Some things are so hard to believe that when normal people hear them they just quarantine the information in some quiet, lonely place in their mind where they never have to think about it again.

When there is evidence that your own government has conducted experiments on citizens, often illegally, often on vulnerable populations, for the sake of unlocking the secrets of mind control -- well, that's a hard pill to swallow.

What is MKUltra?

Project MKUltra, also called the CIA mind control program, is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects that were designed and undertaken by the CIA.

It's something that sounds like it's from a spy movie, but even though we will never know the true extent of the project, in 1977 there was a hearing before Select Committee on Intelligence titled PROJECT MKULTRA, THE CIA'S PROGRAM OF RESEARCH IN BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION (click the link for the full pdf).

Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations in order to weaken the individual and force confessions through mind control. The project was organized through the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the CIA and coordinated with the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories.

Illegal activity

---

Again, it sounds like it must be fake, but this is a real thing that really happened: the US government conducted terrible psychological, chemical, sexual experiments on unwitting adults and children for the sake of developing techniques of mind control for interrogation.

In December 1974, the New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by both Congress (in the form of the Church Committee) and a presidential commission (known as the Rockefeller Commission) into the domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military. In the summer of 1975, congressional hearings and the Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the DOD had conducted experiments on both cognizant and unwitting human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs (such as LSD and mescaline) and other chemical, biological, and psychological means.

Chapter 3: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals

... how charming.

They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD. Frank Olson, an Army scientist, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment and apparently committed suicide a week later.

Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, Report to the President, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1975)

So not only are they conducting these dangerous experiments without the consent of the subjects, but some of them died from it or killed themselves because of it.

Subsequent reports would show that another person, Harold Blauer, a professional tennis player in New York City, died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving mescaline.

U.S. Congress, The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence [Church Committee report], report no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), 394.

Sexual abuse of children

---

If it wasn't bad enough that the CIA was conducting these experiments on unwitting US and Canadian citizens, prisoners, and the mentally interned, but they conducted sexual torture experiments on children.

MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis,[10][11] sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse (including the sexual abuse of children), and other forms of torture.

wiki

There was a brazen culture of gleeful abuse amongst the administrators of this program:

Though the CIA piloted these safe houses as a stage for testing the effects of LSD, White’s interest shifted to another element of his observations: the sex. The San Francisco house became the center of what one writer called “the CIA carnal operations,” as officials began asking new questions about how to work with prostitutes, how they could be trained, and how they would handle state secrets. The agency also analyzed when in the course of a sexual encounter information could best be extracted from a source, eventually concluding that it was immediately after sex.

But perhaps unsurprisingly, much of White’s actions were driven by pure voyeurism: “I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun,” White later said. “Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?"

THE CIA'S APPALLING HUMAN EXPERIMENTS WITH MIND CONTROL

A massive scope with complicit government and corporate management

---

The MKUltra program was not just some secret mad-scientist operation being conducted in an underground layer somewhere in the wasteland of Antarctica:

The scope of Project MKUltra was broad with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.

Horrock, Nicholas M. (4 Aug 1977). "80 Institutions Used in C.I.A. Mind Studies: Admiral Turner Tells Senators of Behavior Control Research Bars Drug Testing Now". New York Times.

Sometimes, the proxy institutions were not completely aware of what was going on, but sometimes they were:

The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.

United States Senate, 95th Congress, 1st session (3 August 1977).

What do you think?

---

I'll do more on this topic, because there are so many different branches of this dark project to explore, including specifics about the experiments itself and even some of the famous people that have come out as victims of the program.

If this is something you haven't heard of before, I'm curious what you're opinions might be in hearing this for the first time.

If you are a student of this program, please share some sources and information in the comments about what you've come across in your studies.

Follow me @shayne