MK Ultra and the Unabomber

Today, we are going to be looking into MK Ultra and the Unabomber and how this could have potentially impacted our society today.

I’ve chosen this topic because I think it’s going to express in numerous ways what you can expect in future articles, as I’m really into psychology and crime and conspiracy. I find this extremely interesting, and it makes me question so many things. Hopefully, it does that for you, too.

My interest in this subject sparked from films such as ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST and the Netflix series, UNABOMBER. This is also why I feel conspiracies should be considered, because our own government and CIA authorities were involved in these experiments on some subjects who didn’t even give consent. I also feel that the intel they would have gathered from these experiments has shaped our world today. Ultimately, they learnt how to manipulate and brainwash people, and ex-government officials are trained in this kind of manipulation. One of my favourites is Chase Hughes, look him up on YouTube, he's very interesting and very humble.

Just in case anyone does not know what MK Ultra is, which surprisingly is a lot of people, I will touch on the history of this. Although I do always recommend doing your own research.

MK Ultra was the code name for the top-secret CIA project conducted between 1943 and 1973. Hundreds of experiments were carried out to assess interrogation techniques, including gathering information and psychological torture of potential enemies. As well as the use of LSD and other drugs for mind control. Details on these experiments did not become available to the public until 1975, which is actually quite quick, as usually classified documents like this are hidden for around 10 years. Probably couldn’t hide the fact that they messed up a lot of people and started a drug revolution.

Their goal was to find out if they could control and even reprogram people’s minds. CIA director Stansfield Turner acknowledged evidence that the agency had been searching for a drug that could prepare someone to debilitate an individual or even kill another person.

They performed these tests on multiple minds; they mostly wanted mentally sane people. They tested on housewives, soldiers, university students and criminals such as gangster whitey bulger.

Bulger was dosed with LSD more than 50 times when serving his first prison sentence for armed robbery and truck hijacking. This was given unwittingly to prisoners such as Bulger over an 18-month period. They were told they would receive a reduced sentence and that the trials were being done as medical research into finding a cure for schizophrenia.

Bulger was plagued by nightmares and hallucinations and was only able to sleep for a few hours at a time, waking every hour. This carried on, even after the experiments had stopped. He recalls being asked questions such as “Would you ever kill anyone?” Bulger described the experiments as nightmarish and said it took him to the depths of insanity. He wrote in his notebooks that he heard voices and feared being committed for life if he admitted it to anyone.

Years later, Bulger was sentenced to murder. Janet Uhlar, who was a juror on the case, where she and the others gave a guilty verdict for the crimes, did not know about these experiments until after the conviction, when she began to speak to him in prison. This made her question whether he was to blame for the murders or whether it had been a result of these experiments.

There was also the case of the Manson murders. Another convict who managed to create a following whom he drugged with LSD and persuaded them to commit murders for him. This is a separate conspiracy in itself. How could a convict know how to manipulate the minds of others to commit murders? Were the CIA also behind this story?

MK Ultra wanted to create what they termed Manchurian candidates. They were trying to persuade people to do things that they wouldn’t normally do, like assassination. The mad thing about this is that drugs actually free your mind and get you to question authority, so it's quite the opposite effect to what they were trying to do. It actually caused the rebellion of the swinging 60s and revolutionised people because the government are the one who introduced LSD to America.

So, this basically all happened due to the Cold War; they were under the impression that the Soviet Union, Chinese and North Korean agents were already using mind control to brainwash U.S prisoners of war, and they wanted to be ahead of the game. They were so paranoid about it that the U.S government bought every drop of LSD; it was enough to dose half the population of America. So basically, a LOT of LSD. They also tried tests with MDMA, Mescaline, Heroin, Barbiturates, methamphetamine and psilocybin, which, for anyone who does not know, is magic mushrooms.

Some of the experiments were done with consent and some without. Operation Midnight Climax happened in a CIA safe house. They employed prostitutes to lure men back there and then drugged them with LSD, hidden in cocktails. The CIA agent George White would sit behind a one-way mirrored window so he could watch and could also film what happened. He didn’t want to miss anything, so he sat on a toilet, in case he needed to go halfway through. Quite extreme but also very dedicated.

The rooms were bugged with microphones and connected to tape recorders. The original intention was to have a documented sound movie to show the behaviour of people when they had taken the drug. However, LSD is a really powerful drug, so giving this to subjects who did not give consent had some extremely bad outcomes. Apart from the fact that LSD can cause psychosis, or bad trips, some became ill for hours or days after and at least one had to be hospitalised. You can see there is a pattern here of just absolute unethical madness. Imagine not knowing you have taken drugs and wondering what was happening to you. I bet some of these men were really scared and confused.

We cannot touch on MK Ultra without talking about the death of Frank Olson. He was a scientist who worked for the CIA. He was again given a cocktail that had been secretly spiked with LSD. He fell to his death from the window of a hotel room in New York City. This is a regular association with drugs. People think they can fly. There is, however, a conspiracy behind Frank's death as the family had someone perform an autopsy which indicated that there were injuries to the body before the fall, so some think that the CIA were trying to kill him off. The family were given a payoff of $750,000, so that screams hush money to me.

Funny thing is, after all of this chaos, the drug was deemed too unpredictable for use in counterintelligence. Oh, Shock, would you believe it!

When it was brought to light that the CIA were illegally performing non-consensual drug experiments on U.S citizens, an investigation was conducted. Now I must point out that this investigation was led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. I don’t need to point out to my fellow conspiracy theorists who the Rockefellers are, but for anyone who’s not as wild-minded as me, they are one of the richest and most elite families of the world, including the likes of Morgan and Rothschild. The conspiracies say that these elite few run the world due to their extensive fortunes and actually pull the strings of the governments and authorities for their own benefit. Now that’s definitely a rabbit hole we don’t want to go into today, but imagine what influence they could have over the world with the kind of intelligence that they would have gathered from these experiments.

I’m going to finish by pointing out that CIA director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of many files related to MK Ultra in 1973. Were they covering up what they found? OR! deleting evidence of the destruction they caused to many? I guess we will never know. But as usual, the government agencies never fail to make me suspicious.

So, going back to the Unabomber series I mentioned at the beginning. Unabomber is based on a man who sent bombs in the post due to his taking part in an experimental study arranged by MK Ultra.

Now, I by no means agree with what the Unabomber did, but I get it; he wanted to get back at the system, the system that created him. He was just so disturbed from his experiences that he went about it the wrong way. But that’s not his fault; they created him. It’s their fault. Stay with me, let me explain.

Let’s rewind and go from the start with this one, Theodore John Kaczynski, known as Ted, who is now dead; he died in June 2023 by suicide. He had cancer. He was eventually known as a domestic terrorist and serial bomber who sent bombs in the post or delivered them by hand.

He lived in Lincoln, Montana, in a small wooden cabin in a very secluded, very off-grid style home. He was highly intelligent, he skipped a grade at school, completed high school in four years, and was at Harvard University at the age of 16. Genius IQ level of 167. He was always interested in corporate and government impact on the environment and was against the growth and use of technology.

Although he was quiet and a bit socially awkward, he did have friends. Roy Wright said he considered Ted his best friend; he said he had a wonderfully warm feeling about him, and he used the word lovable to describe him. They had lots of common ground and lots of interesting discussions, and he valued their friendship.

But his university friends said, unbeknownst to them, after the experiments, he became very withdrawn and antisocial. He went into a depressive state, felt isolated and lonely. His best friend Roy was very sad to see him withdraw from their friendship. He was becoming paranoid and started rejecting people. It was evident that the experiments were having a severe effect on him. In reality and in today's world, he should have been monitored and after seeing the effects it was having, the experiment on him should have been stopped.

A year into his Harvard studies, between 1958 and 1962, Ted volunteered in a mind control experiment with the CIA. A study that Ted later described as “the worst experience of this life”. Would this have explained his sudden change in behaviour? I think so.

This experiment was run by the Harvard psychologist Henry A Murray, backed by the CIA. This experiment lasted for a total of 3 years, and they met on a weekly basis. That’s 156 sessions! Of torture. That’s a lot. Let's also not forget the fact that Ted had got into Harvard young; he was still not a fully developed adult at 16 or 17, when he went through these experiments.

These experiments reportedly involved mock interrogations in which participants' beliefs were harshly criticised in order to explore the effects of stress on the human psyche. They had to start by writing an essay in which they summarised their world views and personal philosophy. Then the participants were seated in front of bright lights, they were wired to electrodes and subject to what Murray himself described as vehement, sweeping and personally abusive attacks, assaulting his subjects’ egos and most cherished ideals and beliefs. The goal was to assess the value of interrogation techniques used by law enforcement and national security agents in the field.  

Ted based his whole psyche around his intelligence and his views, and to have this attacked and stripped away from him in such a harsh and humiliating manner at such an influential age is bound to have a profound effect on anyone.

Psychological manipulation is a dangerous game. Glenn Carle is a former CIA agent, and he had experience with the interrogation of one of the top members of Al-Qaeda. He says that enhanced interrogation is torture and it's mind-altering. Not controlling, ALTERNING! He said the techniques used were not inspired by; they were directly taken from the techniques used by Murray in the 1960s. Let's just think about that, they are using the exact same techniques that Murray used on the students. For them not to have to adapt and raise the bar with terrorists means that these techniques were definitely harmful.

Their findings were that you can be broken down and then rebuilt to become a cooperative source. Glenn says is perverse, it's sick, it doesn’t work, and it's wrong in every conceivable way, and that is what Ted was subjected to. You can sort of imagine that someone from Al-Qaeda might be expecting this kind of interrogation for being an extremist and doing bad things, but to do this kind of thing to someone who hasn’t done anything wrong and to attack their values and meaning of life is clearly going to have catastrophic consequences.

Interrogation, as we know it, is questions to try to get someone to give up information. Enhanced Interrogation is where you add on mind control methods such as drugs, isolation, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, good cop/ bad cop techniques or anything that might get someone to give up information. If you watch SAS, who dares wins, they use techniques such as stress positions and stressful repetitive sound invasion, along with aggressive, forceful and intimidating physical control, mostly while blindfolded. So, they’re pretty harsh for a standard person to have to go through.

And, bearing in mind the focus of MK Ultra was to find ways of extracting information out of potential terrorists, etc and finding ways to manipulate them. The Harvard students were perfect as the CIA wanted test subjects who were mentally sound. Although it's somewhat unfair to do such tests on normal day-to-day subjects who were not trained for any sort of military interrogation, and if they were studying at Harvard, they had a bright future ahead of them. Such interrogations are in place to render them so damaged that they would be operationally useless. You only have to imagine what someone would have to go through to end up that traumatised and broken down from the interrogations that they cannot function properly anymore.

There was a recording from 14^th March 1960; however, this is quite mild and one of the first recordings from the process. It’s an initial meeting and conversation between Murray and Ted on his views and how Murray doesn’t agree with them. He takes Ted’s views on society and makes them personal, saying things like “Is that why you grew that beard because you’re trying to fit in with the non-conformists?”

Most of the files are sealed, and you cannot get access to them. This always screams alarm bells to me. You’re clearly trying to hide something if you won't openly give evidence. It is quite obvious that things happened there that shouldn’t have.

His brother didn’t know about the experiments; is it possible that the participants were asked to keep their actions undisclosed from others? If they had known, would they have put two and two together that their friend and brother had suddenly changed, and it was probably due to the experiment?

This study was clearly unethical, and the participants were ill-informed and also tricked and coerced into remaining in the experiment. They were told that they would be debating their philosophies with other students, which would have been enticing for Ted. Instead, it was a full-on aggressive attack on Ted as a human being.

There has not been evidence to suggest that LSD or other drugs were used at Harvard or on Ted but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t.  Ted disclosed some of his apparent involvement in the study in correspondence from prison with Professor Alston Chase, who wrote a book about the Unabomber.

Colin A Ross, Author of “The CIA doctors”, said that “These experiments could have made Ted distrust authority and be hostile towards them. It’s not hard to imagine that when he’s being attacked and discredited and broken down, he’s going to have to have some sort of counterattack psychologically, so he has to become counter ridged, counter certain and counter hostile, then he just turns that into behaviour in the world.”

Despite all of this, Ted maintains that the Harvard experiments had no damaging effect on him.

So, the bombings started in 1978, spanning over 17 years, there were 16 bombs, 3 murders and 23 injuries. The bombs were unsophisticated and likely made from reading chemistry textbooks, which were found in his cabin, where all the bombs were made.

He wrote in secret code to record each bomb. After one bomb, he said I had hoped the victim might be blinded or have his hands blown off. This is obviously not nice to hear; he’s that messed up that he’s not even considering the people he is hurting at all, and these are innocent people; they don’t have anything to do with him personally. Although he tried to target scientists in universities and people whom he thought were potentially involved in advancing the system, which in his mind meant getting rid of the human race. I think his views were very advanced for the time; clearly, his intelligence was very progressive, and he could see how these new developments were going to interfere with humanity. Because let’s face it, in the 70s and 80s, technology was only just being invented. I can see how technology has ruined humanity. Was he that smart that he could already predict the outcome and consequences of these new innovations?

He targeted a psychologist because he had dealt with them in the past, and they were always telling him he had something wrong with him. He felt extreme anger and rage towards the psychiatrist and had fantasies about killing them. This was all written in his diary, and this is the point where he started getting quite extreme with his thoughts; he thought about killing anyone who had ever angered him.

Ted had problems interacting with the opposite sex and would often feel inadequate. This manifested into him fantasising about being a woman and wanting a sex change. So again, you can see how extreme his psychological functioning is. When he finally got a woman to kiss him, after a few dates, she decided that there wasn’t a romantic connection there, and he responded by posting a horrible limerick around the office where they worked. He then waited in her car; he was contemplating mutilating her, but decided against it.

He wanted to be used as a symbol that would be associated with promoting revolutionary activity. He said the main thing, in his opinion, is to get rid of the industrial system. And I agree! Actually, a lot of people agreed with him. When he released his manifesto and the papers published this, a lot of people agreed with what he was saying. The Industrial Revolution was the worst thing to happen to us, and it was destroying the earth and humankind as we know it. Unfortunately for Ted, this manifesto was the downfall of the Unabomber. His brother’s wife was already suspicious of Ted for being aggressive and mentally unstable after Ted sent multiple letters to their house, where he expressed his hatred for his brother’s wife. They got an expert to compare these letters with the manifesto and realised there were definite similarities in writing styles. This then led to them realising he had connections with the universities that he had been bombing.

3^rd April 1996 was the day of the arrest. The police had the cabin surrounded. He was immediately arrested. They found a bomb in the cabin, which was ready to be sent out, so they found him just in time before he managed to hurt or kill someone else. 18^th June 1996, Ted was charged with 3 counts of murder. He was adamant that he didn’t want to be on trial as a person with a mental defect, which was obviously what his lawyers were trying to persuade him to do, as this would have got him a lighter sentence. Even though they would have had a hard time going down this route because he presented a knowingness that he had done something wrong. A psychiatrist diagnosed him as competent to stand trial, competent to be sentenced to death, but having schizophrenia. He didn’t want his work to be branded as something done by someone who was mentally insane. He was making a statement, and it’s something he truly believed in and by no means did he want that to be undermined by insanity. He felt so strongly about this that, when he realised he was stuck with his defence and their only defence was insanity, he tried to commit suicide and hang himself. In order for him not to go to trial under insanity, he took a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to 3 counts of murder and was given life in prison without the possibility of parole.  

Due to Ted's solitary lifestyle, he was already built for prison life. He didn’t rely on others or need them and was a model prisoner. What worried Ted was losing his memories to the mountain and the woods, to the nature that he strongly fought for. He didn’t get to see outside at all from his cell, but he said it wouldn’t drive him crazy, and he doesn’t think they will break him, and they definitely won’t convert his attitudes and his opinions. He spent hours a day writing and communicating with people outside of prison. He was sort of an inspiration to other extremist groups, and he finally had attention from women who wrote to him in prison.

One thing I wanted to note before we finish up on Ted is that he became sick as a baby, and he had to be taken to the hospital, where he stayed for a week. The parents were only allowed to visit twice a week. After he left the hospital, he completely shut down; there was no smiling or eye contact. As a woman who loves a bit of psychology, I know, a child’s development and attachment are most critical in the first 2 years of life. I'll cover more of this on another show, but trauma to a child like this can be as damaging as causing psychopathy. This is so they don’t have to feel their pain anymore, but on the other hand, they lose their moral compass and empathy. The parents tried for a couple of weeks to get him back to trusting them and interacting with them. Just thought that was definitely an interesting point to note.

My theory on all of this is that he already had some psychological issues and strong views on things, which were enhanced and intensified through the experiments he had to go through. When anyone messes with drugs, they are messing with their physiological state and brain chemistry, so if someone has even the slightest part of a mental illness, they are at risk of developing drug psychosis and other mental illnesses. It's also important to consider if he was strong-minded. I know if someone was challenging my views that I felt strongly about, I would want to fight back. They challenged his views in an extreme way, and he retaliated in an extreme way. In an interview with Teresa Kintz, he said “I think what has to be is, not try to persuade the majority of people that we’re right, so much as to try to increase tensions in society to the point where things start to break down when people get uncomfortable enough so that they’re going to rebel” Now does that not sound like what he went through in the experiments, and now he’s rebelling. Did he learn that from the experiments and thinks he can replicate it on a mass scale?

Obviously, I don’t agree with what Ted did, but I do feel that the experiments had a major, if not sole, reason for pushing him to do what he did. You could argue that the other 21 participants in the study didn’t go on to be murderers, but everyone responds differently to trauma, so just because the others didn’t do anything doesn’t mean it wasn’t the experiment that pushed Ted over the edge. We also don’t know that all the participants underwent the same interrogations; Murray could have selected those who were more influential in the process to undergo further enhanced interrogation than the others.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think Ted was influenced by the experiments, or do you think he was a natural-born extremist? Let me know in the comments.

Jumping forward to today’s society, I think the findings from MK Ultra are definitely being used as manipulation to control and influence us. This is where I’m going to get controversial.

There are many conspiracies about the music industry, from them being puppets of the Illuminati to celebrities who have died but are supposedly alive, living underground. There are some questionable things, like did you see the video of Cardi B freezing on the red carpet? That was pretty creepy. Look that up if you haven’t seen it. I think music in general has developed naturally to be very explicit and sex forward, which is having a significant influence on contemporary attitudes and behaviours towards sex and relationships today.

My theory behind this is that if the powers that be wanted to control us on a mass scale, the best way to do that is to keep us all separate, because humans are tribal people; they are meant to be together and connected. And the biggest strength a human can have is love. Now think about it, if people are sleeping around and jumping from person to person, they aren’t likely to settle down and get love from each other. This makes people sad and lonely, and someone who is depressed is easy to control. When you look at society today, 1 in 6 adults in the UK alone has an association with mental health issues. Most are stuck in the system, trying to pay their bills and keep their heads above water. We have all become so used to this way of living that there isn’t an alternative for most people.

There are conspiracies that Disney have used sexual innuendos in their shows. Now I don’t have any of the olden films and shows to be able to check this for myself, but I have seen clips online, again being open-minded, I’m not going to agree with this until I can prove it. So, if any of you have any, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear. 

Anyway, back to reality. Instead of speculation, let's get back to facts.

Other similar related incidents that have happened with mind control are subliminal messaging. There were known records of TV adverts using hidden messages. This dates back to 1957, a market researcher, James Vicary, would insert the words “eat popcorn” or “drink Coca-Cola” Into a movie in a single frame, just long enough for the subconscious to register this. Obviously, to make people purchase these items in the cinemas.

I think we could actually do a whole article on subliminal messaging, so I might jump into that another time.

MK Ultra mentioned that one of their intentions was to create Manchurian candidates. I think they were successful in breaking down a human mind and rebuilding it to have different views. Not sure if you have watched this film, The Manchurian Candidate, but it’s quite extreme how they hypnotised them and with a code word were able to override their mind and get them to do whatever they asked them to do. Who’s to say they aren’t doing this with our soldiers or even terrorists today?

My point here is that these kinds of things have been used to influence people and still are; they are just done in a more subtle way. There is no reason that the government wouldn’t use the findings from MK Ultra to make their lives easier and control the masses. Or even just use it to influence people to grow the economy.