Co-editors: Seán Mac Mathúna • John Heathcote
Consulting editor: Themistocles Hoetis
Field Correspondent: Allen Houglande-mail: thefantompowa@fantompowa.org
Who
Killed John Lennon? by Fenton Bresler CHRONOLOGY
OF MURDERS, SUSPICIOUS DEATHS, APPARENT SUICIDES,
DISAPPEARANCES, AND ATTEMPTED MURDERS News emerged this week which will no
doubt send waves of paranoia through the fertile minds of
conspiracists everywhere. Scientists at the State University
of New York (Suny) have been working on various projects for
the US Defence Department's R&D section known as Darpa
(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) The May 2002 edition of the magazine
Nature carries a report which describes how scientists have
managed to remotely-control the movements of rats. This has
been done by simply attaching electrodes to two specific
areas of the rat's brain which affect the left and right
whiskers, and a third in the area which stimulates feelings
of pleasure in the rat. By manipulating the left-right
electrodes, and rewarding the rat with a pleasurable
sensation when the animal performs according to the
controller's wishes, the scientists have managed to direct
the rodents for up to an hour at a time. According to a report in the
Washington Post (Friday May 3rd,2002), these 21st century
Dr. Frankensteins have even managed to steer the roborats to
' . . . climb trees or wander a brightly lit room &endash;
alien behaviours for the untrained.' The report continues: After up to 10 days of training, the
rat can navigate practically any landscape, wearing a
receiver and a powerpack on its back and being steered by a
technician issuing commands from a laptop up to 1,650 feet
(500 meters) away, Chapin said. The rat thus becomes a living robot,
controlled remotely by a human handler but able to go
anywhere a rat can go. And its supple anatomy gives it a
huge and - at least for now - insurmountable advantage over
any mechanical robot, which can be confounded by a pair of
shoes lying on a carpet. Although none of the US scientists
interviewed in the Washington Post seemed to be personally
concerned with the ethical questions raised by this
research, Dr. Sanjiv Talwar, the lead author of the Nature
report admitted to the Guardian newspaper (02/05/02) that
using robotic animals for military uses could lead to their
employment as assassination or surveillance
"agents". Professor Michael Reiss at London's
Institute of Education who specialises in bioethics pointed
out the moral questions involved with '.. . subverting a
sentient animal's own aspirations and wish to lead a life of
its own.' Few conspiracy theorists would doubt
that the Defence Department would have many qualms about
using roborats for purposes other than scurrying through
collapsed buildings looking for survivors (they might
struggle with the bright lights and lifting
equipment). There have been theories for years
concerning the psychological control from outside of various
assassins such as Sirhan Sirhan, Mark Chapman and Timothy
McVeigh - all of whom were rumoured to have been subject to
mind control programmes. Numerous discrepancies in the
official versions of both killings, RFK and Lennon, and the
"deranged nature" of their assassins suggest that although
neither were acting in a 'rational' way, both managed to
execute ruthlessly efficient killings of their
targets. Not a complete contradiction, but
one which is explored in various sites, including our
own. Just as feasible are reported
experiments in mass-psychological control through physical
interference, rather than the well-tried, but never
completely successful methods of propaganda and brainwashing
through the mass-media, such as television and
radio. The possibility that ELF (Extra Low
Freqency) radiation is used against unwitting civilian
populations and specific individuals to depress or alter
their mental states is one of much concern to organisations
as diverse as bizarre Christian fundamentalists and
'Ickeans', to serious investigators into secret Government
projects aiming to manipulate and control populations or
areas. So we can be sure that the 'roborat'
is but the tip of a rather dangerous iceberg, but how far
research extends beyond our four-footed rodent friends is
something that we will probably not know until too
late. It is probably worth mentioning that
another Darpa project being undertaken by Suny is to enable
US Special Forces soldiers to stay awake for seven days on
the trot. I wonder where there electrodes will be
inserted? God help anyone who meets Rambo when
he's been awake on a mountain for a week. Hopefully he'll be so delirious
he'll imagine that you're a rat with a camera on it's head,
sent by base to take him home to Tampa. Although all commentators were quick
to point out that the human being has a much more complex
neural system than the rat, it is perhaps worth pointing out
that the reason that researchers are so keen on using rats
as human substitutes in medical and psychological
experiments is because they resemble us so closely in so
many ways.
