments with hypnosis and narco-hypnosis - using the drug mescaline - on inmates.  Additional research was conducted at Aushwitz, using a range of chemicals including various barbiturates and morphine derivatives.  Many of these experiments proved fatal.  Following the conclusion of the war the U.S. Naval Technical Mission was tasked with obtaining pertinent industrial and scientific material that had been produced by the Third Reich and which may be of benefit to U.S. interests.  Following a lengthy report the Navy instigated Project CHATTER in 1947.  Many of the Nazi scientists and medical doctors who conducted these and other hideous experiments were later recruited by the U.S. Army and worked out of Heidelberg prior to being secretly relocated to the United States under the Project PAPERCLIP programme.  Under the leadership of Dr. Hubertus Strughold, 34 ex Nazi scientists accepted “Paperclip” contracts, authorised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and were put to work at Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.  By 1953 the CIA, US Navy and the US Army Chemical Corps were conducting their own narco-hypnosis programmes on unwilling victims that included prisoners, mental patients, foreigners, ethic minorities and those classified as sexual deviants.[2]

It was not until the middle or late 1970’s that the American public became aware of a series of hitherto secret programmes that had been conducted over the preceding two decades by the military and intelligence community.[3] Primarily focusing on narco-hypnosis these covert programmes were extensive and were assigned project titles: MKULTRA, MKDELTA, MKNAOMI, MKSEARCH (MK being understood to stand for Mind Kontrol), BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and CHATTER.   The principal aim of these  and associated programmes was the development of a reliable “programmable” assassin.  Secondary aims were the development of a method of citizen control.[4]  Particularly relevant was Dr. Jose Delgado’s secret work directed towards the creation of a “psycho-civilised” society by use of a “stimoceiver.”[5]   Delgado’s work was seminal and his experiments on human and animals demonstrated that electronic stimulation can excite extreme emotions including rage, lust, fatigue etc.  In his paper “Intracerebral Radio Stimulation and recording in Completely Free Patients” , Delgado observed that: “Radio Stimulation on different points in the amygdala and hippocampus in the four patients produced a variety of effect, including pleasant sensations, elation, deep thoughtful concentration, odd feelings, super relaxation (an essential precursor for deep hypnosis [6]) coloured visions, and other responses.”  With regard to the “coloured visions” citation, it is reasonable to conclude he was referring to hallucinations - an effect that a number of so called “victims” allude to.[7]  As far back as 1969, Delgado predicted the day would soon arrive when a computer would be able to establish two-way radio communication with the brain, an event that first occurred in 1974.  Lawrence Pinneo, a neurophysiologist and electronic engineer working for Stanford Research Institute (a leading military contractor), “developed a computer system capable of reading a person’s mind.  It correlated brain waves on an electroencephalograph with specific commands.  Twenty years ago the computer responded with a dot on a TV screen.  Nowadays it could be the input to a stimulator (ESB) in advanced stages using radio frequencies” [8] 

In the event, narco-hypnosis was found, it is claimed, to be less than reliable, although some writers and observers dispute this.[9]  Additional studies conducted by Dr. Ewen Cameron, and funded by the CIA, were directed towards erasing memory and imposing new personalities on unwilling patients.  Cameron discovered that electroshock treatment caused amnesia.  He set about a programme that he called “de-patterning” which had the effect of erasing the memory of selected patients.  Further work revealed that subjects could be transformed into a virtual blank machine (Tabula Rasa) and then be re-programmed with a technique which he termed “psychic driving”.  Such was the bitter public outrage, once his work was revealed (as a result of FOIA searches) that Cameron was forced to retire in disgrace.

 Of interest too is Dr. John C. Lilly[10] who was asked by the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to brief the CIA, FBI, NSA and other military intelligence services on his work using electrodes to stimulate, directly, the pleasure and pain centres of the brain.  According to Lilly he refused.  However, as revealed in his book he continued to do “useful” work for the national security apparatus.  However, in terms of timing this is interesting for these events took place in 1953.  Another scientists, Eldon Byrd, who worked for Naval Surface Weapons Office was commissioned in 1981 to develop electromagnetic devices for purposes including “riot control”, clandestine operations and hostage removal.[11]  From 1965 through to 1970, Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA), with up to 70-80% funding provided by the military, set in motion operation PANDORA to study the health and psychological effects of low intensity microwaves with regard to the so called “Moscow signal”.  This project appears to have been quite extensive and included (under US Navy funding) studies demonstrating how to: induce heart seizures, create leaks in the blood brain barrier and production of auditory hallucinations. Despite attempts to render the Pandora programme invisible to scrutiny, FOIA filings revealed memoranda of Richard Cesaro, Director, DARPA, which confirmed that the programme’s initial goal was to “discover whether a carefully controlled microwave signal could control the mind.”  Cesaro urged that these studies be made “for potential weapons applications.”[12]

 Following immense public outcry, Congress forbade further research and demanded that these projects be terminated across the board, but as Victor Marchetti, a former CIA agent later revealed, the programmes merely became more covert with a high element of “deniability” built in to them., and that CIA claims to the contrary are a “cover story”[13] Despite the fact that many of the aforementioned projects revolved around the use of narcotics and hallucogenics, projects ARTICHOKE, PANDORA and CHATTER clearly demonstrate that “psychoelectronics” were a high priority.  Indeed the author John Marks; anonymous informant (known humorously as “Deep Trance”) stated that beginning in 1963 mind control research strongly emphasised electronics. 

 An obscure District of Columbia corporation called Mankind Research Unlimited (MRU) and its wholly owned subsidiary, Systems Consultants Inc. (SCI) operated a number of classified intelligence, government and Pentagon contracts, specialising in, amongst other things: “problem solving in the areas of intelligence electronic warfare, sensor technology and applications.” [14]  MRU’s “capability and experience” is divided into four fields.  These include “biophysics - Biological Effects of Magnetic Fields”, “Research in Magneto-fluid Dynamics”, “Planetary Electro-Hydro-Dynamics” and “Geo-pathic Efforts on Living Organisms”.  The latter focuses on the induction of illness by altering the magnetic nature of the geography.  Also under research were “Biocybernetics, Psychodynamic Experiments in Telepathy”, “Errors in Human Perception” , “Biologically Generated Fields” “Metapsychiatry and the Ultraconscious Mind” (believed to refer to experiments in telepathic mind control), “Behavioural Neuropsychiatry” “Analysis and Measurement of Human Subjective States” and “Human Unconscious Behavioural Patterns”.   Employing some old OSS, CIA and military intelligence officers, the company also engages the services of prominent physicians and psychologists including E. Stanton Maxey, Stanley R. Dean Berthold Eric Schwarz plus many more.  MRU lists in its Company Capabilities “brain and mind control.”[15]  Despite vehement claims by MRU’s chairman that it is not a “front organisation for any branch of the United States Government…”[16] one must treat these claims with a great deal of scepticism.    

 There followed an extensive hiatus in available information during the 1980’s and up to the present day.  This initially appears to have closely paralleled Ronald Reagan’s Presidency and not surprisingly flowed onwards during President Bush’s term of office[17].  As a result the once user-friendly Freedom of Information Act became less accessible and more bureaucratic.  Search costs soared and material that had been (or scheduled to be) de-classified was reviewed and re-classified.  This phenomenon is not an unusual occurrence in the United States, and tends to shadow the outward face of Congress.  Public outrage leads to a temporary liberalisation, but as public memory recedes (all too quickly) the old institutionalised covert ways quickly re-engage.  We thus move to more recent times.

 During 1989 CNN aired a programme on electromagnetic weapons and showed a US government document that outlined a contingency plan to use EM weapons against “terrorists”.  Prior to the show a DoD medical engineer sourced a story claiming that in the context of conditioning, microwaves and other modalities had regularly been used against Palestinians.  During 1993 Defense News, the prestigious US weekly announced that Russian government was discussing with American counterparts the transfer of technical information and equipment known as “Acoustic Psycho-correction”.  The Russians claimed that this device involves “the transmission of specific commands via static or white noise bands into the human subconscious without upsetting other intellectual functions.”  Experts said that demonstrations of this equipment have shown “encouraging” results “after exposure of less than one minute,” and  has produced “the ability to alter behaviour on willing and unwilling subjects.”  The article goes on to explain that combined “software and hardware associated with the (sic) psycho-correction programme could be procured for as little as US$80,000.  The Russians went on to observe that “World opinion is not ready for dealing appropriately with the problems coming from the possibility of direct access to the human mind.”  Acoustic psycho-correction dates back to the mid 1970’s and can be used to “suppress riots, control dissidents, demoralise or disable opposing forces and enhance the performance of friendly special operations teams.[18]”  One US concern in relation to this device, was aired by Janet Morris of the Global Strategy Council, a Washington based think tank established by former CIA deputy director, Ray Cline, who noted that “Ground troops risk exposure to bone-conducting sound that cannot be offset by earplugs or other protective gear.”  In recent months I met with and discussed Russian research efforts, with a contact who had visited Russia earlier this year.  He, in turn, met with a number of Russian scientists who are knowledgeable in this field.  I have few doubts that the Defense News article cited earlier is fundamentally accurate.

 Dr. Ross Adey, in his pioneering work determined that that emotional states and behaviour can be remotely influenced merely by placing a subject in an electromagnetic field.  By directing a carrier frequency to stimulate the brain and using amplitude modulation to shape the wave to mimic a desired EEG frequency he was able to impose a 4.5 CPS theta rhythm on his subjects.  Drs Joseph Sharp and Allen Frey experimented with microwaves seeking to transmit spoken words directly into the audio cortex via a pulsed-microwave analog of the speaker’s sound vibration.  Indeed, Frey’s work in this field, dating back to 1960 gave rise to the so called “Frey effect” which is now more commonly referred to as “microwave hearing.”[19]  Within the Pentagon this ability is now known as “Artificial Telepathy”.[20]  Adey and others have compiled an entire library of frequencies and pulsation rates which can effect the mind and nervous system[21]

 During the siege of Waco, Texas, last year, FBI agents discussed with Russian counterparts the use of Acoustic psycho-correction on David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.  In the event it is understood that this contingency did not proceed.  However, some unusual EM weapons were deployed at Waco.  BBC World News, and additional FBI film-footage (in the possession of this writer) show both the Russian equipment being demonstrated, as well as previously unseen noise generator and an unusual low frequency strobe array in use at Waco. 

 Have weapons of this nature been developed and field tested?  Judged by the number of individuals and groups coming forward with complaints of harassment the answer, appears, to be yes.  Kim Besley, of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, has compiled a fairly extensive catalogue of effects that have resulted from low frequency signals emanating from the US Greenham Common base, and, apparently, targeted upon the women protesters.  These include: vertigo, retinal bleeding, burnt face (even at night), nausea, sleep disturbances, palpitations, loss of concentration, loss of memory, disorientation, severe headaches, temporary paralysis, faulty speech co-ordination, irritability and a sense of panic in non-panic situations.  Identical and similar effects have been reported elsewhere and appear to be fairly common-place amongst so called “victims”.  Many of these symptoms have been associated in medical literature with exposure to microwaves and especially through low intensity or non thermal exposures.[22]  These have been reviewed by Dr. Robert Becker, twice nominated for the Noebel Prize, and specialist in EM effects.  His report confirms that the symptoms mirror those he would expect to see, had Microwave weapons been deployed.

 The Scientific American dated April 1994 carried an article entitled “Bang! You’re Alive” which briefly described some of the known arsenal of Less Than Lethal weapons presently available.  These include Laser Rifles, low frequency “”infrasound” generators powerful enough to trigger nausea or diarrhoea.  Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) noted that Non-Lethal weapons have been linked to “mind control” devices and that three of the most prominent advocates of non lethality share an interest in psychic phenomena[23]

 Current Projects include SLEEPING BEAUTY, directed towards the battlefield use of mind-altering electromagnetic weapons.  This project is headed by Jack Verona, a highly placed Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer.  Dr. Michael Persinger of Laurentian University is also employed on the project.  Other sources have revealed a project entitled MONARCH which, supposedly, is directed towards the deliberate creation of severe multiple personality disorder.[24]

 It is now the opinion of many that these and related programmes have been brought under the banner of Non Lethal Weapons, otherwise known as Less Than Lethal, which are now promulgated in connection with the doctrine of Low Intensity Conflict, a concept for warfare in the 21st century.  It is clear that many of these Pentagon and related LTL programmes operate under high classification.  Others consider many similar or related “black” programmes are funded from the vast resources presently available under the US counter-drug law enforcement policy which has a FY 1995 budget of $13.2 billion.[25]

 Defense Secretary, William J Perry, issued a memorandum on Non lethal Weapons dated 21 July 1994.  This was of interest in that it outlined a tasking priority list for use of these technologies.  Second on the list was “crowd control”.  Coming in at a poor fifth was “Disable or destroy weapons or weapon development/production processes, including suspected weapons of mass destruction.”  It is therefore clear that Non Lethality is fundamentally seen as anti-personnel rather than anti-material.  In July this year, Spotlight, a rightist and widely circulated US newspaper reported that well placed DoD sources have confirmed a classified Pentagon contract for the development of “high-power electromagnetic generators that interfere with human brain waves.”  The article cited the memorandum of understanding dated 1994 between Attorney General, Janet Reno, and Defense Secretary, William Perry for transfer of LTL weapons to the law enforcement sector.  A budget of under $50 million has been made available for funding associated “black” programmes.  Dr. Emery Horvath, a professor of physics at Harvard University has stated in connection to the generator that interferes with human brain waves that “These electronic ‘skull-zappers’ are designed to invade the mind and short circuit its synapses...in the hands of government technicians, it may be used to disorient entire crowds, or to manipulate individuals into self destructive acts.  It’s a terrifying weapon.”[26]

 In a  1993 US Air Command and Staff College paper entitled “Non Lethal Technology and Air Power, authors Maj. Jonathan W. Klaaren (USAF) and Maj. Ronald S. Mitchell (USAF) outlined selected NLT weapons.  These included “Acoustic” (pulsed/attenuated high-intensity sound, infrasound (very low frequency) and Polysound (high volume, distracting) as well as High-power microwaves (HPM) that possessed the capability of “deters/incapacitates people…  These and other classified weapons are being passed to domestic law enforcement agencies as shown by the 1995 ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) International Technology Symposium “Counter-Drug Law Enforcement: Applied Technology for Improved Operational Effectiveness” that outlined the “Transition of advanced military technologies to the civil law enforcement environment”   There are some observers who fear that the burgeoning narcotics industry is an ideal “cover” in which to “transit” Non Lethal Technologies to domestic political tasks.  Whether this is merely a misplaced “Orwellian” fear remains to be seen.  However, organised crime is so globally “organised” that experts now believe it is impossible to eradicate or even effectively combat.[27]

 The foregoing gives some necessary background to the origins and timing surrounding the development of anti-personnel electromagnetic weapons, and in particular demonstrates that the USA have an intense and long established interest in mind control and behaviour modification that spans five decades.  As we have seen, fragmentary information has surfaced for brief spells, only to disappear, once more, from public scrutiny.  It remains to be said that a great many advances in the realm of electromagnetic field technology and mind control techniques have, apparently, been made during the sixties, seventies and eighties.  In particular, veterans of the Vietnam war are still coming forward with bizarre stories, which collectively (if true?) point to a leap in knowledge that largely remains hidden behind the thick curtain of security classification.[28]

 Major Edward Dames, formerly with the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency until 1992, was a long serving member of the highly classified operation GRILL-FLAME, a programme that focused on some of the more bizarre possibilities of intelligence gathering and remote interrogation.  Known as “remote viewers” GRILL-FLAME personnel possessed a marked psychic ability that was put to use “penetrating” designated targets and gathering important intelligence on significant figures.  The programme operated with two teams; one working out of the top secret NSA facility at Fort George Meade in Maryland, and the other at SRI.  Results are said to have been exemplary.  Following the Oliver North debacle the Secretary of Defense officially terminated GRILL-FLAME fearing bad publicity were the programme to  become known to the public.  The leading members of the project - including Dames - immediately relocated to the privately owned and newly formed Psi-Tech, and continue their work to this day, operating under government contract.   In the course of his work, Dames was (and remains) close to many the leading figures and proponents Anti-Personnel Electromagnetic Weapons especially those that operate in the neurological field.  During NBC’s “The Other Side” programme, Dames stated that “The US Government has an electronic device which could implant thoughts in people.”  He refused to comment further.  The programme was broadcast during April of last year (1995). 

 This over-view is merely a “fragmentary” glimpse of programmes that have been, and continue to be blanketed under tight security classification.  Where information was available through FOIA filings, a great deal of additional information (in fact the greatest bulk) was purposely destroyed or otherwise lost.  However, this writer considers that what is available is sufficient to draw the conclusion that ongoing research, development and deployment of EM weapon systems that impact on the biological functions of the body, or more importantly, interfere with the human mind, are cause for the greatest humanitarian concern.

 In an age where the threat of global warfare has diminished as a result of the easing of tension between east and west, it can be anticipated that some form of introspection will occur in the developed western nations.  Societies that have been generationally and economically honed for warfare do not, on the whole, assume “for peace” production with such vigour and ability. Why this is so, is not the subject of this paper.  Unable to so readily project the “shadow” outwards on to another nation, the enemy without soon distils to become the enemy within?[29]  In the United States[30], for example, there is a rapidly developing trend of co-operation between the military and law enforcement agencies in LTL weaponry.  Whilst it is clear that this is driven to some extent by budgetary considerations, there remain legitimate concerns regarding the longer term effect on democracy.

 The reality of an increasingly (and increasing number of) impoverished lower class as a result of “swords to shears” economics, is certain to result in growing civil unrest, disobedience, strife, inner city turmoil and quite possibly much worse[31].  Rather that seeking to resolve the underlying causes of these tensions, it is feared that governments will increasingly resort to more durable measures to quell domestic dissent.  Western industrial nations are especially prone to these developments for a variety of reasons[32].

 Less Than Lethal Anti Personnel weapons[33] are seen in some influential quarters as being the ideal remedy for future domestic disturbances of this magnitude[34]. The danger with such possibilities is that western democracy may begin to fail, or suffer such severe set-backs in its traditional democratic forms that it will become increasingly repressive and oligarchic.[35] Armed with innovative technological weapons that do not necessarily kill,[36] but which render disenfranchised segments of society physically inactive, emotionally stupefied and incapable of meaningful thought is a goal of those who favour a “psycho-civilised society”   This is a frightening and all too realistic scenario.  Whether by design or by default such an outcome is nothing short of a dictatorship.

 This is the real fear for the future of some classes of Non Lethal weapon developments and the use to which they have been, or may be put to.

  ADDENDUM 23 APRIL 1996

Following the preparation of this paper and prior to its publication by Dr. Nick Begich in “Earthpulse Flashpoints,” a small number of factual errors and miscellaneous comments have been received and are now included below for the sake of accuracy.

1)       Footnote 35.  Naom Chomsky, in correspondence with this writer, advises that: “…we don’t really ‘argue that democracy has already been replaced.’  Rather, that its functioning depends on an authentic free press, and that it exists only in part.  That there is a one-party state – in the sense that there are only factions of ‘the business party’ is not our idea; C. Wright Mills, among others, going way back.”

2)       Chomsky also refers to my caveat about the “Spotlight” article (see footnote 26) concerning the comments ascribed to Dr. Horvath and observers that “It’s not the kind of comment that a Harvard physicist would be likely to make.”  It’s such an glaring observation that I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it myself.  I still haven’t heard back from Dr. Horvath, if indeed such a person exists.  This citation, therefore, needs to be taken with even greater care.  On the other hand, Dr. Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists has now written to me advising: “Spotlight is, to my mind, a thoroughly non-credible source (as you suggest).  Without being able to verify the rest of the article, however, the quotation ascribed to me was accurate.”

3)       In a lengthy telephone call, British researcher, Armen Victorian, pointed out a number of relevant and interesting facts: A) Maj. General Stubblebine is no longer with Psi-Tech - he was removed in a  “palace coup” engineered, Armen says, by Major Ed. Dames and Col. John Alexander.  B) In addition to his (DoD backed) Ad Hoc advisory role on Non Lethality for NATO, Alexander has now moved to head up multi-millionaire, R. Bigelow’s, new Nevada based National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS).  Bigelow is recruiting “top draw” personnel to study fringe science subjects including Remote Viewing, UFO’s etc.  Jacques Vallee, the renown French born UFO researcher is also part of the team.   Armen will have a more in-depth article on these matters published in a forthcoming issue of Robin Ramsay’s LOBSTER. 

4)     Project Monarch:  Martin Cannon has more recently written stating that he believes this project to be fabricated.