Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History (5 page)

Finally, an unusually large number of illnesses were reported among the residents of the compound. U.S. Ambassador Walter Stoessel developed a rare blood disease similar to leukemia; he was suffering headaches and bleeding from the eyes. A source at the State Department informally admitted that excessive radiation had been leaking from his telephone; an American high frequency radio transmitter on the roof of the building had, when operating, induced high frequency signals well above the U.S. safety standard through the phones in the political section, as well as in lines to Stoessel’s office. No doubt, National Security Agency or CIA electronic devices also contributed to the electromagnetic environment at the embassy, although values for these were never released, as they are secret. Stoessel was reported as telling his staff that the microwaves could cause leukemia, skin cancer, cataracts and various forms of emotional illness. White blood cell counts were estimated to be as high as 40% above normal in one third of the staff, and serious chromosome damage was uncovered.

The Soviets began research on biological effects of microwaves in 1953. A special laboratory was set up at the Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Diseases, Academy of Medical Sciences. Other labs were set up in the U.S.S.R. and in Eastern Europe that study both effects of microwaves and low frequency electromagnetic radiation. Years ago, in the halls of science, complaints could be heard that Soviet experiments regarding bio-effects couldn’t be duplicated due to insufficient details in their scientific literature, although, according to one DOD official, 75% of the U.S. papers on the subject carried insufficient parameters for duplication. Scientists even questioned, with McCarthy-like sentiments, whether the Soviets were attempting to frighten or disinform with false scientific reporting of bio-effects. It was unthinkable, according to cruder scientific theory, that non-thermal levels of microwaves could cause harm. Impetus for a study of such effects came not from concern for the public, but rather in the military and intelligence community’s suspicion of the Soviets, and their equally strong interest in developing exploitable anti-personnel effects — an interest that continues unabated today.

The CIA and DOD “security” concerns metamorphosized into research and development of invisible weapons capable of impacting on health and psychological processes. In fact, due to the finding of startling effects, DARPA’s security became even tighter, and a new code name — “Bizarre” — was assigned to the project.

Scientist Allen Frey of Randomline, Inc. was always more interested in low intensity microwave hazards: thermal effects were known. During Project Pandora, the Navy funded such projects of his, as how to use low average power intensities, to: induce heart seizures; create leaks in the blood brain barrier, which would allow neurotoxins in the blood to cross and cause neurological damage or behavioral disorders; and how to produce auditory hallucinations or microwave hearing, during which the person can hear tones that seem to be coming from within the head or from directly behind it.

In 1976, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report in which they attributed the results of Dr. Frey’s studies to the Soviets. According to Dr. Frey, who acknowledges that his work was misattributed, he had thought up the projects himself. The DIA, but not the CIA, is allowed to use “mirror imaging” and “net assessment” in their reports, ie., respectively, the attribution of one’s own motives and weapons capabilities to “the other side,” in this case, the Soviets. It follows, that there is nothing to prevent them from releasing a report prepared in this manner, and thus muddy the water of decision making, pervert public opinion, stoke up congressional funding or enlist the support of naive scientists to counter “the threat.” There was strong concern over CIA disinformation abroad, leaking back to the home front, through the American press, but apparently the DIA, at least on some issues, can dish it up with impunity.

The 1976 DIA report also credits the Soviets with other capabilities, stating, “Sounds and possibly even words which appear to be originating intercranially can be induced by signal modulations at very low power densities.” Dr. Sharp, a Pandora researcher at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, some of whose work was so secret that he couldn’t tell his boss, conducted an experiment in which the human brain has received a message carried to it by microwave transmission. Sharp was able to recognize spoken words that were modulated on a microwave carrier frequency by an “audiogram,” an analog of the words’ sound vibrations, and carried into his head in a chamber where he sat.

Dr. James Lin of Wayne State University has written a book entitled
Microwave Auditory Effects and Applications.
It explores the possible mechanisms for the phenomenon, and discusses possibilities for the deaf, as persons with certain types of hearing loss can still hear pulsed microwaves (as tones or clicks and buzzes, if words aren’t modulated on). Lin mentions the Sharp experiment and comments, “The capability of communicating directly with humans by pulsed microwaves is obviously not limited to the field of therapeutic medicine.”

Dr. R.O. Becker, twice nominated for the Nobel prize for his health work in bio-electromagnetism, was more explicit in his concern over illicit government activity. He wrote of “obvious applications in covert operations designed to drive a target crazy with “voices.” What is frightening is that words, transmitted via low density microwaves or radio frequencies, or by other covert methods, might be used to create influence. For instance, according to a 1984 U.S. House of Representatives report, a large number of stores throughout the country use high frequency transmitted words (above the range of human hearing) to discourage shoplifting. Stealing is reported to be reduced by as much as 80% in some cases. Surely, the CIA and military haven’t overlooked such useful technology.

Dr. Frey also did experiments on reduction of aggression. Rats who were accustomed to fighting viciously when their tails were pinched, accepted the pinching with relative passivity when irradiated with pulsed microwaves in the ultra high frequency rage (UHF) at a power density of less than 1,000 microwatts/cm
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. He has also done low intensity microwave experiments degrading motor coordination and balance. When asked about weapons applications of his work, he answered by referring to himself as “just a biological theorist,” and his work for the Navy, “basic medical research.”

In 1976, George H. Heilmeier, director of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) responded to a mailgram to President Ford from Don Johnson of Oakland, paraphrasing Johnson’s concern, and assuring him that the DARPA sponsored Army/Navy Pandora experiments were “never directed at the use of microwaves as a surveillance tool, nor in a weapons concept.” Don Johnson lingered in the memory of one DOD official who sponsored microwave research in the 1970s. Johnson was enigmatically described as “brilliant … schizophrenic … he knew too much … a former mental patient … buildings where work was done.” (Scientists who have disagreed with the DOD on health effects of microwaves and on the U.S. exposure standard, have received scant more respect and have had their funding cut.)

The next year, Heilmeier elaborated in a written response to an inquiry before Congress. “… This agency [DARPA] is not aware of any research projects, classified or unclassified, conducted under the auspices of the Defense Department, now ongoing, or in the past, which would have probed possibilities of utilizing microwave radiation in a form of what is popularly known as ‘mind control.’ We do not foresee the development, by DARPA of weapons using microwaves and actively being directed toward altering nervous system function or behavior. Neither are we aware of any of our own forces… developing such weapons…”

Finally, memoranda were released that rendered the goals of Pandora transparent. Richard Cesaro, initiator of Pandora and director of DARPA’s Advanced Sensor program, justified the project in that “little or no work has been done in investigation of the subtle behavioral changes which may be evolved by a low-level electromagnetic field.” Researchers had long ago established that direct stimulus of the brain could alter behavior. The question raised by radio frequencies — microwaves or radio frequencies of the UHF or VHF band — was whether the electromagnetic could have a similar effect at very low levels. Pandora’s initial goal: to discover whether a carefully constructed microwave signal could control the mind. In the context of long term, low-level effects: Cesaro felt that central nervous system effects could be important, and urged their study “for potential weapons applications.” After testing a low-level modulated microwave signal on a chimpanzee, and within approximately a week causing stark performance decrements and behavioral disorganization, Cesaro wrote, “the potential of exerting a degree of control on human behavior by low-level microwaves seems to exist.” On the basis of the primate study, extensive discussions took place and plans were made to extend the studies to humans.

According to a former DOD security analyst, one such microwave experiment with human subjects took place at Lorton Prison in the early 1970s. He said that such research (in a weapons context) has occurred on behavioral effects of microwaves since 1976. He also asked, “Why are you so concerned about then? What about now? They can call anyone a terrorist. Who are they using it on now?”

In June, 1970, a government think tank, Rand Corporation, published a report by R.J. MacGregor, entitled “A Brief Survey of Literature Relating to Influence of Low Intensity Microwaves on Nervous Function.” After noting that the U.S. microwave guideline in effect in 1970 for the public, 10,000 microwatts/
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(now the industrial and military “guideline”), is proscribed from consideration of the rate that thermal effects are dissipated, the author, a specialist in modeling neural networks, states that scientific studies have consistently shown that humans exhibit behavioral disturbances when subjected to non-thermal levels of microwaves, well below this level. The symptoms that MacGregor lists for those humans exposed more or less regularly at work or in the living environment are insomnia, irritability, loss of memory, fatigue, headache, tremor, hallucination, autonomic disorders and disturbed sensory functioning. He reports that swelling and distention of nerve cells have been produced at intensities as low as 1,000 microwatts/cm
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(the current U.S. guideline for the public). In a companion Rand paper, June, 1970, entitled “A Direct Mechanism for the Direct Influence of Microwave Radiation on Neuroelectric Function,” MacGregor sets forth the idea that the electrical component of microwave radiation induces transmembrane potentials in nerve cells and thereby disturbs nervous function and behavior. Microwaves penetrate and are absorbed more deeply so that they can produce a direct effect on the central nervous system. With smaller wave lengths the principal absorption occurs near the body surface and causes peripheral or “lower” nervous system effects.

Dr. Milton Zaret who analyzed neurological effects for the CIA during Project Pandora (he is now one of the few doctors willing to take the government on by testifying on behalf of plaintiffs filing claims for microwave health damage), wrote that, “receptors of the brain are susceptible and react to extremely low intensities of microwave irradiation if this is delivered in accordance with appropriate “coding.” Coding is reported to be influenced by the character of the signal so as to be a function, for example, of the shape and amplitude of the pulse or waveform.

Dr. Ross Adey, formerly of the Brain Research Center at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, now at Loma Linda University Medical School, Loma Linda, California, was among the first of the Pandora researchers. His work is more precise in inducing specific behavior, rather than merely causing disorganization or decrements in performance — that is, apart from his studies on inducing calcium efflux in brain tissue, which causes interference with the functioning of the brain and is one basis of “confusion weaponry.”

More specifically, Adey’s thesis is that if the electroencephalogram (EEG) has informational significance, one can induce behavioral changes if one imposes environmental fields that look like EEG. During Adey’s career, he has correlated a wide variety of behavioral states with EEG, including emotional states (e.g., stress in hostile questioning), increments of decision making and conditioning, correct versus incorrect performance, etc., and he has imposed electromagnetic fields that look like EEG, which has resulted in altered EEG and behavior.

In published accounts of Adey’s work, he has shown that it is possible to apply low biologic frequencies by using a radio frequency carrier modulated at specific brain frequencies. He demonstrated that if the biological modulation on the carrier frequency is close to frequencies in the natural EEG of the subject, it will reinforce or increase the number of manifestations of the imposed rhythms, and modulate behavior.

The conditioning paradigm: animals were trained through aversion to produce specific brain wave rhythms; animals trained in a field with the same rhythm amplitude modulated on it, differed significantly from control animals in both accuracy and resistance to extinction (at least 50 days versus 10 in the controls). When the fields were used on untrained animals, occurrence of the applied rhythm increased in the animals’ EEG.