From The Body Electric, 1985 -
Reproduced for research purposes only.

Chapter 15
Maxwell's SilverHammer

by Dr. RobertBecker

Invisible Warfare

The Soviets have led the way inlearning about the risks ofelectropollution, and, as we have seen, they've apparently been the first to harness those dangers for malicious intent. However, the spectrum of potential weapons extends far beyondthe limits of the Moscow signal, and Americans have been actively exploring some of them for many years. Most orall of the following EMR effects can be scaled up or down for use againstindividuals or whole crowds and armies:

In addition to the methods ofdamaging or killing people with EMR,there are several ways of controlling their behavior. Ross Adey and his colleagues have shown that microwaves modulated in various ways can force specific electrical patterns upon parts of the brain. Working with cats they found that brain waves appearing with conditioned responses could be selectively enhanced by shapingthe microwaves with a rhythmicvariation in amplitude (height) corresponding to EEG frequencies. For example, a 3-hertz modulation decreased 10-hertz alpha waves in one part of the animal's brain and reinforced 14-hertz beta waves in another location.

Some radar can find a fly akilometer away or track a human at twenty-five miles, and several researchers have suggested that focused EMR beams of such accuracy could bend the mind much like electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) through wires. We know of ESB's potential for mindcontrol largely through thework of Jos Delgado. One signalprovoked a cat to lick its fur, then continue compulsively licking the floor and bars of its cage. A signal designed to stimulate a portion of a monkey'sthalamus, a major midbrain center forintegrating muscle movements, triggereda complex reaction: The monkey walked toone side of the cage, then the other,then climbed to the rear ceiling, thenback down. The animal performed this same activity as many times as it wasstimulated with the signal, up to sixty times an hour, but not blindly - the creature still was able to avoid obstacles and threats from the dominant male while carrying out the electrical imperative. Another type of signal has made monkeys turn their heads, orsmile, no matter what else they were doing, up to twenty thousand timesin two weeks. As Delgado concluded,"The animals looked like electronictoys."

Even instincts and emotions can bechanged: In one test a mother givingcontinuous care toher baby suddenlypushed the infant away whenever thesignal was given. Approach-avoidanceconditioning can be achieved for anyaction simply by stimulating the pleasure and pain centers in ananimal's or person's limbic system.

Eventual monitoring of evokedpotentials from the EEG, combined withradio-frequency and microwavebroadcasts designed to produce specific thoughts or moods, such as compliance and complacency, promises a method of mind control that poses immense danger to all societies - tyranny without terror. Scientists involved in EEG research all say the ability is still years away, but for all we could_sense_ of it, it could be happening right now. Conspiracy theoriesaside, the hypnotic familiarity of TV and radio, combined with the biologicaleffects of their broadcast beams, may already constitute a similiar force for mass standardization, whether by design or not.

The potential dangers of televisedlethargy are no yawning matter. It'swell known that relaxed attention toany mildly involving stimulus, such asa movie or TV program, produces a hypnoid state, in which the mindbecomes especially receptive to suggestion. Other inducers of hypmoid states include light sleep, daydreams, or short periods of time spent waiting for some predetermined signalor action, such as a traffic light.

The Central Intelligence Agencyfunded research on electromagnetic mindcontrol at least as early as 1960, whenthe notorious MKULTRA program, mostlyconcerned with hypnosis and psychedelicdrugs, in- cluded money for adaptingbioelectric sensing methods(at thattime primarily the EEG) to surveillance and interrogation,as well as forfinding "techniques of activation of the human organism by remote electronic means." In testimony before the Senate Sub-committee on Health and Scientific Research on September 21, 1977, MKULTRA directorDr. Sydney Gottlieb recalled: "There was a running interest inwhat effects people's standing in the field of radio energy have, and itcould easily have been that somewherein the many projects someone was trying to see if you could hypnotize somebody easier if he was standing in a radio beam."

Hypnotists often use a strobe lightflashing at alpha-wave frequencies toease the glide into a trance. It seemsforover thirty years the Communist blocnations have been using an ELF waveform to do the same thing undetectably and perhaps more effectively. Ross Adey recently lost most of his government grants and has become a bit more loquacious about the military and intelligence uses of EMR. In 1983 he organized a public meeting at the Loma Linda VA hospital and released photos and information concerning a Russian Lida machine. This was a small transmitter that emitted 10-hertz wavesfor tranquilization and enhancement ofsuggestibility. The most interestingpart was that the box had an ancientvacuum-tube design, and a man who'dbeen a POW in Korea reported that similiar devices had been used there during interrogation.

American interest in thehypnosis-EMR interaction was still strong as of 1974, when a research plan was filed to develop useful techniques in human volunteers. The experimenter, J.F. Schapitz, stated: "In this investigation it will be shown that the spoken word of the hypnotist may alsobe conveyed by modulated electromagnetic energy directly into the subconscious parts of the human brain--i.e., without employing any technical devices for receiving or transcoding the messages and without the person exposed to such influence having a chance to controlthe information input consciously." As a preliminary test of the general concept, Schapitz proposed recordingthe brain waves induced by specificdrugs, then modulating them onto amicrowave beam and feeding them backinto an undrugged person's brain to see if the same state of consciousnesscould be produced by the beam alone.

Schapitz's main protocol consistedof four experiments. In the first, subjects would be given a test of a hundred questions, ranging from easy totechnical, so they all would know some but not all of the answers. Later,while in hypnoid states and not knowing they were being irradiated, thesepeople would be subjected toinformation beams suggesting answersfor some of hte items they'd leftblank, amnesia for some of theircorrect answers, and memory falsification for other correctanswers. A new test would check the results two weeks later.

The second experiment was to be theimplanting of hypnotic suggestions forsimple acts, like leaving the lab tobuy some particular item, which were to be triggered by a suggested time,spoken word, or sight. Subjects were to be interviewed later. "It may beexpected,: Schapitz wrote, "thatthey rationalize their behavior and consider it to be undertaken out of their own free will."

In a third test the subjects were tobe given two personality tests. Thendifferent responses to certainquestions would be repeatedlysuggested, and nonpathological personality changes would also be suggested, both to be evaluatedby new testing in a month. In somecases the subjects were to be prehypnotized into talking in their sleep, so the microwave programmercould gear the commands to thoughts already in the brain. Finally, attempts would be made to produce the standard tests of deep hypnotic trance, such as muscular rigidity, by microwavebeams alone.

Naturally, since this informationwas voluntarily released via theFreedom of Information Act, it must be taken with a pillar of salt. Theresults haven't been made public, sothe work may have been inconclusive,and the plans may have been released to convince the Soviets and our own public that American mind-control capabilities are greater than they actually are. On the other hand, the actualities may be so far ahead of this research plan that it was tame enough to release in satisfying FOIA requirements.

How many of the EMR weapons possibilities have actually been developed and\or used? Those not privy to classified information have no way of knowing. There are plenty of rumors. Boris Spassky claimed he'd lost the world chess championship to Bobby Fischer because he was being bombarded with confusion rays. I recall hearingabout one secret American experiment inwhich a sceintist was supposedly set upwith invitations to three conferencesto give the same presentation each time.The first one went fine, but at thelast two he was irradiated with ELF waves, reportedly to induce Adey's calcium efflux, and he became confused and ineffective.

Another FOIA release from theDefense Intelligence Agency in 1976 may be revealing. Prepared by Ronald L. Adams and E.A. Williams of Battelle Columbus Laboratories, it'sentitled"Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation (Radiowaves and Microwaves), Eurasian Communist Countries." the pages released merely recount Allen Frey'sdiscoveries without mentioning his name,implying instead that only the Redswould be so dastardly as to investigatesuch things for use as weapons. Immediately after mention of the blood-brain barrier leak phenomenon, a paragraph was deleted, followed by the tantalizing sentence, "The above study is recommended reading material for those consumers who have aninterest in the application ofmicrowave energy to weapons." Evenwithout this document, considering therelentless pace of arms development, wewould have to be very naive to assumethat the United States has noelectromagnetic arsenal.

The Soviets may already be usingtheirs, however, on a scale far beyondthat of the Moscow Signal. During the U.S. bicentennial celebration of July4, 1976, a new radio signals was heard throughout the world. It has remainedon the air more or less continuously ever since. Varying up and down through the frequencies between 3.26 and 17.54 megahertz, it is pulse-modulated at a rate of several times a second, so it sounds like a buzz saw or woodpecker.It was soon traced to an enormous transmitter near Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine.

The signal is so strong it drownsout anything else on its wavelength. When it first appeared,the UN International Telecommunications Union protested because it interfered with several communications channels, including the emergency frequencies for aircraft on transoceanic flights. Now the woodpecker leaves "holes"; it skips the crucial frequencies as it moves up and down the spectrum. The signal is maintained at enormousexpense from a current total of seven nations, the seven most powerfulradio transmitters in the world.

Within a year or two after thewoodpecker began tapping, there werepersistent complaints of unaccountable symptoms from people in several cities of the United States and Canada, primarily Eugene, Oregon. Thesensations - pressure and pain in the head, anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, lack of coordination, and numbness, accompanied by a high-pitched ringingin the ears - were characteristic of strong radio-frequency or microwaveirradiation. In Oregon, between Eugeneand Corvallis, a powerful radio signalcentering on 4.75 megahertz wasmonitored, at higher levels in the air than on the ground. Several unsatisfactory theories were advanced, including emanations from winter-damaged power lines, but most engineers who studied the signal concluded that it was a manifestation of the woodpecker. The idea was advanced that it was being directed to Oregon by a Teslamagnifying transmitter. This apparatus,devised by Nikola Tesla during histurn-of-the-century experiments onwireless global power transmission at alaboratory near Pikes Peak, hasn't beenmuch studied in the West. It reportedlyenables atransmitter to beam a radiosignal _through_ the earth to anydesired point on its surface, while maintaining or even increasing the signal's power as it emerges. Paul Brodeur has suggested that, since the TRW company once proposed a Navy ELF communications system using an existing 850-mile power line that ended in Oregon, the Eugene phenomenon mighthave been the interaction between a Navybroadcast and Soviet jamming.

Be that as it may, the woodpeckercontinues in operation, and there areseveral unsettling possibilities as toits main purpose. A former chief ofnaval research has privately discounted the idea that it's directed against the U.S.population. However, Robert Beck, a Los Angeles physicist who regularly serves as a DOD consultant, toldme that the signal has a threefold purpose. He said it acts as a crude over-the-horizon radar that would pick up a massive first strike of U.S. missles if Soviet spy satellites and other detectors were knocked out. Second, the signal's modulations are an ELF medium for communicating with submarines underwater. Third, he claimed thesignal has a biological by-productabout whichhe promised furtherinformation. Of course, I haven't beenable to contact him since.

Several educated guesses can bemade, however. Adey's research suggests that the best way to get an ELF signal into an animal is to make it a pulsemodulation of a high-frequency radio signal. That's exactly what the woodpecker is. Within its frequency range, it could be beamed to any part ofthe world, and it would be picked up and reradiated by the power supply grid at its destination.

Raymond Damadian has theorized thatthe woodpecker signal is designed toinduce nuclear magnetic resonance inhuman tissues. Damadian, a radiologistat Brooklyn's Downstate Medical Center,patented the first NMR scanner, adevice that gives an image of internal organs similiar to CAT scanners but using magnetic fields rather than nuclear radiation. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, NMR could greatly magnify the metabolic interference ofelectropollution or EMR weapons. Maria Reichmanis calculated the pulse frequency that would be required to do this with a radio signal in the woodpecker's range, and she came upwith a band centered on the same oldalpha rhythm of 10 hertz. And in fact,the signal's pulse is genrally aboutthat rate, although it is often atwo-part modulation of 4 + 6, 7 + 3,and so on. The available evidence,then, suggests that the Russian woodpecker is a multipurpose radiation that combines a submarine link with an experimental attack on the American people. It may be intended to increase cancer rates, interfere with decision-making ability, and/or sowconfusion and irritation. It may besucceeding.

I keep hearing persistent rumors ofAmerican transmitters set up to try tonullify the Russians' signal or toaffect their people in a similiar way.In 1978, Stefan Rednip, an American reporter living in England, claimed access to purloined CIA documents proving the existence of a program called Operation Pique, which included bouncing radio signals off the ionosphere to affect the mental functions of peoplein selected areas, including Eastern European nuclear installations.

The whole business sounds too muchlike an undeclared electrmagnetic war.however, there are persistentcomplaints that the American effort is being hampered in a strange way. Shortly after the rigged National Academy of Sciences report on Project Seafarer, for example, the Navy sent a delegation toa meeting at the National Security Agency to complain about an alleged "zap gap" between the United States and the USSR, and to ask other delegates to push for more research money for turning nonthermal EMReffects into weapons. According to one of my Navy contacts, the NSA sent several "experts" who had never done any research on EMR and who firmly advised the Navy to abandonits program. Later he voiced the samesuspicions I'd already heard fromothers: Given the allegedly vigorous Soviet electroweapons research program and the underfunding of ours, he concluded that there is a mole highly placed in the American military science establishment, perhaps in the NSA itself, who is preventing us from acquiring any clear competence in this field.

Unfortunately, my source, havingserved as a hatchet man for defundingresearch on the environmental dangersof electropollution, isn't exactlyreliable. Complaints of a mole could easily be a blind for a large and intense U.S. EMR weapons program. That there's more going on than meets theeye is clear from my last communication with Dietrich Beischer. In 1977 the Erie Magnetics COmpany of Buffalo, New York, sponsored a small private conference, and Beischer and I both planned to attend. Just before the meeting, I got acall from him. With no preamble or explanation, he blurted out: "I'm at a pay phone. I can't talk long. They are watching me. I can't come to the meeting or ever communicate with you again. I'm sorry. You've been a goodfriend. Good-bye." Soon afterwardI called his office at Pensacola andwas told, "I'm sorry, there is no one here by that name," just as in the movies. A guy who had doneimportant research there for decades just disappeared.

The crucial point to me is that bothsides may be embarking on hostilitieswhose consequences for the wholebiosphere no one can yet foresee. Evenif the Soviets have begun an electrmagnetic war and we're totally unprepared to fight back, I doubt thata simple buildup and retaliation arethe best course for our own survival.

The extent of the danger can bedramatized best by considering one lastpotential weapon. Around 1900, NikolaTesla theorized that ELF and VLFradiation could enter the magnetosphere, the magnetic field in space around theearth, and change its structure. He has recently been proven right.

The magnetosphere and it Van Allenbelts of trapped particles produce manykinds of EMR. SInce they were initiallystudied through audio amplifiers, thefirst kinds to be discovered, around1920, were given fanciful names likewhistlers, dawn chorus, and lion roars.Many of them result from VLF wavesproduced by lightning, which bounceback and forth from pole to pole along"magnetic ducts" in themagnetosphere. This resonance amplifiesthe original VLF waves enormously.

Satellite measurements have proventhat artificial energies from powerlines are similarly amplified high above the earth, a phenomenon known as power-line harmonic resonance (PLHR). Radio and microwave energy also resonantes in the magnetosphere. This amplified energy interacts with the particles in the Van Allen belts, producing heat, light, X-rays, and,most important, a "fallout" of charged particles that serve as nuclei for raindrops.

Recent work with sounding rocketshas matched specific areas of such ionprecipitation with the energy fromspecific radio stations, andestablished that the sifting down of charged particles generally occurs east of the EMR source, following thegeneral eastward drift of weather patterns. In 1983, measurements fromthe Ariel 3 and 4 weather satellites showed that the enormous amount of PLHRover North America had created apermanent duct from the magnetospheredown into the upper air, resulting in a continuous release of ions and energy over the whole continent. In presenting this data at the March 1983 Symposiumon Electromagnetic Compatibility in Zurich, K. Bullough reminded the audience that thunderstorms have been25 percent more frequent over North America between 1930 and 1975 than they were from 1900 to 1930, and suggested that the increased energy levels in the upper atmosphere were responsible.

Since the mid-1970s there has been adramatic increase in flooding, drought,and attendant hardships due to inconsistent, anomolous weatherpatterns. It appears likely that these have been caused in part by electropollution and perhaps enhanced, whether deliberately or not, by the Soviet woodpecker signal. It now seems feasible to induce catastrophic climate change over a target country, and even without such weather warfare, continued expansion of the electrical powersystem threatens the viability of all life on earth.

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