August 22, 2024 • 43 mins
The rumors spread for decades: Somewhere in the US, our own government was conducting dangerous, heinous and illegal experiments on citizens from all walks of life. This conspiratorial tale seemed set to remain little more than an urban legend -- until, that is, intrepid reporters and members of Congress managed to expose MKULTRA, the insidious series of experiments run by the Central Intelligence Agency with almost no oversight. In the decades since the revelation, MKULTRA has been featured in countless works of fiction, documentaries and more. But what exactly was it? Join the guys as they separate the MKULTRA fact from fiction.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, conspiracy realist friends, neighbors. We are super excited for
this one. This classic episode is one of the things
that we talked about at length with each other hanging
out in our little what do we call it the
fish bowl?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, before we even did this show.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yeah, this is just the name. It's one of those
things you stumble upon, maybe on a message board, as
you start to get curious about unsolved mysteries and conspiracies
and things like that. You'll see this written for the
first time. Yeah all of us did. We all saw
it one time. We're like, mk Ultra what is that
Mortal Kombat? Is that like moratl Kombat Ultra Edition?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I've never heard of boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
But really, like your brain says, that sounds crazy already.
And then you start to learn what it is like
we're about to do in this episode, and it makes
you question pretty much everything else.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Please tune in and realize behind the curtain, I think this, uh,
this kind of stuff may have been one of the foundation,
foundational cornerstones of our friendship.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, this, and I think Edward Burne's oh gosh, that guy.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Yeah, from UFOs to Psychic Powers, and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Hello, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
What's your Name?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly, you
are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. This is an episode
that we've received numerous requests for and Matt, if I
recall correctly, and at least the two of us, we
(01:58):
were both surprised that we had done this yet. Is
that is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, We're having many echoes of videos such as the
Project Artichoke, several part series that we made in the past.
And we've mentioned MK ultras so many times on this
show just as a throwaway mention of mind to control.
Whenever we bring something even closely related to that or
kind of related to mind control, we always joke, m
gay ultra, right, right, But we've never put it all
(02:24):
in one thing.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So here it is MK ultra one oh one For
a lot of us listening today. It's true that there
has been a war going on somewhere on the planet
for every moment of your life. Not all wars are
created equal. Of course, some are fought out in the open,
massive waves of soldiers crashing against one another in the
blood and the dirt. Others, of course, are fought through proxies,
(02:47):
where it's where foreign powers turn a third nation or
country into a battleground and mercenaries disguised as student activists
or freedom fighters kill one another while the people who
live there look on helplessly. Others, of course, are fought
surreptitiously in the shadows, kind of a spy versus spy thing.
And if you were born after World War iiO, that
(03:08):
means you were alive during what we call the Cold War,
this long running ideological hegemonic conflict between the USSR and
the West. Most mainstream thought will tell us that this
Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union,
although some people will quietly assure you this war continues
today and a lot of those people under some people
(03:29):
are Russian pointing that out.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, and or just people who work in the State Department.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
And perhaps those as well. Yeah, yeah, So intelligence agencies
on both sides of the Cold War tried to get
any sort of edge they could better technology, better access
to resources, better propaganda displays like getting to space, landing on.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
The moon, or I was thinking about digging a giant
hole and going as far as you can into the Earth,
just as a fun thing to say, Yeah, we dug
the biggest what's up? I know Russia has done that.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, that's true. That is a true story. There's another
aspect that we don't talk about as much, perhaps as
we should, which is gaining better control over people, regardless
of where they live or what they do. In today's episode,
as as you said, is ultimately about that last idea,
how do you best control people? The CIA pursued this
(04:24):
question through a series of programs collectively known today as
MK Ultra. Here are the facts. Actually, no, we have
to skip it for this one. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Gosh, straight to crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah dang.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So here are the two dates you need to know.
But then there's a third one and it sounds complicated,
but it just means sh from at least nineteen fifty
three to nineteen sixty four, officially wrapping all the way
up in nineteen seventy three, the CIA used various front
companies and the like to conduct at it at times
illegal experiments on unwitting human subjects. And this included a
(05:00):
disposure to things like illegal drugs, LSD, other chemicals, and
a large dollop of what we would consider to be
social manipulation.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Absolutely, and the aims of these programs all varied. They
ran the gamut, but they also shared a common theme
to explore previously unexploited ways of influencing human behavior. Can
we actually brainwash someone? Can we genuinely hypnotize someone? Can
we make them tell the truth? Or can we implant
(05:29):
some series of future actions in their mind?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
New false memories?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Manchurian candidate.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I was gonna say, I didn't want to say it.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Oh did I spoil it?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It's okay, we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Trigger word assassins.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
M ladies in polka dot dresses.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
There we go, inception style dream exploration.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They and for years and years and years and years
and years, rumors about this kind of nefarious activity floated
around in the counter culture of America. The mainstream largely
dismissed it until the seventies, when a new York Times
journalist named Seymour Hirsch, who will be familiar to longtime
(06:10):
listeners of stuff they will want you to Know, published
this story in nineteen seventy four detailing how the CIA
conducted non consensual drug experiments and illegal spye operations domestically
on US citizens. Would later come to find that Canadians
were victimized as well. The spook squad flew out of
(06:31):
the country to experiment on some folks they consider representative
of a communist block. So this allegation hits in the
nineteen seventies, as we said, with the New York Times
publishing it. But the problem here is that this is
a newer chapter in a very long story. When we
(06:52):
talk about truth serums and the attempts to discover one,
we go all the way back to nineteen sixteen, right.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Way way way back, and that's when that's the first
time that scopel me in is seen to be like
having an effect on a human and ultimately scopel me
is something that's used to I guess as a truth serum,
is used as a truth serum. But back in nineteen
sixteen is when it's first seen. Then you can jump
all the way to nineteen thirty one when you see
(07:22):
the sodium pentathal, which is the thing we've discussed before
the official Truth serum.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
But never actually tried.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, yeah, that we know of, right.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Oh, that I know of? Who knows? Huh? And then
since nineteen forty two on the US government has been
interested in this kind of stuff, right, especially originally under
General William Wild Bill Donovan. So this stuff has occurred,
it's just most people didn't know about it. And to
(07:53):
one degree or another, what makes.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Complete sense anytime you are at war and you've got
an enemy combatant and you if you could inject something
into that combatant and then get the coordinates of where
the rest of his battalion is or something, I mean, done,
end of story. You're gonna do that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And in his article, Hirsch also talks about how they
managed to bring these details about MK Ultra to light.
It looks legit. His sources are right, He's walked through
the process. You can see chain of custody for all
the stuff he found, and then primarily he found it
through a government mistake. This was never meant to be discovered,
(08:33):
but the discovery resulted, and calls for an investigation. Eventually,
even Congress paid attention, which is unusual for Congress. They
held a hearing on this in nineteen seventy five, the
famous Church Committee, and they had Senate hearings just a
little bit later.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
The later hearings only occurred after a FOI Freedom of
Information Act request uncovered a cash of twenty thousand documents
that were related to Project mk Ultra. And according to
that report, mk Ultra was meant to develop. So the
words would report develop a capability in the covert use
of biological and chemical materials. Pretty vague, doesn't really tell
(09:14):
you what they were going for. Covert secret use of
some biological or chemical materials, but to what end. But
what they were referring to was mind control efforts, and
they started in Earnest in nineteen forty nine under the
name of Project Bluebird's been talked about pretty extensively on
the show. More back on the video days. I would say, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, I think we mentioned Bluebird when we made the
Artichoke videos. And there are a whole bunch of those
code names that we can get into maybe a little later,
but Bluebird was a big one.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And Bluebird was reactionary, right, mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
It was in reaction to the quote bizarre conduct of
a cardinal by the name of Menzenti at his trial
in Budapest, when he confessed to reason.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
He clearly, in their minds, he clearly appeared to have
had brainwashing techniques applied to him. He confessed the stuff
he demonstrably did not and could not have done. He
claimed that he was going to topple this one regime
to bring in I guess capitalism, and then he was
going to supplant the United States after it was a
(10:21):
one world government and become the supreme authority of the
country himself. It was very wow, very strange. But yeah,
they thought they have done something to this guy's mind,
and we need to be able to well, the way
they phrases we need to be able to stop it,
or we need to know what they're doing. What they
really meant is we need to have that capability. So
(10:43):
they started contemplating behavior control for offensive purposes. They were
at least partially motivated by fear that China and the
Soviet Union had already made significant breakthroughs in this field.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was either probably terrified of that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And here's the thing. Although it sounds like a rationalization,
at this point, the CIA history vindicated them. They were
they were correct. The Soviet Union had been conducting wholly
independent research along the same lines, with a lot of
extra parapsychological stuff thrown in, and they had a decade
long jump on Uncle Sam. All in all, as far
(11:20):
as we know, they spend at least a billion dollars.
It's still even more enigmatic than mk ULTR. We don't
know when it ended, but we know they called it psychotronics.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Psychotronics, that's a cool name, and we had as a
record store in my hometown called Psychotronic Record.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Whoa whoa Soviet front dat.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
It's very small. I don't know where they would hide.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Maybe it's subterring these as well.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
That's that is a great video. A couple of videos
we've made, and I think an episode we did a
full episode on that didnety Psychotronics. Ell if not, it's
coming soon. And that was fascinating because it's looking into everything, right.
It was it was like Stargate, Like Project Stargate was
almost to the United States where were looking at psychic
(12:08):
soldiers and all that stuff outside of just truth serums
and LSD and effects of the mind right right.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It's interesting because in the US these were more compartmentalized.
Like when Nola and I interviewed Russell Targan earlier and
he was talking a little bit about Project Stargate that
was not related to in Kultra. It's an important difference.
In Kultra is how can we control the mind? And yeah,
(12:34):
and Stargate is more about what we would consider psychic
or superpowers. They also said that we have to understand
these techniques because we need to defend ourselves against people
who might not be as restrained in the use of
these tactics as we are. So we're learning how to
do evil stuff because we're very good boys. That's that's
(12:58):
sort of the logic. I mean, I get it. But
you can see where it's I don't want to say disingenuous,
but convenient.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Sure, No, I can definitely see that.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So that's what they describe. Where's the line? Why is this?
You know who cares?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
But what's too far? Right?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I mean, if you're already doing this stuff, where at
what point do you say, Okay, we shouldn't do that anymore.
Let's look at that right after a quick word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I mean, it's a good question. There's nothing wrong with
secret government projects legally speaking, as we listen to this episode,
no matter where you're listening, where you're located, or where
what you consider your home country, we can virtually guarantee
you that they are up to something and it is
occurring in secret because it's meant to protect the government,
the employees of the government, and citizens of the country.
(13:56):
You know, let me call it national secrecy. The problem
here is that despite that that theory, in practice secrecy
is often used to hide acts that would be crimes
if anybody else in the country committed them. The CIA
was doing stuff that we give people life in prison
with no parole.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I mean, let's like, let's say, for instance, that we
catch a wild hair and we go around sneaking drugs
in people's food, your imposity market. If we got caught,
we'd go to court. Those rules are just different when
it comes to government sanctioned acts.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
We would go to court and probably just go straight
to jail, no.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Matter how straight to hale.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, and well again, and we're kind of like joking
about it in a way. But this is exactly what
the Central Intelligence Agency did. No, Oh, absolutely, they put
stuff in people, and those people had no idea. In
nineteen fifty five, only two years after the program was
officially approved, the project was already having just serious issues
(15:05):
with a thing we've mentioned here before that happens in
a lot of big projects with a lot of money,
even here at our job, especially here at our job,
mission creep, oh, mission creep, where just that one little
thing that you're supposed to be doing ends up turning
into all these other things and spreading all the way
out to the edges of the desk. So the scope
(15:27):
of experimentation expanded, and it was they were trying to find, well,
let's just let's call this discovery of the following materials
and methods, including those which will promote the intoxicating effect
of alcohol.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That sounds nice, So make you more drunk, more quickly,
more severely.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, that's nice, Which will render the induction of hypnosis
easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness. Okay, I can see
why you're gonna use that in some interrogation, which will
enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation torture. Are
in coercion during interrogation and so called brainwashing. Oh, so
(16:06):
privation is uh, what the what the hell is that?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
We just we we talked about this a little bit
off air. So privation is the act of depriving people
of basic human necessities food, clothing, water, shelter, air, I guess,
but not for too long. And you pointed out, knowl
that that's pretty weird language wise, linguistically, that's.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
Weird, right, depriv Well, I said, is so is privation
like the opposite of deprivation.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Which would be extremely to give people stuff?
Speaker 5 (16:39):
But no, now it is. How did you put it?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Then?
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Well?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I would It's just it's to deny them, to deprive
the act. Yeah, I got, this is just it's got
really complicated.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Yeah. Man, this isn't even the rabbit hole for today.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I'm alien here we are. I'm feeling prived of direction,
So let's keep doing this. They're also looking for that
which will produce amnesia for events proceeding and during their use.
So a drug or some other substance that would do that,
that which will produce shock and confusion for extended periods
of time, and capable of surreptitious use. Wow, this sounds
(17:21):
like just the best stuff ever that which will produce
physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's like real hypnol essentially described, or they're describing ro
hypnol or some other drug with amnesia.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Disabled you a little yeah, And then let's see. According
to the Hearing Report, eighty six universities or institutions were involved.
Eighty six universities or institutions and one hundred and eighty
five non government researchers and assistants worked on these these projects.
What and then we have another quote here. It says physicians, toxicologists,
(18:03):
and other specialists in mental and narcotics Mental and narcotics
were lured into mk ULTRA through the provision of grants
that were made under ostensible Research Foundation auspices, thereby concealing
the CIA's interest from the specialists institution. So what are
we saying here. It's what we said at the top.
(18:24):
They're concealing that they are actually doing this. That is
the CIA, with their tentacles going into these other institutions
essentially getting money and researching stuff that they're going to
use in the field.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right, But they don't think they're working for the CIA.
They think they're working for like the American Foundation of
totally legitimate benevolence.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Oh, you mean the specialists and the toxicologsts, other people
who are working with the drugs and the methods. They
don't know exactly, So it's the CIA. Like again, it's
like the Black Tar, the black Goo and X files.
It's just like seeping in and finding its way and
infecting people without knowing it.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
The Pink Slime and Ghostbusters too, very similar a force
for both good or your san shan't goo.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
So for members of Congress, this was just sop standard
operating procedures. CIA had not inherently crossed the line by
conducting these experiments in secret by lying to the scientists
or the researchers. Instead, they crossed the line when they
didn't inform volunteers. This was also you know, this is
(19:34):
taking place right after Watergate, so distrust of the government
is at an even higher mainstream level than before. So
in his opening remarks during the hearing, Senator Edward Kennedy
described mk ULTRA as on.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Ex time softastic of experimentation program which included co art
drug tests and on on wedding citiziens at all social
levels law Native Americans and foreign Several of these tests
include the administration of that last day to un wedding
subjects on social situations. What I did there, you guys,
(20:13):
was Fred Gwen from pet Cemetery. That's that's the closest
thing I can.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
You know.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
In the trailer for the new one, they don't say
the soil is sour anymore, they say the soil is bad.
I was like, oh, I heard it's really good. Not
the soil, but it's quite good, all right.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So what he means by this? And off off air,
Matt and I did try a little bit. I no, no,
as long as you didn't feel bullied, we were. It
was just a great voice.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
I didn't feel bullied at all. I never feel bullied
by you guys. I always feel big.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Up you guys.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I mean, I think you're the new Kennedy for for
the show. But but he's making a good point. Despite
despite our compatriots mallifluous and beautiful reenactment, there, Kennedy was
saying stuff that had substance and presented a clear and
present ethical danger. There were not medical professionals around for
(21:11):
a lot of this dosing. The CIA agents doing this
and their proxies were not doctors. Often at least one
person went to the hospital, probably more. Two people definitely died,
a fellow named Frank Olsen who was involved as a
non civilian, and Harold Blauer. But the testing continued, and
when we say two people died, we mean at least
(21:33):
two people. We really don't know how many deaths or
injuries can be attributed to this.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Program, because it's also hard to really tell how long
the program had been going on outside of the official numbers,
and how long it continued.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right right, Just the stuff we know, again is from
that Freedom of Information Act. We'll explore this in a second,
but let's walk through what they were actually doing with
MK ULTRA. They weren't. In many ways. It was as
dirty as the Tuskegee experiments. Some people may see even
a little worse. They went to twelve hospitals that we
(22:13):
know of, and testing was testing was conducted on patients
who had various forms of terminal cancer. They were they
were not coming back. It was time to make your peace,
not time to pursue other options of treatment. And this
meant that we can we can assume safely that whatever
those experiments the cancer patients were part of were doing
(22:36):
to the human body, it was going to have long
term detrimental, possibly fatal effects. And the deal was simple.
It was a devil's bargain. The CIA's proxies, you know,
doctor uh every man good name comes in from the
Society of regular business and says, I will pay the
(22:58):
medical bills for these terminal cancer patients. And all we
have to do, you know, in addition to all the
top notch medicines were already exposing them to, we'll expose
them to this other experimental medicine and.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Then we'll close the doors and turn off the lights
and just see what happens.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Right, And they may have glowed because we're talking radiation exposure, yeah,
for some of the terminal patients. But yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Any something that was probably going to kill them harder
or faster than the cancer.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And in the in the conducted experiments in prisons as well,
and this one, for some reason bothers me even more so.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
In the prisons, the mentally ill, specifically described as criminal
sexual psychopaths, are also subjected to experiments. They are considered expendable.
I guess in somewhere maybe there was there was a
benefit to their mental state, like they were trying to
like trigger them even further to break.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's a good question.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Yeah, I don't know. So while prisoners were informed of
the broad strokes of one experiment or another or another,
and while they some of you know, they did volunteer,
they did so when they were promised access to their
addictive drug of choice, right, which, as we know from
even just watching films, you know, a junkie will do
(24:14):
just about anything for their fix.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Right, Is it consent if a person who is in
the depths of heroin or opioid withdrawal is offered opium
or heroin? Like are they saying yes, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
So it's users at the very least. Yeah, absolutely, and
manipulative and borderline not borderline, definitely unethical.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's brea.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Yeah, in any kind of controlled medical test or any
kind of clinical that would you know, you can't that
that throws your date out the window. That's not right.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
That's why you don't see more of those situations in
studies on you know, the fad diets or social media usage.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So so let's get to let's get to some of
the things that we put in place after World War Two.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Right, the Cold War is not counted as a war,
so these things are not counted as war crimes. However,
they clearly violate the Nuremberg Code, which the entire imperfect
world approves of. Yeah. As a result of the findings,
President Ford and then President Carter and then President Reagan
(25:28):
all issued orders banning all future human experimentation without consent
by government agencies and even kicked back a little bit
of a little bit of make it Right money to
the people that were inarguably harmed by the test. Just
the people that were inarguably demonstrably harmed. A lot of
people fell through the cracks. This sounds like it could
(25:51):
be an expose a in the halls of Congress, right,
Just the wheels of justice grind slow but exceedingly fine,
a very go team moment, right, Yeah, Wavior Flags feel
proud to be an American. But the problem is that
this only scratches the surface. That's why this is mk
ultra one oh one. You see, before that article comes
(26:12):
out in the New York Times, and years before the
congressional hearings, the CIA has an internal purge In nineteen
seventy three, when you Matt earlier said it officially wrapped up.
The CIA director at the time, Richard Helms, ordered all
of the documents related to anything associated with any mk
Ultra program to be destroyed. This means, even today, we
(26:35):
still do not know everything that happened, and the hints
that we get, the little tantalizing scraps, are even more disturbing.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's a stinking shame, and we're going to learn about
it right after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yep, all right, crazy, double crazy.
We know that there were other experiments, we don't know
how many, and we don't know the details of all
of them. But here's just a whitman sampler of the
sort of stuff that they involved. Electro shock, harassment techniques
(27:15):
for quote offensive use, gas propelled sprays and aerosols, has
assassination delivery systems. This begins to get wrapped up in
because these committees were also looking at stuff like the
CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Oh yeah, can we talked about what you said, harassment
techniques for offensive use right really fast?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, A lot of times or maybe you've heard of
this before something called gang stocking some of these other things.
I can imagine that's where a lot of those feelings arise,
or the beliefs that something like that is happening to you,
just from that one little thing, the concept that the
CIA was truly researching at one point harassment techniques for
(28:00):
offensive years.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
They really were doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
No.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I know that gangs talking can sometimes sound a little
bit tinfoil hattie for people, but they they were purposely
doing it. It's the idea is to push someone further
and further into a paranoid state.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yes, and it works, all right. So scientists were also
greenlit for research involving radiation and paramilitary devices and materials.
Isn't that nice looking into radiation? And yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And going back to your point NOO that you said
about the vague language here paramilitary devices and materials. Mm hmm,
that's pretty It could be anything.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Yeah, it could be those crazy Air Force coffee mugs
that are so expensive. Have you heard about these? There
was apparently a line item in the Air Force budget
for like one hundred and thousands of dollars for these
like high tech coffee mugs that had built in warmers. Wow,
and apparently they're very fragile, so they had to replace them.
A bunch of people would drop them on the planes
and they would just shatter and then so that you know,
(29:04):
waste not why not? Uncle Sam?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Oh boy, it's like that old story about the three
hundred dollars hammer. Right.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So what we do know is that at least one
hundred and forty nine of the mk ultris subprojects had
some kind of connection with research into behavioral modification, drug
acquisition and testing or administering drugs on the sly.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah for for for all kinds of things, including what
you said before again, ben assassination delivery systems.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Assassination delivery system?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Does that mean like a gun?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well that would be one.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Or you know some some type of or yeah, yeah,
like you combine them.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
But I love the I love the the banality of that,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, apps asolutely. They do have some poetic language in here,
though we have lists of different projects. They had six
projects that were intentionally meant to test unwitting subjects, eight
with hypnosis. Two of those used drugs, seven that just
used drugs. Four Here's the poetry that used the quote
(30:19):
magicians art.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Ooh, the magician's arm art.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Al right, well, and specifically in that one, it's about
finding a way to get probably a chemical into someone's
drink or into someone's food, or into someone's body in
a way that they don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Right, this is dangerous, is it?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Through a magician's art.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Through a magician's art like close magic? Yeah, misdirection.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
You just got darted totally did.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Which you know, just from the use of that phrase.
I don't mean to belittle the horrible things that happened,
but just from the use of that phrase, doesn't it
sound like one of the CIA people really, which is
just a repressed magician.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, fan of magic, that's right. Wouldn't let him in
the magic Castle? What is it called? The magicians Castle?
Speaker 5 (31:04):
The Magic Castle? The magic Yeah, I have yet to
go myself. You have to be invited. There's there's there
there is a loophole where you can go and get
a commemorative photo or something like that, like one one day. Yeah,
it's like a sort of like open house at elementary school.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Lauren Vogelbaum with I know she did.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
She had an end Yeah, with some kind of fancy actor.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I don't trust stage magicians. It's one of my few prejudices.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Well, do you recall that our buddy Russell Targ had
fascination with stage magic y, Yeah, which I found very
interesting considering that a lot of people, you know, attribute
some of the techniques of stage magicians to cold reading
and choice to fake being psychic. I'm not. I don't
think that's what Targ is about, but I do think
(31:49):
it's interesting that he his mind kind of started going
down that path through a false way, and then ultimately
he found its way to a more true way what
he perceives what he perceives to be a.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
It's true, it's it's interesting. Not to derail too much,
but I you know, how you can be intellectually aware
of something but then emotionally one hundred and eighty degrees
opposed to it or vice versa. Right, Like, Intellectually I
understand that stage magicians are normal human beings who get
(32:20):
up and have jobs and are not evil or you know,
like I have all these stereotypes about them. Emotionally, I
can't get over it. Yeah, yeah, I feel monstrous about it,
and I apologize to any stage magicians listening to the show.
Please don't send me videos of your stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
So you're like the whole, the whole category, everything about it.
I don't know why you were never like David Copperfield
as a kid.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
I'm okay with mentalists, you know, like Darren Brown for
some reason is okay. And it's like pull out the
cards and they make me tap on stuff. It's something
must have happened to me.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
You don't like people to ask you to do stuff either, Ben, who.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Likes people to ask? If it's all in the way
you ask, that's all.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
The way you ask, that's true. I agree. But if
I just walked up to you and I said, Ben,
tap on this deck of cards with two fingers, you
would probably punch me.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I would punch you because now I would know where's
coming from.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
You look at me a skance though. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yes, it would be would be very, very distrusting in
the very least you touch it with three fingers.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
It would be like if it would be like if somebody,
if mad or I came up to you and we're like,
hey man, open this bag and we had hidden a
bird in there, Like that's not cool.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
If you guys can see me out there and podcasts.
Then my eyes just went wide like a couple of
would never do the saucers. I have nightmare sometimes if
there's a bird under my covers.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Dude, we will never do that.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Thanks, guys.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I don't want to freak you out.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Did a bird hurt me? Is that what you're gonna ask?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Don't look under the desk right now?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Okay, that's this.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Is being This is mean, and I'm sorry your face
was so genuine and scared that I'm sorry. I feel
like the CIA, right.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Okay, it's okay, man, And that's what we just did.
We did a thought experiment to let you know how
the CIA must feel after being taken a task for
a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
And how quickly it got out of control because they
were also dosing one another at some point.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
That was just for funzies, like it's smitty, he's tripping balls.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
What is your stage magic?
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Now?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Oh wait, he's going outside on the balcony.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Oh shoot, oh that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
The other one bites the dust. That of course happened, right, yes.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yes, Frank Olsen specifically, he was a biochemist at a
lab that was conducting those LSD experiments for the government,
and the story is still very murky today. I think
it's mentioned in that Netflix series Wormwood. So according to
uncle Sam Olsen knowingly ingested LSD and then because it
(34:55):
affected him in an adverse way, he eventually took his
own life by jumping from his hotel room on the
thirteenth floor of a New York City hotel, and you know,
he died. However, his family and numerous people don't buy
the story. They say that he was dosed without his consent,
(35:16):
and that he would never have committed suicide, that he
did not have nascent suicidal tendencies. They say he was
murdered because he knew too much. The US government gave
them a settlement of seventy five hundred thousand dollars in
set nineteen seventy five. But yeah, wait, wait, wait, though
nineteen ninety four, his body's exhumed and a coroner sees
(35:40):
head injuries and he says, wait, Olsen was knocked unconscious
before his death.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
How do you.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Figure that out that long afterwards after you fell from
a really high height.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I totally hear you. That is crazy, though, right.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yes, yeah, it's it's strange and questions for me. And
it's also I hate to say, man, but it's extremely
possible that he was killed and was a cover up
because ULTRA is the top above top secret level classification
for projects at this time. And this leads us to,
you know, the big question. Surely one day there's going
(36:19):
to be justice. Ah, not so fast.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, a lot of the sciences involved honestly had no
idea what they were actually doing. That they were working
for the CIA. They knew they were administering something. They
knew they were maybe doing it a little surreptitiously, but
they didn't understand that it was this kind of this
kind of thing, right, And they, along with the CIA assets,
are illegally immune at this point from consequences of their actions.
(36:44):
Can you believe that that's that's true? Seriously?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yep, they're immune.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
And here's why. There are two lawsuits related to MK
ULTRA that made it as far as the freaking Supreme Court,
and the Court found in favor of the government twice
both times.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah. Nineteen eighty five, the Court held, in a case
called CIA versus Sims that the names of institutions and
researchers who participated and project in Kultra were exempt from
revelation under the Freedom of Information Act because the CIA
needed to protect its intelligent sources. Again national security.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Ah, just throw that up anywhere and you're good to go.
And then also in nineteen eighty seven, here's a case
called the United States versus Stanley, and the court held
that this serviceman, someone who was working with them, who
had volunteered for a chemical weapons experiment, let's call it
that a chemical weapons experiment. This guy was actually tested
with LSD and this guy was barred from bringing a
(37:44):
claim under this thing called the Federal Tort Claims Act.
And what is a tort ben A.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Tort is essentially when someone does something bad to you,
a bad action, so okay, Tort law is the area
of law that protects people from bad acts of others.
Historically speaking, citizens in the US cannot sue states because
of the concept of sovereign immunity. Can't just sue the
state because there are very specific sets of constraints or
(38:14):
situations where you can do that. And the FTCA or
Federal Tort Claims Act, so nineteen forty six federal statute
that allows private parties to sue the US in a
federal court for most of these torque cases committed by
people acting on behalf of the US. It's a little
bit of legal ease, but that's it. He was Stanley
(38:38):
was attempting to attempting to sue, but it was kicked
out because it was not Because he was, he was
not allowed to use the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
National security, national security.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
National security twice in a row, eighty five and eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So that's almost where we are now today. Mk Ultra
is firmly enshrined in the world of conspiracy lore. There
are fictional programs like Wormwood. There are documentaries. There are
books ranging from fiction inspired by this to maybe more
fringe research that the authors will tell you is true.
(39:18):
Ad all sorts of films that explore aspects of the
program or use it as a jumping off point for speculation.
But like any piece of folklore, and I would argue
there's a lot of folklore a on mk Ultra, there
is an inarguable grain of truth inside the story, and
that leaves us with some burning, disturbing questions. First, what happened?
That's the easiest question. To answer.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
We will not know, We cannot know, we will never know, We.
Speaker 5 (39:42):
Refuse to know. We shut our eyes and ears to
the truth. Yes, well, no, not that first.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
The first two we just can't. We can't know because
it's going to be sealed.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Because they destroyed thousands and thousands of things.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
And when I say sealed, I mean in a tomb
essentially of its own burnt up carbon.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, we're in We're in deathbed confession territory. That's where
that's that those will be the best sources of This
second question is a little depressing. Did any of this
stuff actually work?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, some of it, some of it obviously.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Most of it didn't, but some of it did. Some
of it did, right.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, And again we're not really sure what we'll find
unless some of those experiments that they were doing are
just redone a lot. But I guess, I guess. The
big thing is that they never at least two our understanding,
they never got a true truth serum as close as
scope I mean, and some of these other things can
(40:39):
get you. There's no true injectable that we know of.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Now, I'll tell you everything. My social security one of
my feet is larger than the other it makes me uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I er uh, I am Edward Kennedy, and uh, some
of the biggest drugs that I've been doing lately are
the LSD.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
The LSD. You also kind of got a little Peter Griffin.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
I got Peter. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So's it's true. They never found that silver bullet truth serum.
So far as we know, the data they got was
of limited use if you think about it, because they
didn't have solid methodology in a lot of these experiments,
they did not have ideal monitoring conditions, and at some
point they just had a Lord of the fly situation,
(41:30):
you know what I mean. Big Think has a great
quote on this. They argue that the program may ultimately
have been counterproductive. They say MK Ultra might have been
counterproductive because the counterculture was given access to LSD through
these experiments. That's true, and they proceeded to run in
the opposite direction with it. John Lennon went so far
(41:51):
as to mock the CIA in an interview, noting they
must always remember to thank the CIA and the Army
for LSD. That's what people forget. Oh my god, it's
young Michael Caine. I'm sorry they invented at a state
to control people, and what they did was give us freedom.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Wow, Okay, all right, Lenin, all right, John Lennon, I.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Mean that's that's Michael Kaine. Michael, but yeah, he's making
a good point, right.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yeah, they gave us LSD, But they didn't give us
what what did what didn't they give us? They didn't
give us shrooms? True? They let's maybe they did. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Yeah, I don't know. They didn't. They they didn't disclose
a lot of the findings. And that's that's the scariest question.
Most importantly, what's happening now? You have to ask yourself
listening to this, would a government genuinely completely stop this
sort of research if an aspect of it worked. Has
(42:48):
there at any point, and forget forget the relatively young
experiment known as the United States, in the course of
human civilization, has there been something that was an amazing
technique or technology that gave one empire the edge over
the others that they stopped pursuing. I'm not being rhetorical.
(43:11):
I would love to hear of one example.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, send us your example, and.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
That's our classic episode for this evening. We can't wait
to hear your thoughts. We try to be easy to
find online.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
Find this in the handle conspiracy stuff, where we exist
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Speaker 3 (43:27):
Show call our number. It's one eight three three std WYTK,
leave a voicemail.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And if you have more to say, we can't wait
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Where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Oh, conspiracy realist friends, neighbors. We are super excited for
this one. This classic episode is one of the things
that we talked about at length with each other hanging
out in our little what do we call it the
fish bowl?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, before we even did this show.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yeah, this is just the name. It's one of those
things you stumble upon, maybe on a message board, as
you start to get curious about unsolved mysteries and conspiracies
and things like that. You'll see this written for the
first time. Yeah all of us did. We all saw
it one time. We're like, mk Ultra what is that
Mortal Kombat? Is that like moratl Kombat Ultra Edition?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I've never heard of boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
But really, like your brain says, that sounds crazy already.
And then you start to learn what it is like
we're about to do in this episode, and it makes
you question pretty much everything else.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Please tune in and realize behind the curtain, I think this, uh,
this kind of stuff may have been one of the foundation,
foundational cornerstones of our friendship.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, this, and I think Edward Burne's oh gosh, that guy.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Yeah, from UFOs to Psychic Powers, and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Hello, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
What's your Name?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly, you
are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. This is an episode
that we've received numerous requests for and Matt, if I
recall correctly, and at least the two of us, we
(01:58):
were both surprised that we had done this yet. Is
that is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, We're having many echoes of videos such as the
Project Artichoke, several part series that we made in the past.
And we've mentioned MK ultras so many times on this
show just as a throwaway mention of mind to control.
Whenever we bring something even closely related to that or
kind of related to mind control, we always joke, m
gay ultra, right, right, But we've never put it all
(02:24):
in one thing.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So here it is MK ultra one oh one For
a lot of us listening today. It's true that there
has been a war going on somewhere on the planet
for every moment of your life. Not all wars are
created equal. Of course, some are fought out in the open,
massive waves of soldiers crashing against one another in the
blood and the dirt. Others, of course, are fought through proxies,
(02:47):
where it's where foreign powers turn a third nation or
country into a battleground and mercenaries disguised as student activists
or freedom fighters kill one another while the people who
live there look on helplessly. Others, of course, are fought
surreptitiously in the shadows, kind of a spy versus spy thing.
And if you were born after World War iiO, that
(03:08):
means you were alive during what we call the Cold War,
this long running ideological hegemonic conflict between the USSR and
the West. Most mainstream thought will tell us that this
Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union,
although some people will quietly assure you this war continues
today and a lot of those people under some people
(03:29):
are Russian pointing that out.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, and or just people who work in the State Department.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
And perhaps those as well. Yeah, yeah, So intelligence agencies
on both sides of the Cold War tried to get
any sort of edge they could better technology, better access
to resources, better propaganda displays like getting to space, landing on.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
The moon, or I was thinking about digging a giant
hole and going as far as you can into the Earth,
just as a fun thing to say, Yeah, we dug
the biggest what's up? I know Russia has done that.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, that's true. That is a true story. There's another
aspect that we don't talk about as much, perhaps as
we should, which is gaining better control over people, regardless
of where they live or what they do. In today's episode,
as as you said, is ultimately about that last idea,
how do you best control people? The CIA pursued this
(04:24):
question through a series of programs collectively known today as
MK Ultra. Here are the facts. Actually, no, we have
to skip it for this one. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Gosh, straight to crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah dang.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So here are the two dates you need to know.
But then there's a third one and it sounds complicated,
but it just means sh from at least nineteen fifty
three to nineteen sixty four, officially wrapping all the way
up in nineteen seventy three, the CIA used various front
companies and the like to conduct at it at times
illegal experiments on unwitting human subjects. And this included a
(05:00):
disposure to things like illegal drugs, LSD, other chemicals, and
a large dollop of what we would consider to be
social manipulation.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Absolutely, and the aims of these programs all varied. They
ran the gamut, but they also shared a common theme
to explore previously unexploited ways of influencing human behavior. Can
we actually brainwash someone? Can we genuinely hypnotize someone? Can
we make them tell the truth? Or can we implant
(05:29):
some series of future actions in their mind?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
New false memories?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Manchurian candidate.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I was gonna say, I didn't want to say it.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Oh did I spoil it?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It's okay, we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Trigger word assassins.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
M ladies in polka dot dresses.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
There we go, inception style dream exploration.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They and for years and years and years and years
and years, rumors about this kind of nefarious activity floated
around in the counter culture of America. The mainstream largely
dismissed it until the seventies, when a new York Times
journalist named Seymour Hirsch, who will be familiar to longtime
(06:10):
listeners of stuff they will want you to Know, published
this story in nineteen seventy four detailing how the CIA
conducted non consensual drug experiments and illegal spye operations domestically
on US citizens. Would later come to find that Canadians
were victimized as well. The spook squad flew out of
(06:31):
the country to experiment on some folks they consider representative
of a communist block. So this allegation hits in the
nineteen seventies, as we said, with the New York Times
publishing it. But the problem here is that this is
a newer chapter in a very long story. When we
(06:52):
talk about truth serums and the attempts to discover one,
we go all the way back to nineteen sixteen, right.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Way way way back, and that's when that's the first
time that scopel me in is seen to be like
having an effect on a human and ultimately scopel me
is something that's used to I guess as a truth serum,
is used as a truth serum. But back in nineteen
sixteen is when it's first seen. Then you can jump
all the way to nineteen thirty one when you see
(07:22):
the sodium pentathal, which is the thing we've discussed before
the official Truth serum.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
But never actually tried.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, yeah, that we know of, right.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Oh, that I know of? Who knows? Huh? And then
since nineteen forty two on the US government has been
interested in this kind of stuff, right, especially originally under
General William Wild Bill Donovan. So this stuff has occurred,
it's just most people didn't know about it. And to
(07:53):
one degree or another, what makes.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Complete sense anytime you are at war and you've got
an enemy combatant and you if you could inject something
into that combatant and then get the coordinates of where
the rest of his battalion is or something, I mean, done,
end of story. You're gonna do that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And in his article, Hirsch also talks about how they
managed to bring these details about MK Ultra to light.
It looks legit. His sources are right, He's walked through
the process. You can see chain of custody for all
the stuff he found, and then primarily he found it
through a government mistake. This was never meant to be discovered,
(08:33):
but the discovery resulted, and calls for an investigation. Eventually,
even Congress paid attention, which is unusual for Congress. They
held a hearing on this in nineteen seventy five, the
famous Church Committee, and they had Senate hearings just a
little bit later.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
The later hearings only occurred after a FOI Freedom of
Information Act request uncovered a cash of twenty thousand documents
that were related to Project mk Ultra. And according to
that report, mk Ultra was meant to develop. So the
words would report develop a capability in the covert use
of biological and chemical materials. Pretty vague, doesn't really tell
(09:14):
you what they were going for. Covert secret use of
some biological or chemical materials, but to what end. But
what they were referring to was mind control efforts, and
they started in Earnest in nineteen forty nine under the
name of Project Bluebird's been talked about pretty extensively on
the show. More back on the video days. I would say, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, I think we mentioned Bluebird when we made the
Artichoke videos. And there are a whole bunch of those
code names that we can get into maybe a little later,
but Bluebird was a big one.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And Bluebird was reactionary, right, mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
It was in reaction to the quote bizarre conduct of
a cardinal by the name of Menzenti at his trial
in Budapest, when he confessed to reason.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
He clearly, in their minds, he clearly appeared to have
had brainwashing techniques applied to him. He confessed the stuff
he demonstrably did not and could not have done. He
claimed that he was going to topple this one regime
to bring in I guess capitalism, and then he was
going to supplant the United States after it was a
(10:21):
one world government and become the supreme authority of the
country himself. It was very wow, very strange. But yeah,
they thought they have done something to this guy's mind,
and we need to be able to well, the way
they phrases we need to be able to stop it,
or we need to know what they're doing. What they
really meant is we need to have that capability. So
(10:43):
they started contemplating behavior control for offensive purposes. They were
at least partially motivated by fear that China and the
Soviet Union had already made significant breakthroughs in this field.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was either probably terrified of that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And here's the thing. Although it sounds like a rationalization,
at this point, the CIA history vindicated them. They were
they were correct. The Soviet Union had been conducting wholly
independent research along the same lines, with a lot of
extra parapsychological stuff thrown in, and they had a decade
long jump on Uncle Sam. All in all, as far
(11:20):
as we know, they spend at least a billion dollars.
It's still even more enigmatic than mk ULTR. We don't
know when it ended, but we know they called it psychotronics.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Psychotronics, that's a cool name, and we had as a
record store in my hometown called Psychotronic Record.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Whoa whoa Soviet front dat.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
It's very small. I don't know where they would hide.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Maybe it's subterring these as well.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
That's that is a great video. A couple of videos
we've made, and I think an episode we did a
full episode on that didnety Psychotronics. Ell if not, it's
coming soon. And that was fascinating because it's looking into everything, right.
It was it was like Stargate, Like Project Stargate was
almost to the United States where were looking at psychic
(12:08):
soldiers and all that stuff outside of just truth serums
and LSD and effects of the mind right right.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It's interesting because in the US these were more compartmentalized.
Like when Nola and I interviewed Russell Targan earlier and
he was talking a little bit about Project Stargate that
was not related to in Kultra. It's an important difference.
In Kultra is how can we control the mind? And yeah,
(12:34):
and Stargate is more about what we would consider psychic
or superpowers. They also said that we have to understand
these techniques because we need to defend ourselves against people
who might not be as restrained in the use of
these tactics as we are. So we're learning how to
do evil stuff because we're very good boys. That's that's
(12:58):
sort of the logic. I mean, I get it. But
you can see where it's I don't want to say disingenuous,
but convenient.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Sure, No, I can definitely see that.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So that's what they describe. Where's the line? Why is this?
You know who cares?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
But what's too far? Right?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I mean, if you're already doing this stuff, where at
what point do you say, Okay, we shouldn't do that anymore.
Let's look at that right after a quick word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I mean, it's a good question. There's nothing wrong with
secret government projects legally speaking, as we listen to this episode,
no matter where you're listening, where you're located, or where
what you consider your home country, we can virtually guarantee
you that they are up to something and it is
occurring in secret because it's meant to protect the government,
the employees of the government, and citizens of the country.
(13:56):
You know, let me call it national secrecy. The problem
here is that despite that that theory, in practice secrecy
is often used to hide acts that would be crimes
if anybody else in the country committed them. The CIA
was doing stuff that we give people life in prison
with no parole.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I mean, let's like, let's say, for instance, that we
catch a wild hair and we go around sneaking drugs
in people's food, your imposity market. If we got caught,
we'd go to court. Those rules are just different when
it comes to government sanctioned acts.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
We would go to court and probably just go straight
to jail, no.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Matter how straight to hale.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, and well again, and we're kind of like joking
about it in a way. But this is exactly what
the Central Intelligence Agency did. No, Oh, absolutely, they put
stuff in people, and those people had no idea. In
nineteen fifty five, only two years after the program was
officially approved, the project was already having just serious issues
(15:05):
with a thing we've mentioned here before that happens in
a lot of big projects with a lot of money,
even here at our job, especially here at our job,
mission creep, oh, mission creep, where just that one little
thing that you're supposed to be doing ends up turning
into all these other things and spreading all the way
out to the edges of the desk. So the scope
(15:27):
of experimentation expanded, and it was they were trying to find, well,
let's just let's call this discovery of the following materials
and methods, including those which will promote the intoxicating effect
of alcohol.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That sounds nice, So make you more drunk, more quickly,
more severely.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, that's nice, Which will render the induction of hypnosis
easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness. Okay, I can see
why you're gonna use that in some interrogation, which will
enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation torture. Are
in coercion during interrogation and so called brainwashing. Oh, so
(16:06):
privation is uh, what the what the hell is that?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
We just we we talked about this a little bit
off air. So privation is the act of depriving people
of basic human necessities food, clothing, water, shelter, air, I guess,
but not for too long. And you pointed out, knowl
that that's pretty weird language wise, linguistically, that's.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
Weird, right, depriv Well, I said, is so is privation
like the opposite of deprivation.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Which would be extremely to give people stuff?
Speaker 5 (16:39):
But no, now it is. How did you put it?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Then?
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Well?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I would It's just it's to deny them, to deprive
the act. Yeah, I got, this is just it's got
really complicated.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Yeah. Man, this isn't even the rabbit hole for today.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I'm alien here we are. I'm feeling prived of direction,
So let's keep doing this. They're also looking for that
which will produce amnesia for events proceeding and during their use.
So a drug or some other substance that would do that,
that which will produce shock and confusion for extended periods
of time, and capable of surreptitious use. Wow, this sounds
(17:21):
like just the best stuff ever that which will produce
physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's like real hypnol essentially described, or they're describing ro
hypnol or some other drug with amnesia.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Disabled you a little yeah, And then let's see. According
to the Hearing Report, eighty six universities or institutions were involved.
Eighty six universities or institutions and one hundred and eighty
five non government researchers and assistants worked on these these projects.
What and then we have another quote here. It says physicians, toxicologists,
(18:03):
and other specialists in mental and narcotics Mental and narcotics
were lured into mk ULTRA through the provision of grants
that were made under ostensible Research Foundation auspices, thereby concealing
the CIA's interest from the specialists institution. So what are
we saying here. It's what we said at the top.
(18:24):
They're concealing that they are actually doing this. That is
the CIA, with their tentacles going into these other institutions
essentially getting money and researching stuff that they're going to
use in the field.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right, But they don't think they're working for the CIA.
They think they're working for like the American Foundation of
totally legitimate benevolence.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Oh, you mean the specialists and the toxicologsts, other people
who are working with the drugs and the methods. They
don't know exactly, So it's the CIA. Like again, it's
like the Black Tar, the black Goo and X files.
It's just like seeping in and finding its way and
infecting people without knowing it.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
The Pink Slime and Ghostbusters too, very similar a force
for both good or your san shan't goo.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
So for members of Congress, this was just sop standard
operating procedures. CIA had not inherently crossed the line by
conducting these experiments in secret by lying to the scientists
or the researchers. Instead, they crossed the line when they
didn't inform volunteers. This was also you know, this is
(19:34):
taking place right after Watergate, so distrust of the government
is at an even higher mainstream level than before. So
in his opening remarks during the hearing, Senator Edward Kennedy
described mk ULTRA as on.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Ex time softastic of experimentation program which included co art
drug tests and on on wedding citiziens at all social
levels law Native Americans and foreign Several of these tests
include the administration of that last day to un wedding
subjects on social situations. What I did there, you guys,
(20:13):
was Fred Gwen from pet Cemetery. That's that's the closest
thing I can.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
You know.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
In the trailer for the new one, they don't say
the soil is sour anymore, they say the soil is bad.
I was like, oh, I heard it's really good. Not
the soil, but it's quite good, all right.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So what he means by this? And off off air,
Matt and I did try a little bit. I no, no,
as long as you didn't feel bullied, we were. It
was just a great voice.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
I didn't feel bullied at all. I never feel bullied
by you guys. I always feel big.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Up you guys.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I mean, I think you're the new Kennedy for for
the show. But but he's making a good point. Despite
despite our compatriots mallifluous and beautiful reenactment, there, Kennedy was
saying stuff that had substance and presented a clear and
present ethical danger. There were not medical professionals around for
(21:11):
a lot of this dosing. The CIA agents doing this
and their proxies were not doctors. Often at least one
person went to the hospital, probably more. Two people definitely died,
a fellow named Frank Olsen who was involved as a
non civilian, and Harold Blauer. But the testing continued, and
when we say two people died, we mean at least
(21:33):
two people. We really don't know how many deaths or
injuries can be attributed to this.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Program, because it's also hard to really tell how long
the program had been going on outside of the official numbers,
and how long it continued.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right right, Just the stuff we know, again is from
that Freedom of Information Act. We'll explore this in a second,
but let's walk through what they were actually doing with
MK ULTRA. They weren't. In many ways. It was as
dirty as the Tuskegee experiments. Some people may see even
a little worse. They went to twelve hospitals that we
(22:13):
know of, and testing was testing was conducted on patients
who had various forms of terminal cancer. They were they
were not coming back. It was time to make your peace,
not time to pursue other options of treatment. And this
meant that we can we can assume safely that whatever
those experiments the cancer patients were part of were doing
(22:36):
to the human body, it was going to have long
term detrimental, possibly fatal effects. And the deal was simple.
It was a devil's bargain. The CIA's proxies, you know,
doctor uh every man good name comes in from the
Society of regular business and says, I will pay the
(22:58):
medical bills for these terminal cancer patients. And all we
have to do, you know, in addition to all the
top notch medicines were already exposing them to, we'll expose
them to this other experimental medicine and.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Then we'll close the doors and turn off the lights
and just see what happens.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Right, And they may have glowed because we're talking radiation exposure, yeah,
for some of the terminal patients. But yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Any something that was probably going to kill them harder
or faster than the cancer.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And in the in the conducted experiments in prisons as well,
and this one, for some reason bothers me even more so.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
In the prisons, the mentally ill, specifically described as criminal
sexual psychopaths, are also subjected to experiments. They are considered expendable.
I guess in somewhere maybe there was there was a
benefit to their mental state, like they were trying to
like trigger them even further to break.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's a good question.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Yeah, I don't know. So while prisoners were informed of
the broad strokes of one experiment or another or another,
and while they some of you know, they did volunteer,
they did so when they were promised access to their
addictive drug of choice, right, which, as we know from
even just watching films, you know, a junkie will do
(24:14):
just about anything for their fix.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Right, Is it consent if a person who is in
the depths of heroin or opioid withdrawal is offered opium
or heroin? Like are they saying yes, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
So it's users at the very least. Yeah, absolutely, and
manipulative and borderline not borderline, definitely unethical.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's brea.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Yeah, in any kind of controlled medical test or any
kind of clinical that would you know, you can't that
that throws your date out the window. That's not right.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
That's why you don't see more of those situations in
studies on you know, the fad diets or social media usage.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So so let's get to let's get to some of
the things that we put in place after World War Two.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Right, the Cold War is not counted as a war,
so these things are not counted as war crimes. However,
they clearly violate the Nuremberg Code, which the entire imperfect
world approves of. Yeah. As a result of the findings,
President Ford and then President Carter and then President Reagan
(25:28):
all issued orders banning all future human experimentation without consent
by government agencies and even kicked back a little bit
of a little bit of make it Right money to
the people that were inarguably harmed by the test. Just
the people that were inarguably demonstrably harmed. A lot of
people fell through the cracks. This sounds like it could
(25:51):
be an expose a in the halls of Congress, right,
Just the wheels of justice grind slow but exceedingly fine,
a very go team moment, right, Yeah, Wavior Flags feel
proud to be an American. But the problem is that
this only scratches the surface. That's why this is mk
ultra one oh one. You see, before that article comes
(26:12):
out in the New York Times, and years before the
congressional hearings, the CIA has an internal purge In nineteen
seventy three, when you Matt earlier said it officially wrapped up.
The CIA director at the time, Richard Helms, ordered all
of the documents related to anything associated with any mk
Ultra program to be destroyed. This means, even today, we
(26:35):
still do not know everything that happened, and the hints
that we get, the little tantalizing scraps, are even more disturbing.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's a stinking shame, and we're going to learn about
it right after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yep, all right, crazy, double crazy.
We know that there were other experiments, we don't know
how many, and we don't know the details of all
of them. But here's just a whitman sampler of the
sort of stuff that they involved. Electro shock, harassment techniques
(27:15):
for quote offensive use, gas propelled sprays and aerosols, has
assassination delivery systems. This begins to get wrapped up in
because these committees were also looking at stuff like the
CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Oh yeah, can we talked about what you said, harassment
techniques for offensive use right really fast?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, A lot of times or maybe you've heard of
this before something called gang stocking some of these other things.
I can imagine that's where a lot of those feelings arise,
or the beliefs that something like that is happening to you,
just from that one little thing, the concept that the
CIA was truly researching at one point harassment techniques for
(28:00):
offensive years.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
They really were doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
No.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I know that gangs talking can sometimes sound a little
bit tinfoil hattie for people, but they they were purposely
doing it. It's the idea is to push someone further
and further into a paranoid state.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yes, and it works, all right. So scientists were also
greenlit for research involving radiation and paramilitary devices and materials.
Isn't that nice looking into radiation? And yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And going back to your point NOO that you said
about the vague language here paramilitary devices and materials. Mm hmm,
that's pretty It could be anything.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Yeah, it could be those crazy Air Force coffee mugs
that are so expensive. Have you heard about these? There
was apparently a line item in the Air Force budget
for like one hundred and thousands of dollars for these
like high tech coffee mugs that had built in warmers. Wow,
and apparently they're very fragile, so they had to replace them.
A bunch of people would drop them on the planes
and they would just shatter and then so that you know,
(29:04):
waste not why not? Uncle Sam?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Oh boy, it's like that old story about the three
hundred dollars hammer. Right.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So what we do know is that at least one
hundred and forty nine of the mk ultris subprojects had
some kind of connection with research into behavioral modification, drug
acquisition and testing or administering drugs on the sly.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah for for for all kinds of things, including what
you said before again, ben assassination delivery systems.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Assassination delivery system?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Does that mean like a gun?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well that would be one.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Or you know some some type of or yeah, yeah,
like you combine them.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
But I love the I love the the banality of that,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, apps asolutely. They do have some poetic language in here,
though we have lists of different projects. They had six
projects that were intentionally meant to test unwitting subjects, eight
with hypnosis. Two of those used drugs, seven that just
used drugs. Four Here's the poetry that used the quote
(30:19):
magicians art.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Ooh, the magician's arm art.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Al right, well, and specifically in that one, it's about
finding a way to get probably a chemical into someone's
drink or into someone's food, or into someone's body in
a way that they don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Right, this is dangerous, is it?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Through a magician's art.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Through a magician's art like close magic? Yeah, misdirection.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
You just got darted totally did.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Which you know, just from the use of that phrase.
I don't mean to belittle the horrible things that happened,
but just from the use of that phrase, doesn't it
sound like one of the CIA people really, which is
just a repressed magician.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, fan of magic, that's right. Wouldn't let him in
the magic Castle? What is it called? The magicians Castle?
Speaker 5 (31:04):
The Magic Castle? The magic Yeah, I have yet to
go myself. You have to be invited. There's there's there
there is a loophole where you can go and get
a commemorative photo or something like that, like one one day. Yeah,
it's like a sort of like open house at elementary school.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Lauren Vogelbaum with I know she did.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
She had an end Yeah, with some kind of fancy actor.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I don't trust stage magicians. It's one of my few prejudices.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Well, do you recall that our buddy Russell Targ had
fascination with stage magic y, Yeah, which I found very
interesting considering that a lot of people, you know, attribute
some of the techniques of stage magicians to cold reading
and choice to fake being psychic. I'm not. I don't
think that's what Targ is about, but I do think
(31:49):
it's interesting that he his mind kind of started going
down that path through a false way, and then ultimately
he found its way to a more true way what
he perceives what he perceives to be a.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
It's true, it's it's interesting. Not to derail too much,
but I you know, how you can be intellectually aware
of something but then emotionally one hundred and eighty degrees
opposed to it or vice versa. Right, Like, Intellectually I
understand that stage magicians are normal human beings who get
(32:20):
up and have jobs and are not evil or you know,
like I have all these stereotypes about them. Emotionally, I
can't get over it. Yeah, yeah, I feel monstrous about it,
and I apologize to any stage magicians listening to the show.
Please don't send me videos of your stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
So you're like the whole, the whole category, everything about it.
I don't know why you were never like David Copperfield
as a kid.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
I'm okay with mentalists, you know, like Darren Brown for
some reason is okay. And it's like pull out the
cards and they make me tap on stuff. It's something
must have happened to me.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
You don't like people to ask you to do stuff either, Ben, who.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Likes people to ask? If it's all in the way
you ask, that's all.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
The way you ask, that's true. I agree. But if
I just walked up to you and I said, Ben,
tap on this deck of cards with two fingers, you
would probably punch me.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I would punch you because now I would know where's
coming from.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
You look at me a skance though. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yes, it would be would be very, very distrusting in
the very least you touch it with three fingers.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
It would be like if it would be like if somebody,
if mad or I came up to you and we're like,
hey man, open this bag and we had hidden a
bird in there, Like that's not cool.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
If you guys can see me out there and podcasts.
Then my eyes just went wide like a couple of
would never do the saucers. I have nightmare sometimes if
there's a bird under my covers.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Dude, we will never do that.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Thanks, guys.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I don't want to freak you out.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Did a bird hurt me? Is that what you're gonna ask?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Don't look under the desk right now?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Okay, that's this.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Is being This is mean, and I'm sorry your face
was so genuine and scared that I'm sorry. I feel
like the CIA, right.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Okay, it's okay, man, And that's what we just did.
We did a thought experiment to let you know how
the CIA must feel after being taken a task for
a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
And how quickly it got out of control because they
were also dosing one another at some point.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
That was just for funzies, like it's smitty, he's tripping balls.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
What is your stage magic?
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Now?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Oh wait, he's going outside on the balcony.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Oh shoot, oh that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
The other one bites the dust. That of course happened, right, yes.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yes, Frank Olsen specifically, he was a biochemist at a
lab that was conducting those LSD experiments for the government,
and the story is still very murky today. I think
it's mentioned in that Netflix series Wormwood. So according to
uncle Sam Olsen knowingly ingested LSD and then because it
(34:55):
affected him in an adverse way, he eventually took his
own life by jumping from his hotel room on the
thirteenth floor of a New York City hotel, and you know,
he died. However, his family and numerous people don't buy
the story. They say that he was dosed without his consent,
(35:16):
and that he would never have committed suicide, that he
did not have nascent suicidal tendencies. They say he was
murdered because he knew too much. The US government gave
them a settlement of seventy five hundred thousand dollars in
set nineteen seventy five. But yeah, wait, wait, wait, though
nineteen ninety four, his body's exhumed and a coroner sees
(35:40):
head injuries and he says, wait, Olsen was knocked unconscious
before his death.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
How do you.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Figure that out that long afterwards after you fell from
a really high height.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I totally hear you. That is crazy, though, right.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yes, yeah, it's it's strange and questions for me. And
it's also I hate to say, man, but it's extremely
possible that he was killed and was a cover up
because ULTRA is the top above top secret level classification
for projects at this time. And this leads us to,
you know, the big question. Surely one day there's going
(36:19):
to be justice. Ah, not so fast.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, a lot of the sciences involved honestly had no
idea what they were actually doing. That they were working
for the CIA. They knew they were administering something. They
knew they were maybe doing it a little surreptitiously, but
they didn't understand that it was this kind of this
kind of thing, right, And they, along with the CIA assets,
are illegally immune at this point from consequences of their actions.
(36:44):
Can you believe that that's that's true? Seriously?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yep, they're immune.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
And here's why. There are two lawsuits related to MK
ULTRA that made it as far as the freaking Supreme Court,
and the Court found in favor of the government twice
both times.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah. Nineteen eighty five, the Court held, in a case
called CIA versus Sims that the names of institutions and
researchers who participated and project in Kultra were exempt from
revelation under the Freedom of Information Act because the CIA
needed to protect its intelligent sources. Again national security.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Ah, just throw that up anywhere and you're good to go.
And then also in nineteen eighty seven, here's a case
called the United States versus Stanley, and the court held
that this serviceman, someone who was working with them, who
had volunteered for a chemical weapons experiment, let's call it
that a chemical weapons experiment. This guy was actually tested
with LSD and this guy was barred from bringing a
(37:44):
claim under this thing called the Federal Tort Claims Act.
And what is a tort ben A.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Tort is essentially when someone does something bad to you,
a bad action, so okay, Tort law is the area
of law that protects people from bad acts of others.
Historically speaking, citizens in the US cannot sue states because
of the concept of sovereign immunity. Can't just sue the
state because there are very specific sets of constraints or
(38:14):
situations where you can do that. And the FTCA or
Federal Tort Claims Act, so nineteen forty six federal statute
that allows private parties to sue the US in a
federal court for most of these torque cases committed by
people acting on behalf of the US. It's a little
bit of legal ease, but that's it. He was Stanley
(38:38):
was attempting to attempting to sue, but it was kicked
out because it was not Because he was, he was
not allowed to use the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
National security, national security.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
National security twice in a row, eighty five and eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So that's almost where we are now today. Mk Ultra
is firmly enshrined in the world of conspiracy lore. There
are fictional programs like Wormwood. There are documentaries. There are
books ranging from fiction inspired by this to maybe more
fringe research that the authors will tell you is true.
(39:18):
Ad all sorts of films that explore aspects of the
program or use it as a jumping off point for speculation.
But like any piece of folklore, and I would argue
there's a lot of folklore a on mk Ultra, there
is an inarguable grain of truth inside the story, and
that leaves us with some burning, disturbing questions. First, what happened?
That's the easiest question. To answer.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
We will not know, We cannot know, we will never know, We.
Speaker 5 (39:42):
Refuse to know. We shut our eyes and ears to
the truth. Yes, well, no, not that first.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
The first two we just can't. We can't know because
it's going to be sealed.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Because they destroyed thousands and thousands of things.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
And when I say sealed, I mean in a tomb
essentially of its own burnt up carbon.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, we're in We're in deathbed confession territory. That's where
that's that those will be the best sources of This
second question is a little depressing. Did any of this
stuff actually work?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, some of it, some of it obviously.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Most of it didn't, but some of it did. Some
of it did, right.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, And again we're not really sure what we'll find
unless some of those experiments that they were doing are
just redone a lot. But I guess, I guess. The
big thing is that they never at least two our understanding,
they never got a true truth serum as close as
scope I mean, and some of these other things can
(40:39):
get you. There's no true injectable that we know of.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Now, I'll tell you everything. My social security one of
my feet is larger than the other it makes me uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I er uh, I am Edward Kennedy, and uh, some
of the biggest drugs that I've been doing lately are
the LSD.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
The LSD. You also kind of got a little Peter Griffin.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
I got Peter. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So's it's true. They never found that silver bullet truth serum.
So far as we know, the data they got was
of limited use if you think about it, because they
didn't have solid methodology in a lot of these experiments,
they did not have ideal monitoring conditions, and at some
point they just had a Lord of the fly situation,
(41:30):
you know what I mean. Big Think has a great
quote on this. They argue that the program may ultimately
have been counterproductive. They say MK Ultra might have been
counterproductive because the counterculture was given access to LSD through
these experiments. That's true, and they proceeded to run in
the opposite direction with it. John Lennon went so far
(41:51):
as to mock the CIA in an interview, noting they
must always remember to thank the CIA and the Army
for LSD. That's what people forget. Oh my god, it's
young Michael Caine. I'm sorry they invented at a state
to control people, and what they did was give us freedom.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Wow, Okay, all right, Lenin, all right, John Lennon, I.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Mean that's that's Michael Kaine. Michael, but yeah, he's making
a good point, right.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yeah, they gave us LSD, But they didn't give us
what what did what didn't they give us? They didn't
give us shrooms? True? They let's maybe they did. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Yeah, I don't know. They didn't. They they didn't disclose
a lot of the findings. And that's that's the scariest question.
Most importantly, what's happening now? You have to ask yourself
listening to this, would a government genuinely completely stop this
sort of research if an aspect of it worked. Has
(42:48):
there at any point, and forget forget the relatively young
experiment known as the United States, in the course of
human civilization, has there been something that was an amazing
technique or technology that gave one empire the edge over
the others that they stopped pursuing. I'm not being rhetorical.
(43:11):
I would love to hear of one example.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, send us your example, and.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
That's our classic episode for this evening. We can't wait
to hear your thoughts. We try to be easy to
find online.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
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conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
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Speaker 1 (43:34):
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Where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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