suppose that, if this is the case, scientists have progressed well beyond the level of rats.
One can be forgiven for wondering what conceivable use such barbaric experiments could possibly have for humanity. While it is mercifully unlikely that head transplants will ever be in vogue, such research undoubtedly holds much potential for the enhancement of human beings who will eventually conduct routine work in hostile environments, such as the ocean floor and outer space. Fusion of a sort between human and machine has already been achieved, in the form of the so-called Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine System (CAMS), ‘slave’ machinery that mimics the movement of its human operators. According to Harbinson:
In an aerospace conference given in Boston in 1966, engineer William E. Bradley, who developed the idea of cable-less man-machine manipulator systems for the US Defense Department’s Institute for Defense Analysis, stated his belief that man and machine would eventually be linked in such a way that by performing the manoeuvres himself, the man would cause them to take place, through the machine, at a distance of thousands of miles. This concept soon led to the weapon-aiming system devised by the Philco Corporation for the US Air Force, in which the pilot’s helmet is coupled with a servo-system that enables him to aim and fire his weapons automatically by merely swivelling his head until a camera located in his helmet shows the target. (58)
In addition, as early as 1967 US Air Force scientists had succeeded in transmitting thought impulses to a computer using a variation on Morse code composed of long and short bursts of alpha waves (59) (alpha waves are produced by the brain when it is at rest). This technology has developed to the point where today we have the potential for amputees to control their prosthetic limbs by means of nerve impulses directly from the brain.
In the field of organ transplantation, we have seen astonishing progress over the last 30 years and it is surely not rash to suggest that we will soon see artificial hearts and other organs routinely replacing those damaged through illness or accident. Likewise, in spite of concerns regarding the ethical implications of human cloning, we may also see the day when human organs are produced in the laboratory, ready for transplanting when the need arises. In view of the fact that research conducted under the aegis of national security is between ten and twenty years ahead of what is made public at any particular time (work on the Stealth fighter began in the mid-1970s, although the public were not made aware of its existence until the late 1980s), it is possible — perhaps likely — that advances in the field of medical and bioengineering research have already extended into the realm of what the public would consider science fiction.
Harbinson believes that what the public knows is merely the tip of the iceberg, and reminds us that ‘the US Navy, Air Force, Army and government agencies such as NASA — all with top-secret research establishments in the White Sands Proving Ground and similar areas — have a particular need for advanced man-machine manipulations or cyborgs’. (60) He adds that the creatures seen in and around landed UFOs could be such cyborgs: human beings radically augmented by sophisticated mechanical prosthetics.
Theoretically, the lungs of such creatures would be partially collapsed and the blood in them artificially cooled. The cyborgs’ respiration and other bodily functions would then be controlled cybernetically with artificial lungs and sensors which maintain constant temperature, metabolism and pressure, irrespective of external environmental fluctuations — thus, even if not protected by an antigravity (or gravitic) propulsion system, they would not be affected by the extraordinary accelerations and direction changes of their craft. The cyborgs would have no independent will, but could be remote-controlled, both physically and mentally, even across great distances, by computer-linked brain implants. Since this operation would render the mouth and nose superfluous, these would be sealed … and completely non-functioning. (61)
If we remember the basic description of the Greys noted earlier, with their slit-like and apparently useless mouths, vestigial noses and thin torsos, we can begin to see a frightening correspondence with the theoretical human-built cyborg, a nightmarish combination of genetically engineered human and highly sophisticated machine. To a startled, disorientated and terrified UFO witness, such a creature would surely look like nothing on earth … would look, in fact, like an extraterrestrial alien.
Interestingly, many people claiming to have encountered UFO crews mention the presence of normal-looking humans alongside the bizarre entities. Some ufologists suggest that these human types are the Nordic aliens mentioned earlier, working alongside the Greys and perhaps forming part of some interplanetary federation; other, more conspiracy-minded researchers believe that the human types are just that: human beings who are in league with a hostile alien occupation force. There is, however, another possibility, based on the information we have just considered. It is conceivable that the humans seen on board UFOs are actually the controllers of the Greys/cyborgs. It is also conceivable that these humans are members of an ultra-secret group, existing completely independently of any nation on Earth, and perhaps hostile to all nations and all other humans.
Conceivable, yes — but true?
These suggestions, of course, raise a number of serious and difficult questions. If the controllers of the UFOs and their not-quite-human crew members really are from Earth, who are they? If they place their allegiance with no known nation, with whom does their allegiance lie? Why do they abduct what is apparently an enormous number of ordinary humans, some of whom are never returned? Such an organisation or society could not operate without a well-supplied, protected and highly secret home base. Where is it?
In the final chapter of our survey, we will examine some of the theories that have been put forward to account for the origin and activities of this sinister group of humans. But first, we can attempt to answer one of the questions we have just posed. The answer, if true, is terrifying, and leads us inevitably to the final stage of our journey through the Absolute Elsewhere.
What is the secret of so-called UFO abductions? Are hostile alien beings responsible, or is the solution to the mystery to be found right here on Earth? For a possible answer to these questions, we must look at the history of a subject that most people would assume lies firmly within the boundaries of science fiction and that has no place in the world of everyday experience. The subject is the control of the human mind from a distance and, as we shall now see, it is frighteningly practicable.
According to the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board in its 1996 study of weapons technology, New World Vistas Air and Space Power for the 21st Century, it is possible to achieve the coupling of human and machine through what is known as Biological Process Control. ‘One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set.’ Researcher David Guyatt informs us that ‘experience set’ is jargon for one’s life’s memories: this technology is quite literally capable of deleting one’s memories and replacing them with an entirely new set. (62)
Those who believe that such technology must still be decades away from perfection may be surprised to learn that Dr Jose Delgado, a neurophysiologist at the Yale University School of Medicine, has been experimenting with Electronic Stimulation of the Brain (ESB) since the late 1940s. Perhaps his most impressive experiment was conducted in 1964, with the financial backing of the US Office of Naval Research. An electronic probe was implanted in the brain of a bull and a small radio receiver strapped to its head. The animal was then placed in a bullring, along with Dr Delgado who was equipped with a remote-control handset. As the bull charged him, Delgado flipped a switch on the handset and the one-ton animal stopped dead in front of him, clearly in a state of confusion. This process was repeated several times. Guyatt writes: ‘Speaking two years later, in 1966, Delgado stated that his experiments “support the distasteful conclusion that motion, emotion, and behaviour can be directed by electrical [means] and that humans can be controlled like robots by push buttons”.’ (63) According to Delgado, this would eventually result in a ‘psycho-civilised’ society, whose citizens’ brains would be computer-controlled through the use of implanted ‘stimoceivers’. Guyatt informs us that in 1974 neurophysiologist Lawrence Pinneo of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) developed a computer system capable of reading a person’s mind by correlating brain waves on an electroencephalograph (EEC) with specific commands. (64)
Eighteen years earlier, in 1956, at the National Electronics Conference in Chicago, Curtiss Shafer, an electrical engineer for the Norden-Ketay Corporation, had stated that ‘The ultimate achievement of biocontrol may be man himself. He continued: The controlled subjects would never be permitted to think as individuals. A few months after birth, a surgeon would equip each child with a socket mounted under the scalp and electrodes reaching selected areas of brain tissue’. The subject’s ‘sensory perceptions and muscular activity could be either modified or completely controlled by bioelectric signals radiating from state-controlled transmitters’. (65)
Among the horrors perpetrated at Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps were frequently fatal
