Dr. Steven Aftergood on CNN
From CNN's Web Site
Also see CNN 6-18-97 Mind Control Coverage
Edited interview transcript with
Dr. Steven Aftergood
Federation of American Scientists
Steven: The problem is that government secrecy is indiscriminate in it's application. All kinds of things that don't need to be kept secret are kept secret and that creates an attitude of, if you have nothing to hid why are you hiding so much? And that I think is the situation we're in today.
David: What do we know of right now, in relation to government experimentation with mind control?
Steven: The first thing I think needs to be said is that it would be irresponsible to accuse the government of performing secret mind control tests on unsuspecting citizens without any evidence. I do not personally know of any such evidence. Having said that, there is a record of decades of research into technologies of mind control and behavior modification dating back at least to the 60's if not before. The state of the art has reached some astonishing levels of accomplishment. For example, it is now possible to remotely raise a person's body temperature by bathing them in microwave radiation, to the point that they are incapacitated. It is possible to induce auditory hallucinations, in other words to make a person hear things, by means of certain frequencies of electro-magnetic radiation. And these are things that sound like science fiction or fantasy but they have been demonstrated at least in the laboratory.
David: Demonstrated in the laboratory, that's the key phrase. How practical would this be to actually use in a battle field situation?
Steven: I think that is the outstanding question. I think you have to consider not just the effects of the technology itself, but what is the mission you are trying to accomplish, and are there simpler ways of accomplishing it. What is the point of inducing auditory hallucinations, of making somebody hear things that are not there if you can simply shoot them in a war time situation? Or if you can drug them with conventional drugs? Or any number of other well established means of affecting human behavior? So I'm not at all certain that these new technologies are going to have any military or national security application what so ever.They may end up teaching us things about how the brain functions. But in terms of using them to effect some strategic goal, I don't see that.
David: The fact that the military is looking into technology like this, what should that tell us?
Steven: That they have too much money.
David: I don't want to let that go, and say they have too much money. Too much money and too much time on their hands maybe, do you think this is just hopeless case?
Steven: I think this is very remote from anything that a serious person would consider having to do with the security of the United States. This does not respond to any of the real challenges that this country faces, globally, nationally, economically or otherwise. It may be very interesting but it is difficult to understand exactly why the taxpayers are being asked to pay for it.
David: In your research in trying to make things more public, what have you discovered that the government has been investing in?
Steven: Well, for example, I have a brochure about a program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which makes reference to what they call a thermal gun, a seizure gun, and a magneto-phosphine gun. A thermal gun would have the effect of heating a person's body up to a 107 degrees fahrenheit and thereby incapacitate him or her.
David: Taxpayers are actually paying for the development of these kinds of weapons?
Steven: Yes that's exactly right.
David: How practical are these? What state of development are these in?
Steven: That is classified and we do not know the answer. I suspect that they are at a very preliminary proof-of-principle stage. In other words, they have demonstrated that such a thing is possible. They have not been converted yet into weapons that might actually be fielded in a hostile situation.
David: So the next war does not look like we are going to have soldiers out there with ray guns, does it?
Steven: Not at the moment. It may not be the next war, it may be the next riot, or the next hostage situation. In some cases these technologies may even be too classified to use. In the sense that once you use them, everyone knows that you have them and you open up a whole can of policy worms. So some of these are technologies that may never be used in any kind of public situation.
David: When you go digging for this kind of information, trying to make it public, what kind of response do you get from the government or from the military?
Steven: Well one of the reasons that I do not buy the conspiracy line, is that the government is doing a worse and worse job of keeping secrets. What I find is that if you seek, you will find, and I'm able to uncover a surprising amount of detail about programs and technologies that, nominally at least, are classified. So the idea that there is some sort of massive human experimentation program is just not credible for that reason alone, it could not be kept secret today. Unlike decades ago.
David: There are a lot of people out there who believe that they are victims. How often does somebody call you and say I'm a victim of secret government testing and it is controlling my mind?
Steven: Well that happens with disturbing frequency. Lately it has been a couple times a month.
David: That often?
Steven: Yes, it's just astonishing.
David: What is going on here?
Steven: That is a very important question. I think what we are seeing is the development of a new subculture. Just as there are lots and lots of people who are obsessed with the assassination of President Kennedy, there are other groups of people, a large number who are obsessed with UFO's and possible alien abductions. There are others' who have a highly conspiratorial view of the situation involving American prisoners of war, all of which ascribe to the government some extraordinary power and extraordinary secrecy. I think we are seeing the same thing in this case.
It is, of course, tremendously disturbing. There are always going to be a small fraction of the public who hold extremist views, who are perhaps mentally ill, but when that number increases from a fraction of a percent to several percent, then that poses a threat to the integrity of our society. You can not have people going crazy and expect our institutions to function. This is a problem that I think demands a government response. What the response ought to be is a tremendous relaxation of secrecy standards. We need to reduce the tremendous quantity of documents that are currently classified, and we have to reduce the scope of what is kept secret down to that core of genuine national security secrets. Those things that really could damage the nation if they were disclosed. Right now we have a grossly inflated secrecy system and it is literally driving a lot of people crazy.
David: They call you and you say I'm sorry you feel this way, there is absolutely no way that could be true based on what I've found. Do they believe you?
Steven: The first thing is that there a lot of people who are in genuine physical and mental distress, who interpret their distress as being caused by some form of government mind control. I tell them; first of all see a doctor. Make sure that there is no physical or psychological cause for the phenomena that you are experiencing. Something is obviously wrong, it may not be what you think it is, but you had better find out. Beyond that there is not a lot I can do to help them, except to try and get them to think it through. Why would the government want to target them? If they really stop and ask themselves that question, they sometimes realize that they do not have persuasive response.
David: It seems that a lot of people these days are talking about and believing in government mind control. How did this begin? What is it that is different about this than what we have seen in the past with alien abductions, or communist plots?
Steven: Unfortunately there is a history to this, in that the Central Intelligence Agency in the 50s through the early 70s did conduct an aggressive research program on mind control and behavior modification.
David: So unlike alien abductions, there is a little bit of factual back ground for this?
Steven: There is a basis for suspicion, yes, unfortunately. Not only was there research in this area but there was experimentation conducted on unsuspecting citizens. It was a grotesque abuse of government power. It at established a precedent that such things are possible. We can not assume that all of our government officials are honorable men and women, because we know from experience that they have sometimes behaved dishonorably. So there are grounds to ask the questions could it be going on today.
David: Could it be going on today?
Steven: I do not have any evidence that it is going on today. I think it would not only be criminal if it were, but it would also be politically suicidal. The political cost of the such a program being disclosed, would be almost unimaginable.
David: Based on the scientific evidence that you have managed to uncover, what are the odds that this is actually happening?
Steven: It depends what this is. If these are tests of mind control devices by the government on unsuspecting American citizens, I think the answer is there is a negligible possibility that is going on. The only reason I would say non zero, is because it has happened in the past. But I do not think it is going on today.
David: Do you have other's other than them? Let's go through the rest of these, this is really interesting. (David points to documents in Steven's hand)
Steven: This is a part of a report done by the defense science board at the Pentagon which makes reference to the use of electro-magnetic or directed energy to attack personnel. The idea that electro-magnetic energy can be used against people and not just against other weapons or electronic systems, is current, it is understood that this is an option. This is an article that is translated from a Russian military journal in Moscow called Arrmysky Spornik from October of last year. It is written by two Russian military officers, and it makes the surprising claim that a psychophysical effect on people is possible for the purpose of altering their behavior, and even controlling the social aims of regional or even global societies. The fact is that today the United States is spending as much money on developing psychophysical weapons as on the most complex space programs.
David: Is that true?
Steven: Now that is a factual assertion that is not true. They are simply in error when they say that. But the fact that Russian military officers would make such a claim I think is significant in and of itself. The fact that this is perceived to be a reality, has political importance, whether or not the reality is genuine.
David: Back in the 60s, there was an awful lot of discussion, an awful lot of concern about the missile gap, and according to this document the Russians believe that there is a mind control gap?
Steven: Evidently, but the fact is that Russians have done an enormous amount of research on behavior modification and mind control. In fact here is another article from a trade journal called Defense Electronics from July 93, which reports that the Defense department and US intelligence agencies are looking at Russian mind control technology.
David: According to the heading here, the FBI considered using it on David Koresh?
Steven: That is what is being reported here, yes.
David: They thought about employing this technology at Waco?
Steven: Yes, and then for reasons that are not quite clear they ended up not doing so.
David: Do you think this is true?
Steven: I will tell you what I think is true. There is a hardware device that has been developed in Russian laboratories, which purports to have mind control effects.
David: Induce imagery?
Steven: To induce in particular auditory hallucinations.
David: This device could make some one hear voices?
Steven: That is right. It is a technology that is sometimes referred to as synthetic telepathy. In other words, communicating a message with words to someone else's mind without speaking or without generating a sound.
David: The machine could make me hear or perceive words or phrases . . .
Steven: Correct, I do not have any first hand experience with this technology, I have talked to people who I tend to believe who say that yes, it is possible at least in a primitive fashion.
David: This all sounds so fantastic?
Steven: It's bizarre, and it lends itself to exaggeration. If you have to wonder well if this is possible, what else is possible. So it serves to crystalize a lot of the paranoia that is already out there in the country and to focus it on this technology.
David: Incredible.This does not sound like science fiction.
Steven: It is spooky and sometimes I feel like I just need to put all this stuff aside and do real work. Because it just gets out of control.
David: Do you ever feel like that when your going through scientific documents, you run across something like this and think, maybe I should not have seen this?
Steven: I never exactly think that. I always want to see things, especially what I'm not suppose to see. But I often see official documents that make me shake my head. This for example is an article that appeared in a US army journal called Military Review in December 1980.
Steven: The title of this is the New Mental Battlefield. Written by a US Army colonel who makes extraordinary and I believe false claims throughout the article. Just picking at random here, the ability to heal or cause disease can be transmitted over distance thus inducing illness or death for no apparent cause. That is over the edge.
David: A death ray?
Steven: A death ray, and telepathic behavior modification. This is the sort of stuff that I would not look at twice except for the fact that it appeared in a US Army journal. But again what do you when you are confronted with bizarre cases, not only can they not be proved, they can not be disproved. I think what all of this points to is a degree of hostility or at least mistrust of the government, and that is a factor that can be addressed. Specifically I think that the change that we need to see a great reduction in the scope of government secrecy. People need to know that the government is not keeping secrets that they do not approve of. They need to know that if something is secret, it is a secret for a good reason. The government is not using the classification system against the public, it is using classification authority in order to protect the nation. And we are not at that stage yet. We are still keeping to many secrets and we are paying a price for it in public hostility to government.
David: And the other price your talking about, the actual situation where people are unable to deal with this? And you say that that also represents a threat? I'm not exactly sure how that translates to a threat to our institutions?
Steven: Well there is of course the individual level where there are these people who are in great distress, many of them are clearly mentally ill, and are in need of assistance. That is a problem of individual scale. But when we start having large numbers of people who are caught up in what seems to be a paranoid fantasy, then the possibility of having a reasonable national conversation about any of the policy issues that face us right now is eroded if not made impossible altogether. We can not have a large fraction of the American public that for all intents and purposes is insane.
David: Is that happening right now?
Steven: We are coming dangerously close to it. There are more and more individual subcultures of paranoid fantasy, and they are undermining the ability of the nation to address the real problems that face it.