WEBVTT 0 00:00:00.209 --> 00:00:00.689 Right now, 1 00:00:00.769 --> 00:00:03.849 the CIA is running some strange top secret programs 2 00:00:03.849 --> 00:00:06.969 that their own publicly available files just admitted to. 3 00:00:07.250 --> 00:00:09.850 From genetically engineering super soldiers to the 4 00:00:09.850 --> 00:00:13.069 agency using Pokemon Go for battlefield purposes, 5 00:00:13.130 --> 00:00:17.790 and a CIA officer stealing tens of millions of dollars in gold bars this year. 6 00:00:18.010 --> 00:00:20.969 We're gonna look at new investigations from journalists 7 00:00:20.969 --> 00:00:23.649 and the CIA's own disclosures to see just. 8 00:00:23.892 --> 00:00:24.382 How deep 9 00:00:24.642 --> 00:00:26.583 the new CIA files go. 10 00:00:26.802 --> 00:00:30.952 And I think all roads trace back to Incutel in many ways, 11 00:00:31.163 --> 00:00:35.702 which is a non-profit investment firm that was created and funded by the CIA 12 00:00:36.123 --> 00:00:38.873 so they could invest in new emerging technologies. 13 00:00:39.123 --> 00:00:42.902 So why did InQTel just choose to invest in a company 14 00:00:43.083 --> 00:00:46.173 that's attempting to bring a wooly mammoth back from extinction? 15 00:00:46.312 --> 00:00:47.402 It's called Colossal. 16 00:00:47.596 --> 00:00:48.666 Biosciences. 17 00:00:48.905 --> 00:00:52.175 It's a company that's involved in advanced genetic engineering 18 00:00:52.316 --> 00:00:56.335 to recreate characteristics of animals that disappeared thousands of years ago. 19 00:00:56.555 --> 00:00:58.745 Someone inside the CIA actually decided this 20 00:00:58.745 --> 00:01:00.945 was a promising national security investment. 21 00:01:01.026 --> 00:01:02.636 The whole goal of InQTel 22 00:01:02.796 --> 00:01:06.706 is to create technology that gives the intelligence agencies an advantage. 23 00:01:06.996 --> 00:01:11.195 All of this is publicly available knowledge that they publish on their own website. 24 00:01:11.650 --> 00:01:14.069 So Incutel explained the investment 25 00:01:14.220 --> 00:01:17.750 by saying that it's really about the genetic engineering capabilities, 26 00:01:17.970 --> 00:01:22.669 because researchers identifying how to rewrite these complex genetic traits 27 00:01:22.889 --> 00:01:27.529 is technology that's legitimately useful for understanding biological 28 00:01:27.529 --> 00:01:30.599 threats that foreign governments are developing right now. 29 00:01:30.849 --> 00:01:32.949 But there's a more dystopian angle here. 30 00:01:33.129 --> 00:01:33.930 In 2020, 31 00:01:34.050 --> 00:01:34.849 John Ratcliffe, 32 00:01:35.050 --> 00:01:36.889 who now runs the CIA today, 33 00:01:37.250 --> 00:01:38.139 claimed American intelligence. 34 00:01:38.664 --> 00:01:43.403 had evidence that China was conducting experiments on its own soldiers, 35 00:01:43.463 --> 00:01:47.524 hoping to develop humans with enhanced biological capabilities. 36 00:01:47.664 --> 00:01:49.094 And then just a few years later, 37 00:01:49.463 --> 00:01:53.103 Chinese military medical scientists published research describing 38 00:01:53.103 --> 00:01:56.283 how they inserted an actual gene directly into 39 00:01:56.463 --> 00:01:58.713 a human embryonic stem cell 40 00:01:59.094 --> 00:02:00.253 called tardigase. 41 00:02:00.573 --> 00:02:04.963 Taridase is a microscopic animal that's famous for surviving enormous 42 00:02:05.038 --> 00:02:08.067 Amounts of radiation and difficult to live in environments. 43 00:02:08.276 --> 00:02:12.057 It's a biological arms race now between the United States and China. 44 00:02:12.238 --> 00:02:16.777 Scientists are figuring out how to make human cells resistant to radiation, 45 00:02:17.078 --> 00:02:19.438 and the obvious military application there is 46 00:02:19.438 --> 00:02:22.457 to create soldiers who can survive nuclear fallout 47 00:02:22.638 --> 00:02:25.147 or operate environments that would normally kill them. 48 00:02:25.397 --> 00:02:26.957 Although the army would still find out a 49 00:02:26.957 --> 00:02:29.817 way to deny your nuclear fallout disability claim. 50 00:02:30.117 --> 00:02:30.598 But of course, 51 00:02:30.677 --> 00:02:31.677 the CIA's investment 52 00:02:31.811 --> 00:02:35.061 It gets even more odd from here if that's even possible, 53 00:02:35.492 --> 00:02:38.912 because this has applications past bringing extinct animals to life. 54 00:02:39.292 --> 00:02:40.602 Why would they do all this? 55 00:02:40.772 --> 00:02:42.011 In April 2025, 56 00:02:42.132 --> 00:02:46.212 Colossal announced that it had created three enormous white wolf pups 57 00:02:46.401 --> 00:02:48.671 by genetically modifying gray wolves 58 00:02:48.772 --> 00:02:51.972 to reproduce characteristics of the extinct dire wolf. 59 00:02:52.132 --> 00:02:53.171 Other scientists then, 60 00:02:53.212 --> 00:02:53.522 of course, 61 00:02:53.611 --> 00:02:56.682 disputed whether they were actually resurrected dire wolves or not, 62 00:02:56.972 --> 00:02:58.442 but the company had, 63 00:02:58.626 --> 00:03:00.526 Actually demonstrated its ability 64 00:03:00.735 --> 00:03:02.845 to make multiple genetic changes 65 00:03:03.065 --> 00:03:04.016 to a living mammal, 66 00:03:04.106 --> 00:03:06.576 which is a very normal thing for me to say. 67 00:03:06.826 --> 00:03:09.755 The obvious military application there is creating 68 00:03:09.755 --> 00:03:12.805 large weaponized animals to attack the enemy 69 00:03:12.945 --> 00:03:15.505 that are far more dangerous than our canines. 70 00:03:15.666 --> 00:03:19.005 But the CIA's technology investments through Incutel 71 00:03:19.386 --> 00:03:21.546 already reached something that millions of people, 72 00:03:21.805 --> 00:03:22.455 including you, 73 00:03:22.546 --> 00:03:23.906 have likely used if, 74 00:03:24.016 --> 00:03:25.085 if you're a millennial. 75 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:30.100 So it started in 2016 when American intelligence officials discovered something 76 00:03:30.100 --> 00:03:32.100 bizarre happening around some of the 77 00:03:32.100 --> 00:03:34.809 country's most sensitive military installations. 78 00:03:35.139 --> 00:03:38.139 Pokemon were appearing around NSA headquarters and 79 00:03:38.139 --> 00:03:41.050 even near top secret nuclear weapons laboratories. 80 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.449 They were digitally popping up on the Pokemon Go app there. 81 00:03:44.660 --> 00:03:48.339 This led some intelligence officers to suspect that the popular 82 00:03:48.339 --> 00:03:50.660 smartphone game at the time that was going viral, 83 00:03:50.820 --> 00:03:51.619 Pokemon Go, 84 00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:52.259 was secretly. 85 00:03:52.604 --> 00:03:55.744 being used as a Chinese espionage operation against them. 86 00:03:56.125 --> 00:03:56.524 The game, 87 00:03:56.565 --> 00:04:00.404 you basically went around with your phone and you use the camera feature 88 00:04:00.645 --> 00:04:04.244 to go and you would see Pokemon that were just augmented reality like 89 00:04:04.244 --> 00:04:07.664 put on a chair or on your desk and then you would have to 90 00:04:07.764 --> 00:04:08.725 flip up and catch it. 91 00:04:08.764 --> 00:04:10.115 It was a very popular game. 92 00:04:10.365 --> 00:04:13.104 And according to a 2024 foreign policy investigation, 93 00:04:13.755 --> 00:04:18.785 the NSA and CIA actually warned their employees about playing Pokemon Go 94 00:04:19.045 --> 00:04:19.173 near 95 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:20.769 Classified facilities 96 00:04:20.950 --> 00:04:23.690 in a memo that I would just kill to be able to read today. 97 00:04:23.910 --> 00:04:27.750 Imagine spending your entire career protecting America's nuclear secrets, 98 00:04:28.029 --> 00:04:32.739 only to discover your newest counterintelligence threat is a freaking bulbasaur. 99 00:04:33.029 --> 00:04:34.510 But to make things weirder from there, 100 00:04:34.589 --> 00:04:36.429 the company behind Pokemon Go 101 00:04:36.760 --> 00:04:38.910 already had a very well-documented connection 102 00:04:38.910 --> 00:04:41.500 to the CIA's own technology investments. 103 00:04:41.790 --> 00:04:45.230 And even I was shocked when I learned how deep the connection truly went. 104 00:04:45.510 --> 00:04:45.989 Cappy Army. 105 00:04:46.204 --> 00:04:47.125 Brought to you by Mod. 106 00:04:47.255 --> 00:04:50.054 Mod prescribes a once or twice daily modafinil drink 107 00:04:50.214 --> 00:04:51.214 that keeps you energized, 108 00:04:51.334 --> 00:04:51.644 focused, 109 00:04:51.654 --> 00:04:52.785 and alert throughout the day. 110 00:04:52.894 --> 00:04:53.864 Here's the mechanism, 111 00:04:54.135 --> 00:04:56.994 energy drinks with caffeine temporarily block adenosine. 112 00:04:57.285 --> 00:04:58.774 It's the chemical that makes you tired. 113 00:04:58.845 --> 00:05:00.695 It builds up and when the caffeine wears off, 114 00:05:00.894 --> 00:05:03.135 it all crashes down on you at once. 115 00:05:03.375 --> 00:05:04.674 Modafinil works differently. 116 00:05:04.855 --> 00:05:06.994 It engages multiple pathways in your brain, 117 00:05:07.204 --> 00:05:07.774 dopamine, 118 00:05:07.975 --> 00:05:08.855 norepinephrine, 119 00:05:09.095 --> 00:05:09.595 histamine, 120 00:05:09.725 --> 00:05:13.540 and orexin to achieve steady energy and alertness for 10 to 12 hours. 121 00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:16.820 Modafinil was invented in the 1970s and since then, 122 00:05:17.119 --> 00:05:19.880 it's been used by the highest performers on and off the planet. 123 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:20.399 Soldiers, 124 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:20.910 pilots, 125 00:05:21.029 --> 00:05:22.640 astronauts aboard the space station, 126 00:05:22.880 --> 00:05:25.709 all use modafinil in high-stakes situations 127 00:05:25.839 --> 00:05:29.149 where full concentration and alertness are absolutely paramount. 128 00:05:29.420 --> 00:05:32.839 It's now available at mod.com to qualifying patients, 129 00:05:33.010 --> 00:05:34.200 visit mod.com, 130 00:05:34.309 --> 00:05:35.850 that's MOD.com 131 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:39.720 for free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus. 132 00:05:40.045 --> 00:05:41.864 Free shipping with promo code Cappy. 133 00:05:42.065 --> 00:05:44.725 That's promo code Cappy at mod.com. 134 00:05:45.065 --> 00:05:47.704 And be sure to see their website for important safety 135 00:05:47.704 --> 00:05:50.045 information and we thank Mod for sponsoring the show. 136 00:05:50.184 --> 00:05:54.464 The way the CIA is connected to Pokemon Go is because back in 2003, 137 00:05:54.595 --> 00:05:56.484 the CIA's venture capital organization, 138 00:05:56.744 --> 00:05:57.875 remember Incutel, 139 00:05:58.184 --> 00:06:00.385 they invested in a company called Keyhole, 140 00:06:00.665 --> 00:06:03.524 which developed software that allowed intelligence analysts 141 00:06:03.704 --> 00:06:06.584 to explore satellite imagery using three-dimensional. 142 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:06.970 Maps, 143 00:06:07.049 --> 00:06:08.600 very cutting edge stuff at the time. 144 00:06:08.890 --> 00:06:12.850 Now American forces used that technology during the invasion of Iraq 145 00:06:13.209 --> 00:06:17.309 before Google then purchased the company in 2004 and turned it into Google Earth 146 00:06:17.489 --> 00:06:18.329 to do no evil. 147 00:06:18.450 --> 00:06:21.279 So Keyhole's CEO was a man named John Hankey, 148 00:06:21.529 --> 00:06:23.399 who later created NyanTech, 149 00:06:23.609 --> 00:06:25.709 and Nyanech was inside of Google, 150 00:06:25.929 --> 00:06:29.630 and then it launched Pokemon Go in 2016. 151 00:06:29.929 --> 00:06:33.429 So the technology went from helping the military map enemy territory. 152 00:06:33.859 --> 00:06:35.769 To helping kids catch Pikachus, 153 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:38.100 such as the circle of natural life. 154 00:06:38.260 --> 00:06:40.459 But the connections get more interesting from there, 155 00:06:40.500 --> 00:06:40.820 I think, 156 00:06:41.019 --> 00:06:44.359 because the CIA originally invested in that keyhole company 157 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:47.089 for its detailed geographical intelligence, 158 00:06:47.380 --> 00:06:51.630 which gave American forces that advantage when planning military operations. 159 00:06:51.859 --> 00:06:53.839 By knowing the exact layout of a building, 160 00:06:54.260 --> 00:06:55.940 which roads might connect to it, 161 00:06:55.980 --> 00:06:57.649 and what obstacles surround it, 162 00:06:57.940 --> 00:07:00.239 you've extremely valuable information 163 00:07:00.420 --> 00:07:01.459 when you're planning your raid, 164 00:07:01.540 --> 00:07:02.179 for instance. 165 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:02.920 And by 166 00:07:03.070 --> 00:07:04.380 Extraordinary coincidence, 167 00:07:04.429 --> 00:07:05.070 I am sure, 168 00:07:05.119 --> 00:07:05.690 years later, 169 00:07:06.109 --> 00:07:06.829 that same man, 170 00:07:06.989 --> 00:07:07.489 Hanky, 171 00:07:07.589 --> 00:07:10.390 created a game that encouraged millions of people to do, 172 00:07:10.510 --> 00:07:10.709 well, 173 00:07:10.820 --> 00:07:11.519 what do you know, 174 00:07:11.950 --> 00:07:14.769 travel around the world carrying GPS devices 175 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:17.649 and cameras in their pockets and recording information. 176 00:07:17.829 --> 00:07:18.589 In 2020, 177 00:07:18.750 --> 00:07:19.470 Nyanech 178 00:07:19.869 --> 00:07:23.839 introduced optional scanning features that encouraged Pokemon Go players to 179 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:27.899 record landmarks from multiple angles in exchange for in-game rewards. 180 00:07:28.190 --> 00:07:29.070 By 2024, 181 00:07:29.149 --> 00:07:32.230 the company said that it had collected scans of tens of millions of. 182 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:36.670 to help build an AI powered three-dimensional map of the world. 183 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:40.619 It was receiving approximately 1 million additional scans every week. 184 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:43.660 Think about the intelligence value of that information, 185 00:07:43.799 --> 00:07:44.119 because sure, 186 00:07:44.230 --> 00:07:45.910 satellite imagery is great for like 187 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:48.750 seeing rooftops of buildings and the layouts of roads, 188 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:51.000 but it has limitations when it comes to 189 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:53.109 mapping what everything looks like on the ground. 190 00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:55.859 That's where those scans became so valuable 191 00:07:56.079 --> 00:07:58.070 because users were collecting information, 192 00:07:58.279 --> 00:07:59.790 images of buildings, 193 00:08:00.040 --> 00:08:00.839 street approaches, 194 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:01.600 doorways. 195 00:08:01.730 --> 00:08:02.760 What door is locked, 196 00:08:03.049 --> 00:08:05.510 what has a sealed door or strong door, 197 00:08:05.769 --> 00:08:09.399 and that was all being done from the ground level at different times of day and night. 198 00:08:09.609 --> 00:08:09.929 Normally, 199 00:08:09.970 --> 00:08:12.130 you would need to hire an enormous number of 200 00:08:12.130 --> 00:08:14.290 people to collect that kind of intelligence for you. 201 00:08:14.529 --> 00:08:18.950 Nyan Tick got millions of people to voluntarily contribute to the project 202 00:08:19.239 --> 00:08:21.010 by rewarding them with Pokemon, 203 00:08:21.089 --> 00:08:24.829 and somehow they managed to create an enormous crowd-sourced mapping program 204 00:08:25.250 --> 00:08:27.350 without violating any child labor laws. 205 00:08:27.500 --> 00:08:30.790 It's like how we all do those captcha training test models online. 206 00:08:31.290 --> 00:08:34.429 And according to a June 2026 Ars Technica 207 00:08:34.599 --> 00:08:34.830 investigation, 208 00:08:35.190 --> 00:08:39.330 Niantic acknowledged that these voluntary scans help train its 209 00:08:39.330 --> 00:08:43.080 AI models to recognize and understand physical locations. 210 00:08:43.369 --> 00:08:46.609 The resulting technology identifies where a camera's located 211 00:08:46.609 --> 00:08:49.770 by comparing its surroundings against a digital map. 212 00:08:50.010 --> 00:08:54.469 So basically the company was developing an AI that recognizes specific locations 213 00:08:54.609 --> 00:08:55.770 by looking at them all. 214 00:08:55.942 --> 00:08:57.322 Wrapped in an innocent game, 215 00:08:57.783 --> 00:08:58.122 which 216 00:08:58.223 --> 00:09:01.263 for some reason makes me think of that sci-fi novel Ender's Game. 217 00:09:01.463 --> 00:09:04.293 The Pentagon wants this capability because modern warfare, 218 00:09:04.422 --> 00:09:04.862 believe it or not, 219 00:09:04.932 --> 00:09:07.052 has a huge problem with GPS jamming. 220 00:09:07.343 --> 00:09:10.293 So Russian electronic warfare systems interfere with satellite 221 00:09:10.293 --> 00:09:13.382 navigation that's used by Ukrainian attack drones, 222 00:09:13.622 --> 00:09:15.723 and that creates just enormous problems 223 00:09:15.963 --> 00:09:19.182 when an unmanned aircraft is trying to find its way to a target, 224 00:09:19.252 --> 00:09:19.763 for instance. 225 00:09:20.223 --> 00:09:23.176 So Dyadic's visual positioning technology 226 00:09:23.515 --> 00:09:25.435 addresses that problem by allowing the drone 227 00:09:25.435 --> 00:09:27.656 to examine its surroundings through a camera 228 00:09:27.796 --> 00:09:31.135 and compare those images against existing three-dimensional maps. 229 00:09:31.435 --> 00:09:33.635 It's even able to reconstruct the drone's flight 230 00:09:33.635 --> 00:09:35.916 path and estimate where it launched from, 231 00:09:36.145 --> 00:09:38.935 allowing you to then trace back and easily kill an enemy 232 00:09:39.116 --> 00:09:42.585 if you pick up a downed drone and you're able to look at its video footage. 233 00:09:42.716 --> 00:09:43.236 You can just 234 00:09:43.435 --> 00:09:44.736 kind of trace back where it came from. 235 00:09:45.599 --> 00:09:47.580 So you've doneplayed yourself in that instance. 236 00:09:47.880 --> 00:09:48.479 So fortunately, 237 00:09:48.669 --> 00:09:51.940 investigators eventually figured out why Pokemon were just 238 00:09:52.109 --> 00:09:55.520 digitally appearing around some of America's most secure facilities. 239 00:09:55.869 --> 00:09:57.619 According to a foreign policy investigation, 240 00:09:58.190 --> 00:10:00.320 employees who were required to leave their 241 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:02.919 phones outside of secure sensitive rooms, 242 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:07.760 that resulted in there being just like a giant concentration of phones and GPS data, 243 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.159 which then helped explain why the game was 244 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:13.299 generating all those digital Pokemon around those locations. 245 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:14.327 Going From 246 00:10:14.507 --> 00:10:18.697 kids catching me outs to training attack drones is a pretty wild final evolution. 247 00:10:18.827 --> 00:10:21.757 But the Pokemon CIA rabbit hole goes even deeper. 248 00:10:22.146 --> 00:10:23.307 Because in 2017, 249 00:10:23.406 --> 00:10:26.606 the CIA declassified a very strange file that I found. 250 00:10:27.146 --> 00:10:31.286 CIA collections analyst David Klopper created a collectible card game 251 00:10:31.706 --> 00:10:34.226 in the CIA inspired by Pokemon. 252 00:10:34.346 --> 00:10:37.007 Most men of culture like myself who played the Pokemon 253 00:10:37.456 --> 00:10:38.096 card games, 254 00:10:38.226 --> 00:10:39.267 they know how this works, 255 00:10:39.346 --> 00:10:40.057 but basically, 256 00:10:40.226 --> 00:10:42.187 CIA players use cards that 257 00:10:42.414 --> 00:10:46.614 Represented CIA satellites or other human sources or other typical 258 00:10:46.614 --> 00:10:49.124 collection methods that you would use in an operation. 259 00:10:49.693 --> 00:10:52.754 They did this to solve international security problems in the game 260 00:10:53.093 --> 00:10:53.294 and, 261 00:10:53.343 --> 00:10:54.723 and to fight Charizards. 262 00:10:54.973 --> 00:10:58.124 So the internal CIA game was called Collections deck. 263 00:10:58.333 --> 00:11:00.804 Klopper designed it to teach new officers there. 264 00:11:01.013 --> 00:11:04.054 The rules required players to match basically the strengths 265 00:11:04.054 --> 00:11:07.883 of different intelligence techniques to specific real-world problems. 266 00:11:08.133 --> 00:11:10.823 So the idea is to force officers to think about the 267 00:11:11.101 --> 00:11:12.981 of information that they're collecting 268 00:11:13.270 --> 00:11:15.421 before they start going and making recommendations that 269 00:11:15.681 --> 00:11:17.620 could put American troops in danger. 270 00:11:17.801 --> 00:11:18.760 And the funniest part is, 271 00:11:18.801 --> 00:11:19.301 I think 272 00:11:19.481 --> 00:11:22.981 that Klopper actually created something called reality checks in the game, 273 00:11:23.401 --> 00:11:25.700 where a player could sabotage another player 274 00:11:25.971 --> 00:11:28.991 if they couldn't explain how their operation worked, 275 00:11:29.241 --> 00:11:33.181 which is exactly what they should have been doing with this next operation. 276 00:11:33.560 --> 00:11:36.640 One of these secret programs was so classified, 277 00:11:37.310 --> 00:11:39.281 almost no one was cleared to oversee it. 278 00:11:39.630 --> 00:11:41.210 And that's how in May, 279 00:11:41.469 --> 00:11:47.080 FBI agents went in and kicked in the door of a high-ranking CIA official in Virginia. 280 00:11:47.390 --> 00:11:48.590 And at his residence, 281 00:11:48.669 --> 00:11:51.580 they discovered nearly 300 gold bars, 282 00:11:51.830 --> 00:11:54.750 which weighed collectively like 660 pounds, 283 00:11:54.989 --> 00:11:57.330 that he had stolen from the government 284 00:11:57.630 --> 00:12:00.650 alongside millions of dollars of cold hard cash. 285 00:12:00.789 --> 00:12:05.070 He defrauded the government with all these luxury watches and baller vehicles 286 00:12:05.270 --> 00:12:07.750 that the FBI agents found at his residence. 287 00:12:08.119 --> 00:12:12.150 But how did this CIA officer get access to all that in the first place? 288 00:12:12.239 --> 00:12:13.320 How did he get away with this? 289 00:12:13.650 --> 00:12:14.289 David J. 290 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:14.650 Rush, 291 00:12:14.729 --> 00:12:17.919 a 49-year-old CIA case officer from Virginia, 292 00:12:18.169 --> 00:12:22.030 had worked his way up to senior executive-level position at the agency 293 00:12:22.409 --> 00:12:24.359 over the course of 16 years. 294 00:12:24.609 --> 00:12:27.809 He had a top-secret compartmented information clearance, 295 00:12:27.849 --> 00:12:30.349 which is like ultra ultra-high level. 296 00:12:30.479 --> 00:12:32.809 It was one of the most sensitive pieces of 297 00:12:32.809 --> 00:12:35.150 American information you could know is with that clearance. 298 00:12:35.650 --> 00:12:36.869 Then in 20 In 2025, 299 00:12:36.989 --> 00:12:38.489 Rush used that authority 300 00:12:38.750 --> 00:12:41.489 and the trust that he had built over his entire career 301 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.659 to create special access program number one, 302 00:12:44.909 --> 00:12:48.190 which was supposedly this top secret operation that 303 00:12:48.190 --> 00:12:50.659 required special permission to even know it existed. 304 00:12:50.789 --> 00:12:51.710 A very hush-hush, 305 00:12:51.830 --> 00:12:54.489 need to know secret squirrel kind of operation. 306 00:12:54.830 --> 00:12:56.710 His specific cover story for the program, 307 00:12:56.750 --> 00:12:58.469 I think was pretty ingenious 308 00:12:58.869 --> 00:13:01.549 because he made it a continuity of government operation, 309 00:13:01.830 --> 00:13:04.270 which put it at the highest levels of classification. 310 00:13:04.599 --> 00:13:05.960 And need for a very, 311 00:13:06.059 --> 00:13:07.390 a large amount of funds, 312 00:13:07.640 --> 00:13:09.520 which is exactly what he wanted 313 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:11.840 because he was about to do something pretty naughty. 314 00:13:11.989 --> 00:13:14.539 The real continuity of government programs that exist 315 00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:16.219 are extremely expensive 316 00:13:16.479 --> 00:13:19.520 because their whole purpose is to keep the American government alive, 317 00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:22.109 even in the case of something like nuclear war, 318 00:13:22.359 --> 00:13:22.780 which 319 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:26.609 keeping the American government alive in that case is worth a lot, 320 00:13:26.619 --> 00:13:28.020 or it's almost priceless. 321 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:32.419 There was a bunker hidden beneath the Green Bear Resort in West Virginia 322 00:13:32.599 --> 00:13:33.299 that had an entire 323 00:13:33.512 --> 00:13:37.331 Medical facility there and underground special sleeping chambers 324 00:13:37.512 --> 00:13:39.221 to fit the House and the Senate, 325 00:13:39.421 --> 00:13:42.021 costing tens of millions of dollars to construct that. 326 00:13:42.231 --> 00:13:44.791 The government kept that continuity of government operation, 327 00:13:44.911 --> 00:13:46.372 that underground bunker, 328 00:13:46.632 --> 00:13:48.151 secret for 30 years, 329 00:13:48.392 --> 00:13:52.111 which explains why our case officer Rush chose to 330 00:13:52.111 --> 00:13:54.781 use that as an excuse for his dirty deeds. 331 00:13:54.992 --> 00:13:56.692 He then hired contractors 332 00:13:56.831 --> 00:14:00.072 to operate under his program and he required non-disclosure 333 00:14:00.072 --> 00:14:02.072 agreements so that they couldn't speak a word. 334 00:14:02.783 --> 00:14:03.723 anything he was doing. 335 00:14:03.984 --> 00:14:06.823 When an official ended up actually questioning him on 336 00:14:06.823 --> 00:14:08.893 one of his expenditures and pressing him on it, 337 00:14:09.143 --> 00:14:11.664 he quickly invoked the program's classification. 338 00:14:11.723 --> 00:14:12.854 He crashed out and he said, 339 00:14:12.903 --> 00:14:13.924 you don't have the authority 340 00:14:14.263 --> 00:14:15.383 to ask me what I'm doing. 341 00:14:15.583 --> 00:14:16.343 It raises the question, 342 00:14:16.463 --> 00:14:17.823 who watches the Watchman? 343 00:14:17.984 --> 00:14:18.463 The Watchman, 344 00:14:18.523 --> 00:14:19.104 I guess. 345 00:14:19.463 --> 00:14:24.294 Rush then went ahead and transferred $145 million from the government to himself. 346 00:14:24.463 --> 00:14:27.273 He bought all these luxury properties in South Florida, 347 00:14:27.463 --> 00:14:29.763 all under the guise of saving the world, 348 00:14:30.164 --> 00:14:30.174 uh, 349 00:14:30.184 --> 00:14:30.374 and, 350 00:14:30.463 --> 00:14:30.744 and you know, 351 00:14:30.783 --> 00:14:32.296 the Continuity of government program. 352 00:14:32.445 --> 00:14:35.236 The agency opened an internal investigation at that point 353 00:14:35.375 --> 00:14:36.765 and uncovered his crimes. 354 00:14:36.976 --> 00:14:40.176 He pled guilty to wire fraud and it turns out the CIA officer 355 00:14:40.176 --> 00:14:43.635 all along had lied about even going to college on his resume. 356 00:14:43.895 --> 00:14:45.495 He lied about being a Navy pilot. 357 00:14:45.575 --> 00:14:45.856 I mean, 358 00:14:46.056 --> 00:14:49.776 being a good liar is a part of the job description for a CIA officer, 359 00:14:49.885 --> 00:14:50.056 right? 360 00:14:50.135 --> 00:14:50.495 But he, 361 00:14:50.575 --> 00:14:51.716 he took it too far. 362 00:14:52.096 --> 00:14:53.445 But that raises a bigger question, 363 00:14:53.455 --> 00:14:54.026 I think, 364 00:14:54.216 --> 00:14:55.645 about these secret programs. 365 00:14:55.856 --> 00:14:59.736 I've always wondered how do regular people like you and me get access to the CIA. 366 00:14:59.918 --> 00:15:00.367 Files, 367 00:15:00.528 --> 00:15:02.788 it's actually been a decades-long 368 00:15:03.007 --> 00:15:03.408 fight. 369 00:15:03.487 --> 00:15:06.788 And one confrontation shows how difficult it can still be. 370 00:15:07.007 --> 00:15:08.158 In April 2025, 371 00:15:08.228 --> 00:15:10.877 a team of intelligence officials showed up unannounced 372 00:15:10.877 --> 00:15:13.867 at a secret CIA warehouse in Washington DC. 373 00:15:14.208 --> 00:15:17.487 They demanded highly classified files about the assassination 374 00:15:17.487 --> 00:15:19.778 of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. 375 00:15:20.168 --> 00:15:22.168 They were sent there on that mission by 376 00:15:22.168 --> 00:15:23.968 Director of National Intelligence at the time, 377 00:15:24.127 --> 00:15:25.148 Tulsi Gabbard, 378 00:15:25.328 --> 00:15:26.638 under an executive order, 379 00:15:26.768 --> 00:15:28.067 and the order was to get 380 00:15:28.187 --> 00:15:28.507 these. 381 00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:29.940 Records declassified. 382 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:33.849 But the CIA security guards there had no warning about this and had no idea, 383 00:15:33.950 --> 00:15:34.880 so they stopped them. 384 00:15:35.119 --> 00:15:36.780 And according to a Reuters investigation, 385 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:39.929 the team brought all this paperwork with them saying that 386 00:15:39.929 --> 00:15:43.099 they had the authority to take the documents for declassification, 387 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:45.719 but the CIA said they had no idea what was going on. 388 00:15:45.789 --> 00:15:47.080 There was this huge shouting match. 389 00:15:47.159 --> 00:15:47.549 Eventually, 390 00:15:47.599 --> 00:15:49.669 the CIA agreed to transfer the files. 391 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:51.299 It took until like 2 in the morning 392 00:15:51.640 --> 00:15:54.679 to get them to the National Archives for that declassification. 393 00:15:54.880 --> 00:15:56.619 A transparency like this into 394 00:15:56.880 --> 00:15:57.460 how our 395 00:15:57.591 --> 00:15:58.521 Tax money is spent. 396 00:15:58.711 --> 00:16:00.651 It's actually something Americans have been 397 00:16:00.992 --> 00:16:02.861 spent just decades fighting for. 398 00:16:03.151 --> 00:16:07.692 Congressman John Moss started investigating the enormous amounts of information 399 00:16:07.692 --> 00:16:11.111 that the federal government routinely refused to release to journalists, 400 00:16:11.231 --> 00:16:11.702 citizens, 401 00:16:11.942 --> 00:16:14.892 and even members of Congress in the 1950s. 402 00:16:15.072 --> 00:16:17.791 So Moss held all these hearings and fought for more than 403 00:16:17.791 --> 00:16:21.492 a decade to establish a legal right for the American people 404 00:16:21.711 --> 00:16:23.632 to access federal government records, 405 00:16:23.752 --> 00:16:26.101 even though everyone in the government fought back hard against. 406 00:16:26.403 --> 00:16:26.734 Instant, 407 00:16:26.984 --> 00:16:28.653 all 27 agencies, 408 00:16:28.903 --> 00:16:29.484 departments, 409 00:16:29.703 --> 00:16:31.044 and even the president himself 410 00:16:31.383 --> 00:16:31.934 basically said, 411 00:16:31.953 --> 00:16:32.943 you're totally crazy. 412 00:16:32.984 --> 00:16:35.304 We can't let these people know what we're doing here. 413 00:16:35.383 --> 00:16:36.494 What is wrong with you? 414 00:16:36.734 --> 00:16:39.133 They did everything they could to stop the legislation, 415 00:16:39.223 --> 00:16:39.864 but it didn't work. 416 00:16:39.934 --> 00:16:40.914 In 1966, 417 00:16:41.184 --> 00:16:43.064 Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act, 418 00:16:43.343 --> 00:16:45.393 which you might have heard be called FOIA, 419 00:16:45.424 --> 00:16:47.083 and it gave the American people 420 00:16:47.263 --> 00:16:49.203 a process to directly request 421 00:16:49.304 --> 00:16:50.684 any top-secret record 422 00:16:50.984 --> 00:16:54.453 and challenge agencies who refused to release them in court. 423 00:16:54.583 --> 00:16:55.114 So the CIA 424 00:16:55.416 --> 00:16:59.116 had this massive collection of declassified documents called Crest. 425 00:16:59.296 --> 00:17:00.476 But for decades still, 426 00:17:00.935 --> 00:17:02.635 anyone who wanted to view those had to go 427 00:17:02.635 --> 00:17:05.276 all the way to the National Archives in Maryland 428 00:17:05.455 --> 00:17:09.455 to use that specific database and there was only 4 computers available. 429 00:17:09.536 --> 00:17:10.234 So it was like 430 00:17:10.445 --> 00:17:11.714 technically available, 431 00:17:12.336 --> 00:17:14.435 which is the best kind of available for the CIA. 432 00:17:14.494 --> 00:17:16.734 It was a form of like malicious compliance 433 00:17:16.734 --> 00:17:18.955 straight out of their simple sabotage book. 434 00:17:19.296 --> 00:17:22.355 Then FOIA lawsuit helped change everything there 435 00:17:22.494 --> 00:17:23.214 when a researcher, 436 00:17:23.296 --> 00:17:23.895 Emma Best, 437 00:17:24.367 --> 00:17:28.127 Pushed for electronic access and in January 2017, 438 00:17:28.248 --> 00:17:30.027 that's when the CIA was forced 439 00:17:30.197 --> 00:17:31.567 kicking and screaming 440 00:17:31.828 --> 00:17:35.708 to produce and put online nearly a million documents 441 00:17:35.887 --> 00:17:38.238 containing more than 12 million pages. 442 00:17:38.447 --> 00:17:39.567 And every step of the way, 443 00:17:39.647 --> 00:17:43.208 the CIA and the government was dragged just screaming, 444 00:17:43.447 --> 00:17:45.358 saying they didn't want to disclose this stuff. 445 00:17:45.687 --> 00:17:47.927 That made it possible for ordinary people like you 446 00:17:47.927 --> 00:17:51.147 and me to search this material online in our underwear 447 00:17:51.328 --> 00:17:52.728 like we both are right now. 448 00:17:53.280 --> 00:17:57.119 And that is how we know about the real-life actual CIA 449 00:17:57.349 --> 00:17:58.640 mind control experiments. 450 00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:00.040 And what do I mean by that? 451 00:18:00.280 --> 00:18:01.829 In October 2025, 452 00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:03.140 researchers published 453 00:18:03.390 --> 00:18:07.420 50 year old secret Senate testimony from the CIA's former chief 454 00:18:07.560 --> 00:18:08.189 chemist, 455 00:18:08.369 --> 00:18:09.540 Sydney Gottlieb, 456 00:18:09.800 --> 00:18:12.300 and they buried inside this was an experiment 457 00:18:12.680 --> 00:18:15.550 that sounds like something out of a psychological horror movie. 458 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:18.280 Congressional investigators were confronting Gottlieb with 459 00:18:18.280 --> 00:18:20.959 a CIA document describing how someone had 460 00:18:20.959 --> 00:18:24.991 secretly been given In this large dose of LSD causing severe paranoia. 461 00:18:25.261 --> 00:18:28.911 The operation destroyed the subject's credibility with the people around him, 462 00:18:29.031 --> 00:18:32.891 which was exactly the outcome that the CIA was interested in achieving. 463 00:18:32.991 --> 00:18:35.541 And according to another declassified memorandum, 464 00:18:35.832 --> 00:18:39.171 the agency had developed a way to carry out these interrogations. 465 00:18:39.472 --> 00:18:41.911 Let's get into the CIA's bread and butter here, 466 00:18:42.031 --> 00:18:42.852 mind control. 467 00:18:42.911 --> 00:18:46.052 The agency was experimenting with drugs and hypnosis 468 00:18:46.312 --> 00:18:48.702 long before the Grateful Dead played their first concert, 469 00:18:48.871 --> 00:18:50.391 and this declassified memorandum. 470 00:18:50.784 --> 00:18:53.703 from 1954 describes what happened when 471 00:18:53.703 --> 00:18:56.563 CIA officers decided to test these techniques 472 00:18:56.703 --> 00:18:58.734 on one of their own intelligence assets. 473 00:18:58.984 --> 00:19:03.093 This guy had already been cooperating with the agency for about 2.5 years, 474 00:19:03.333 --> 00:19:05.583 which apparently qualified him for a loyalty test 475 00:19:05.583 --> 00:19:08.453 that involved being secretly drugged for 12 hours. 476 00:19:08.703 --> 00:19:11.453 The CIA called the program Project Artichoke. 477 00:19:11.663 --> 00:19:13.404 Officers were trying to figure out 478 00:19:13.583 --> 00:19:16.563 how to use the right amount of chemicals and hypnosis 479 00:19:16.703 --> 00:19:17.663 to interrogate people, 480 00:19:17.774 --> 00:19:18.843 alter their behavior, 481 00:19:19.004 --> 00:19:21.826 and Extract information they weren't prepared to give up, 482 00:19:21.855 --> 00:19:23.086 like a truth serum. 483 00:19:23.296 --> 00:19:25.255 The memo described the subject as quote, 484 00:19:25.515 --> 00:19:29.015 important covert operational asset and says establishing 485 00:19:29.015 --> 00:19:31.605 his reliability was of extreme importance, 486 00:19:31.615 --> 00:19:32.235 quote unquote. 487 00:19:32.576 --> 00:19:33.576 Whoever this man was, 488 00:19:33.656 --> 00:19:35.495 his identity has remained redacted, 489 00:19:35.615 --> 00:19:37.485 like the redactions we were just talking about. 490 00:19:37.576 --> 00:19:39.276 The agency was worried that somebody 491 00:19:39.576 --> 00:19:41.355 it relied on for intelligence 492 00:19:41.605 --> 00:19:43.845 might be keeping secret from his handlers. 493 00:19:44.135 --> 00:19:45.296 So on February 18, 494 00:19:45.375 --> 00:19:46.135 1954, 495 00:19:46.255 --> 00:19:48.056 the asset came down with influenza. 496 00:19:48.238 --> 00:19:49.348 And other complications. 497 00:19:49.608 --> 00:19:52.407 His CIA handler happened to be a medical doctor, 498 00:19:52.527 --> 00:19:54.238 so he offered to take over for him. 499 00:19:54.567 --> 00:19:55.878 By February 22nd, 500 00:19:55.968 --> 00:19:59.907 the man had recovered and was apparently extremely grateful to the Americans 501 00:20:00.088 --> 00:20:02.187 who had helped him through his illness. 502 00:20:02.407 --> 00:20:05.567 And the handlers saw an opportunity there to build even more trust, 503 00:20:05.848 --> 00:20:09.758 which is a pretty sinister detail once you know what the CIA was planning here. 504 00:20:10.008 --> 00:20:12.128 The asset wasn't in great nutritional health, 505 00:20:12.208 --> 00:20:12.718 let's say, 506 00:20:13.008 --> 00:20:15.807 so his handlers started giving him vitamin injections. 507 00:20:16.008 --> 00:20:18.790 The man trusted his Doctor enough to accept the shots, 508 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:20.859 and that was his huge mistake. 509 00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:24.319 Friends don't let friends do drugs and real friends definitely 510 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:27.219 don't let the CIA inject them with its drugs. 511 00:20:27.510 --> 00:20:28.380 On March 4th, 512 00:20:28.439 --> 00:20:29.880 he received another injection. 513 00:20:29.959 --> 00:20:30.400 This time, 514 00:20:30.479 --> 00:20:31.900 the CIA was carrying out 515 00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:33.489 the artichoke operation. 516 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:34.660 His handlers told him 517 00:20:34.920 --> 00:20:37.060 that he developed an aggressive virus 518 00:20:37.199 --> 00:20:39.520 and a high fever had left him delirious. 519 00:20:39.760 --> 00:20:42.619 The doctor then supposedly nursed him back to health again. 520 00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:45.459 Imagine trusting the same guy to save your life, 521 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:47.871 while He's secretly arranging an interrogation 522 00:20:47.871 --> 00:20:49.572 you'd never meant to even remember. 523 00:20:49.871 --> 00:20:52.631 From 8 o'clock that night until 8 the following morning, 524 00:20:52.781 --> 00:20:55.092 the man was kept under artichoke techniques 525 00:20:55.302 --> 00:20:56.712 for roughly 12 hours. 526 00:20:56.881 --> 00:21:00.232 The memo says the direct interrogation lasted around 90 minutes, 527 00:21:00.472 --> 00:21:02.671 and the rest of the operation involved the drugs, 528 00:21:02.751 --> 00:21:04.052 the handling of the subject, 529 00:21:04.391 --> 00:21:08.232 and the cover story that made all of it look like another bout of illness. 530 00:21:08.552 --> 00:21:09.671 Somewhere in the middle of the night, 531 00:21:09.832 --> 00:21:11.572 CIA officers questioned a man 532 00:21:11.881 --> 00:21:14.572 who believed he was receiving medical care. 533 00:21:14.849 --> 00:21:16.800 And here's the really disturbing part I think, 534 00:21:17.089 --> 00:21:19.449 because according to the officer's own memorandum, 535 00:21:19.589 --> 00:21:21.189 the asset gave answers 536 00:21:21.449 --> 00:21:24.640 he had avoided giving in earlier intelligence reports. 537 00:21:24.890 --> 00:21:27.550 They wrote that the operation succeeded quote unquote, 538 00:21:27.630 --> 00:21:28.349 without a doubt, 539 00:21:28.689 --> 00:21:31.930 and claimed that the man woke up with no memory of the interrogation. 540 00:21:32.439 --> 00:21:35.010 He accepted the explanation that he'd just been sick with the 541 00:21:35.010 --> 00:21:38.390 virus and the officers said he still couldn't recall the operation 542 00:21:38.810 --> 00:21:40.250 when they checked on him later. 543 00:21:40.489 --> 00:21:40.640 Now, 544 00:21:40.650 --> 00:21:43.640 that's the CIA describing the results of its own experiment. 545 00:21:43.890 --> 00:21:44.630 So it doesn't 546 00:21:45.089 --> 00:21:49.160 exactly establish the agency perfected some reliable mind control weapon. 547 00:21:49.449 --> 00:21:50.510 What it does establish, 548 00:21:50.530 --> 00:21:50.810 I think, 549 00:21:50.930 --> 00:21:54.069 is that officers secretly drugged someone who worked for them, 550 00:21:54.569 --> 00:21:54.949 questioned him, 551 00:21:55.170 --> 00:21:56.729 and then congratulated themselves, 552 00:21:56.849 --> 00:21:58.229 patted themselves on the back 553 00:21:58.569 --> 00:22:01.459 because he believed that the whole thing had just been a Medical emergency. 554 00:22:01.729 --> 00:22:03.949 It's a hell of a performance review if you ask me. 555 00:22:04.050 --> 00:22:04.969 The good news, 556 00:22:05.050 --> 00:22:06.790 at least according to the CIA 557 00:22:06.969 --> 00:22:09.290 was that the asset passed his loyalty test. 558 00:22:09.369 --> 00:22:10.430 The bad news 559 00:22:10.729 --> 00:22:12.790 was everything they did to administer it. 560 00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:17.280 If this was how the agency treated somebody it considered as important, 561 00:22:17.489 --> 00:22:18.760 a very important partner, 562 00:22:19.140 --> 00:22:21.910 imagine getting a call from the same medical officer 563 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:24.849 after your relationship with the CIA had gone sour. 564 00:22:25.089 --> 00:22:28.290 And the American military is still investing in some extraordinary. 565 00:22:28.489 --> 00:22:32.510 techniques that are designed to interact directly with the human brain like this. 566 00:22:32.729 --> 00:22:33.569 In 2019, 567 00:22:33.689 --> 00:22:38.209 DARPA funded six separate research teams developing brain interfaces 568 00:22:38.329 --> 00:22:40.489 that could eventually allow soldiers to control 569 00:22:40.489 --> 00:22:43.150 drone swarms just using neural signals. 570 00:22:43.369 --> 00:22:47.910 The researchers were even investigating ways to send signals back into the brain 571 00:22:48.130 --> 00:22:50.680 using electromagnetic fields and ultrasounds. 572 00:22:50.890 --> 00:22:53.790 The technology has legitimate medical and military applications. 573 00:22:54.449 --> 00:22:56.319 But American intelligence agencies have a 574 00:22:56.430 --> 00:22:59.239 Much darker history of experimenting with the human mind. 575 00:22:59.489 --> 00:23:02.390 And the agency's interest in manipulating the human mind 576 00:23:02.569 --> 00:23:04.010 has gone much further than, 577 00:23:04.130 --> 00:23:04.449 well, 578 00:23:04.569 --> 00:23:05.790 just drugging people. 579 00:23:06.290 --> 00:23:07.969 Because in March 2024, 580 00:23:08.040 --> 00:23:11.569 a Pentagon investigation uncovered something truly bizarre 581 00:23:11.569 --> 00:23:14.760 happening inside a military intelligence research program. 582 00:23:14.969 --> 00:23:18.790 A private contractor receiving funding through the Defense Intelligence Agency 583 00:23:19.209 --> 00:23:21.849 had been investigating reports of paranormal activity 584 00:23:21.849 --> 00:23:24.020 at Skin Walker Ranch in Utah. 585 00:23:24.369 --> 00:23:26.239 According to the Pentagon's own report, 586 00:23:26.449 --> 00:23:28.869 the company explored hiring psychics 587 00:23:29.050 --> 00:23:31.489 to investigate interdimensional phenomena 588 00:23:31.619 --> 00:23:34.050 and research claims about remote viewing, 589 00:23:34.369 --> 00:23:34.709 which 590 00:23:34.810 --> 00:23:38.839 is the alleged ability to describe distant locations using your mind. 591 00:23:39.050 --> 00:23:41.229 So the DIA told investigators 592 00:23:41.369 --> 00:23:44.569 it had never specifically authorized the paranormal research and 593 00:23:44.569 --> 00:23:48.630 the contractor even proposed hiring journalists and celebrity moderators 594 00:23:48.890 --> 00:23:52.189 to influence the public conversation about extraterrestrials. 595 00:23:52.369 --> 00:23:55.459 Because apparently having a government-funded haunted ranch 596 00:23:55.729 --> 00:23:57.199 wasn't already strange enough. 597 00:23:57.479 --> 00:24:01.469 But this is actually part of a much older American intelligence obsession, 598 00:24:01.609 --> 00:24:03.280 because back in 1972, 599 00:24:03.530 --> 00:24:07.750 the CIA started funding experiments to determine whether psychic abilities 600 00:24:07.969 --> 00:24:11.760 could be used to steal classified information from the Soviet Union. 601 00:24:12.089 --> 00:24:15.000 Now we're getting into the CIA files that sound like somebody 602 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:17.989 wrote them after a very aggressive weekend in Las Vegas. 603 00:24:18.489 --> 00:24:19.290 During the Cold War, 604 00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:20.250 American intelligence. 605 00:24:20.369 --> 00:24:24.030 Officials became convinced that the Soviet Union was investigating 606 00:24:24.449 --> 00:24:26.609 psychic abilities for espionage. 607 00:24:26.890 --> 00:24:26.959 Now, 608 00:24:27.010 --> 00:24:27.609 if they're doing it, 609 00:24:27.689 --> 00:24:30.000 that means we have to do it before they do it. 610 00:24:30.290 --> 00:24:33.930 The nightmare scenario was an enemy psychic sitting in Moscow and 611 00:24:33.930 --> 00:24:38.439 describing an American nuclear command center without even ever stepping inside. 612 00:24:38.810 --> 00:24:41.050 That would be a pretty impressive intelligence capability, 613 00:24:41.130 --> 00:24:44.250 assuming that your spy isn't just guessing where the furniture goes. 614 00:24:44.530 --> 00:24:45.729 But in 1972, 615 00:24:45.810 --> 00:24:48.189 the CIA really did start funding remote. 616 00:24:48.579 --> 00:24:49.880 Viewing experiments 617 00:24:50.020 --> 00:24:52.410 through researchers at Stanford Research Institute. 618 00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:55.089 Test subjects were asked to describe distant objects, 619 00:24:55.170 --> 00:24:55.599 buildings, 620 00:24:55.609 --> 00:24:57.880 and military facilities that they'd never seen. 621 00:24:58.170 --> 00:25:01.250 The research moved between intelligence agencies over the following 622 00:25:01.250 --> 00:25:04.920 decades and became associated with something called Project Stargate. 623 00:25:05.160 --> 00:25:07.709 People were drawing sketches of classified targets 624 00:25:07.849 --> 00:25:10.050 while the government tried to decide whether they discovered 625 00:25:10.050 --> 00:25:11.959 a new way to spy on the Soviet Union. 626 00:25:12.170 --> 00:25:12.930 The strangest part, 627 00:25:12.969 --> 00:25:13.209 I think, 628 00:25:13.250 --> 00:25:14.310 is how different 629 00:25:14.530 --> 00:25:16.189 people inside the government. 630 00:25:16.410 --> 00:25:17.880 Still described the results. 631 00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:19.410 In October 2024, 632 00:25:19.489 --> 00:25:21.900 the NSA's National Cryptological Museum 633 00:25:23.089 --> 00:25:27.050 announced an exhibit that characterized Operation Stargate as quote-unquote, 634 00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:28.290 very successful, 635 00:25:28.609 --> 00:25:30.390 highlighting remote viewer Joseph 636 00:25:30.609 --> 00:25:33.239 McAagle and his intelligence assessments. 637 00:25:33.449 --> 00:25:37.449 But the CIA's own history says the program ended in 1995 638 00:25:37.650 --> 00:25:40.150 after an independent review found that the information 639 00:25:40.439 --> 00:25:43.550 was too inconsistent and too vague to rely on for any 640 00:25:43.719 --> 00:25:44.250 actual operation. 641 00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:45.489 Apparently, 642 00:25:45.530 --> 00:25:48.189 the psychic spies received a better museum exhibit 643 00:25:48.410 --> 00:25:49.949 than their performance evaluation. 644 00:25:50.180 --> 00:25:53.390 Then I went deeper into these declassified CIA files 645 00:25:53.609 --> 00:25:56.680 and found a paper comparing two alleged poltergeist 646 00:25:56.680 --> 00:25:58.790 cases in the United States and Brazil. 647 00:25:58.969 --> 00:26:00.390 One of the cases took place 648 00:26:00.569 --> 00:26:03.670 in Virginia where a 10-year-old boy identified as 649 00:26:03.900 --> 00:26:04.609 JE 650 00:26:04.849 --> 00:26:07.000 was living with his elderly foster parents. 651 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:08.640 In December 1971, 652 00:26:08.689 --> 00:26:11.349 the family reported objects moving on their own 653 00:26:11.489 --> 00:26:12.250 and loud stomping. 654 00:26:12.569 --> 00:26:13.859 noises inside the house. 655 00:26:14.119 --> 00:26:15.390 Other people who knew the family, 656 00:26:15.589 --> 00:26:17.229 including a doctor and relatives, 657 00:26:17.329 --> 00:26:19.209 also described some strange events. 658 00:26:19.449 --> 00:26:22.880 The foster parents saw the disturbances as religious warnings, 659 00:26:23.130 --> 00:26:26.790 while others suspected the boy himself was somehow causing them. 660 00:26:27.130 --> 00:26:31.589 JE had lost his biological parents and was having serious problems at school. 661 00:26:32.050 --> 00:26:34.270 His foster mother reportedly said that he had, 662 00:26:34.380 --> 00:26:34.880 quote unquote, 663 00:26:34.890 --> 00:26:35.839 the devil in him, 664 00:26:36.050 --> 00:26:36.390 which 665 00:26:36.540 --> 00:26:39.810 sounds like an excellent way to calm down an already troubled 10 year old boy, 666 00:26:39.890 --> 00:26:40.290 right? 667 00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:44.849 The paper examined how the adults around him interpreted the same bizarre events 668 00:26:45.109 --> 00:26:45.869 through religion, 669 00:26:46.030 --> 00:26:46.729 psychology, 670 00:26:47.030 --> 00:26:48.810 and alleged psychic abilities. 671 00:26:48.989 --> 00:26:51.689 Nobody proved that the boy could move furniture with his mind, 672 00:26:52.069 --> 00:26:54.729 but the witnesses descriptions were unusual enough 673 00:26:55.069 --> 00:26:58.619 to end up in a paper that was preserved by the CIA files. 674 00:26:58.910 --> 00:27:02.060 So the second case is where things just get completely ridiculous though. 675 00:27:02.150 --> 00:27:03.459 In 1973, 676 00:27:03.750 --> 00:27:05.829 a young Brazilian woman named Naomi 677 00:27:06.030 --> 00:27:06.349 was living. 678 00:27:06.494 --> 00:27:08.854 With her husband and a small child and a large 679 00:27:08.854 --> 00:27:13.494 extended family in two connected homes outside of Sao Paulo, 680 00:27:13.574 --> 00:27:15.935 and the family reported money disappearing and sights 681 00:27:15.935 --> 00:27:18.564 of a strange animal-like figure inside their house. 682 00:27:18.775 --> 00:27:18.964 Then, 683 00:27:18.974 --> 00:27:19.255 of course, 684 00:27:19.334 --> 00:27:20.564 as you do in Sao Paulo, 685 00:27:20.614 --> 00:27:21.885 they gathered to pray together, 686 00:27:22.175 --> 00:27:23.334 and according to their account, 687 00:27:23.494 --> 00:27:25.135 the disturbances stopped at that point. 688 00:27:25.255 --> 00:27:26.915 For a while in 1974, 689 00:27:27.265 --> 00:27:30.135 the family claimed the activity returned with a vengeance. 690 00:27:30.285 --> 00:27:32.214 Rocks were supposedly flying around the room. 691 00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:35.160 Family members reported unexplained scratches, 692 00:27:35.280 --> 00:27:36.000 broken objects, 693 00:27:36.040 --> 00:27:37.589 and pieces of clothing torn apart. 694 00:27:37.829 --> 00:27:40.699 They also described branches of rosemary appearing in the house, 695 00:27:41.109 --> 00:27:44.790 which carried a particular significance in local beliefs about witchcraft. 696 00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:48.079 I'm not saying any evil spirits were throwing rocks at the family, 697 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:49.780 but whoever was responsible, 698 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:53.020 clearly had some unresolved issues with interior decorating. 699 00:27:53.199 --> 00:27:55.500 Naomi moved with her husband and daughter 700 00:27:55.640 --> 00:27:56.500 to her parents' home, 701 00:27:56.560 --> 00:27:58.119 and the family claimed the disturbances. 702 00:27:58.275 --> 00:27:59.025 Followed them. 703 00:27:59.295 --> 00:28:00.625 In March 1975, 704 00:28:00.704 --> 00:28:02.055 the reports started up again. 705 00:28:02.305 --> 00:28:04.145 This time including some falling stones, 706 00:28:04.265 --> 00:28:04.905 missing money, 707 00:28:04.944 --> 00:28:07.135 and stories about spiritual possessions. 708 00:28:07.464 --> 00:28:10.224 Church elders were eventually called in to bless the house, 709 00:28:10.425 --> 00:28:12.974 and the published account says the activity subsided, 710 00:28:13.185 --> 00:28:15.224 although there was no independently verified 711 00:28:15.224 --> 00:28:17.614 ghost to review or interview afterwards. 712 00:28:17.905 --> 00:28:19.025 Here's the interesting part though, 713 00:28:19.064 --> 00:28:20.625 I think about this archive paper. 714 00:28:20.744 --> 00:28:21.505 Its author, 715 00:28:21.694 --> 00:28:23.295 anthropologist David Hess, 716 00:28:23.545 --> 00:28:23.984 was comparing. 717 00:28:24.290 --> 00:28:26.949 how the American and Brazilian families interpreted 718 00:28:27.250 --> 00:28:28.989 any kind of alleged hauntings 719 00:28:29.209 --> 00:28:31.719 through their different religious and cultural traditions. 720 00:28:31.969 --> 00:28:34.880 The paper ended up in an intelligence archive, 721 00:28:35.089 --> 00:28:37.449 but that doesn't mean that the CIA officers conducted 722 00:28:37.449 --> 00:28:39.760 some kind of ghost hunt or confirmed the stories. 723 00:28:40.130 --> 00:28:43.910 What we do have is an actual document in the CIA reading room 724 00:28:44.170 --> 00:28:46.030 going into detail about flying rocks, 725 00:28:46.109 --> 00:28:46.439 witches, 726 00:28:46.449 --> 00:28:48.770 and alleged monsters in somebody's living room. 727 00:28:49.430 --> 00:28:49.869 Whoever cataloged 728 00:28:50.074 --> 00:28:50.655 That one 729 00:28:50.915 --> 00:28:52.954 probably enjoyed a change of pace from 730 00:28:52.954 --> 00:28:55.214 Soviet tank formations and trying to figure out 731 00:28:55.435 --> 00:28:57.584 when China was developing ICBMs. 732 00:28:57.795 --> 00:28:59.175 And here's another creepy detail. 733 00:28:59.305 --> 00:29:01.594 There are actual television clips of people claiming 734 00:29:01.594 --> 00:29:04.584 to get scratched while investigating haunted houses. 735 00:29:04.795 --> 00:29:06.114 In one old news segment, 736 00:29:06.155 --> 00:29:08.694 a cameraman enters a supposedly haunted property 737 00:29:09.035 --> 00:29:10.875 and then shows a long mark on his wrist. 738 00:29:10.935 --> 00:29:11.104 It's, 739 00:29:11.145 --> 00:29:12.994 it's an episode of sightings of family 740 00:29:12.994 --> 00:29:15.494 member shows bleeding scratches during an investigation. 741 00:29:15.949 --> 00:29:18.290 And another television program shows a cameraman 742 00:29:18.550 --> 00:29:21.380 apparently being shoved before scratches appear on his body. 743 00:29:21.609 --> 00:29:22.329 So for some reason, 744 00:29:22.430 --> 00:29:24.189 ghosts really have it out for camera. 745 00:29:24.630 --> 00:29:27.689 Can you imagine being the analyst who opens a file expecting 746 00:29:27.869 --> 00:29:30.430 Soviet weapons information and you find a debate over 747 00:29:30.430 --> 00:29:32.859 whether the ghosts were angry with the camera crew. 748 00:29:33.140 --> 00:29:34.770 But the next file is even stranger, 749 00:29:34.790 --> 00:29:35.260 I think, 750 00:29:35.270 --> 00:29:37.729 because the researchers weren't talking about ghosts here. 751 00:29:37.989 --> 00:29:41.069 They were talking about plants and the possibility of a houseplant. 752 00:29:41.390 --> 00:29:44.949 Becoming a communications security threat to the United States government. 753 00:29:45.189 --> 00:29:45.349 Yes, 754 00:29:45.459 --> 00:29:46.369 we're talking about 755 00:29:46.550 --> 00:29:49.010 the fern in your office becoming a spy. 756 00:29:49.260 --> 00:29:52.660 The document is called Extrasensory Perception and telekinesis, 757 00:29:52.900 --> 00:29:54.069 the ComSec Threat. 758 00:29:54.469 --> 00:29:56.859 It reviews some extremely strange research, 759 00:29:57.030 --> 00:29:59.290 including experiments by a polygraph expert 760 00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:01.170 named Cleve Baxter. 761 00:30:01.459 --> 00:30:02.670 Back in 1966, 762 00:30:02.819 --> 00:30:05.569 Baxter hooked a plant up to a lie detector test 763 00:30:05.750 --> 00:30:09.010 and recorded a reaction when he imagined burning one of its leaves. 764 00:30:09.310 --> 00:30:11.989 He believed the plant had somehow sensed his intention, 765 00:30:12.270 --> 00:30:15.910 so naturally he kept experimenting instead of apologizing to the plant. 766 00:30:16.189 --> 00:30:19.089 Baxter later claimed that the plant reacted when people 767 00:30:19.310 --> 00:30:21.449 they were connected to became distressed. 768 00:30:21.777 --> 00:30:24.017 He expanded those experiments to human cells, 769 00:30:24.098 --> 00:30:24.417 eggs, 770 00:30:24.427 --> 00:30:25.378 and even yogurt. 771 00:30:25.618 --> 00:30:26.098 At one point, 772 00:30:26.177 --> 00:30:28.258 he attached electrodes to yogurt 773 00:30:28.417 --> 00:30:32.637 and looked for changes while people experienced emotional reactions nearby. 774 00:30:32.937 --> 00:30:36.128 In case you've ever felt judged by the contents of your refrigerator, 775 00:30:36.417 --> 00:30:40.517 at least one researcher spent years pursuing the idea that the yogurt really was 776 00:30:40.647 --> 00:30:41.468 paying attention. 777 00:30:41.697 --> 00:30:45.238 Another person featured in the archived communication security paper 778 00:30:45.368 --> 00:30:46.128 was Yuri Geller, 779 00:30:46.218 --> 00:30:48.317 the famous psychic who became known for 780 00:30:48.537 --> 00:30:48.978 bending. 781 00:30:49.115 --> 00:30:51.666 spoons and claiming he could do things with his mind 782 00:30:51.666 --> 00:30:54.235 that the rest of us apparently needed hands for. 783 00:30:54.365 --> 00:30:56.365 Researchers at Stanford Research Institute 784 00:30:56.645 --> 00:30:59.225 put him through tests involving hidden targets and dice. 785 00:30:59.515 --> 00:31:02.015 Some researchers said his answers beat the odds, 786 00:31:02.206 --> 00:31:05.276 and the reports treated those claims as evidence worth examining. 787 00:31:05.485 --> 00:31:09.526 But the CIA archive also contains critical materials of Geller's methods 788 00:31:09.725 --> 00:31:11.605 because a man who can fool the audience 789 00:31:11.806 --> 00:31:15.395 is a very different problem from a man who can read a locked file cabinet. 790 00:31:15.645 --> 00:31:16.296 Then the report 791 00:31:16.404 --> 00:31:18.313 Moves to a woman named Olga Worrell, 792 00:31:18.593 --> 00:31:21.213 whose claimed abilities were even more difficult to explain. 793 00:31:21.673 --> 00:31:22.673 In 1974, 794 00:31:22.833 --> 00:31:23.634 2 researchers, 795 00:31:23.744 --> 00:31:25.663 Robert Miller and Philip Reinhardt, 796 00:31:25.833 --> 00:31:28.274 studied whether Worrell could affect particles 797 00:31:28.274 --> 00:31:30.673 suspended inside a sealed cloud chamber. 798 00:31:30.913 --> 00:31:31.894 The cloud chamber 799 00:31:32.073 --> 00:31:34.274 makes many tiny particle trails visible, 800 00:31:34.354 --> 00:31:37.144 and according to the study described in the intelligence paper, 801 00:31:37.433 --> 00:31:39.984 something unusual happened when she concentrated on it. 802 00:31:40.154 --> 00:31:42.673 The researchers described changes inside the chamber, 803 00:31:43.264 --> 00:31:43.644 even though 804 00:31:43.901 --> 00:31:44.692 never touched it. 805 00:31:44.901 --> 00:31:46.661 And because a psychic influencing a nearby 806 00:31:46.661 --> 00:31:49.472 scientific instrument apparently wasn't ambitious enough, 807 00:31:49.822 --> 00:31:52.891 the researchers explored whether distance changed the effect. 808 00:31:53.141 --> 00:31:56.121 The account said she was able to produce an apparent response 809 00:31:56.381 --> 00:31:58.171 while roughly 600 miles away. 810 00:31:58.342 --> 00:32:01.052 If you were a Cold War intelligence officer reading that claim, 811 00:32:01.302 --> 00:32:03.862 your first thought was probably that no secure 812 00:32:03.862 --> 00:32:05.732 facility in the world had enough locks. 813 00:32:05.982 --> 00:32:07.062 The claims are outrageous, 814 00:32:07.141 --> 00:32:08.602 but the paperwork presented them 815 00:32:08.991 --> 00:32:10.952 alongside laboratory equipment named. 816 00:32:11.050 --> 00:32:13.150 Researchers and experimental results. 817 00:32:13.449 --> 00:32:16.719 Gives the whole thing the appearance of serious scientific investigation. 818 00:32:17.449 --> 00:32:20.760 Worrell's story was also covered outside intelligence circles, 819 00:32:21.050 --> 00:32:24.150 but the experiments never established a repeatable psychic method 820 00:32:24.530 --> 00:32:26.469 that intelligence agencies could deploy. 821 00:32:26.650 --> 00:32:28.089 But the biggest military question 822 00:32:28.089 --> 00:32:30.869 in this extraordinary communications security report 823 00:32:31.109 --> 00:32:34.949 was what happens if human consciousness can interfere with a computer 824 00:32:35.130 --> 00:32:38.109 or steal information directly from another person's mind. 825 00:32:38.699 --> 00:32:41.369 The author went straight to nuclear command and control, 826 00:32:41.619 --> 00:32:44.000 which is a perfectly reasonable place to start 827 00:32:44.140 --> 00:32:46.619 if you're already having a very unreasonable afternoon. 828 00:32:46.890 --> 00:32:50.400 In one set of Princeton experiments cited by the reference, 829 00:32:50.900 --> 00:32:53.739 researchers studied volunteers trying to influence a 830 00:32:53.739 --> 00:32:56.489 random number generator through mental concentration. 831 00:32:56.619 --> 00:32:56.979 The original 832 00:32:57.165 --> 00:32:59.244 The account describes about 90 people 833 00:32:59.474 --> 00:33:02.255 participating in roughly 2.5 million trials. 834 00:33:02.505 --> 00:33:06.285 The researchers reported a tiny statistical departure from chance 835 00:33:06.525 --> 00:33:08.844 on the order of a single altered bit 836 00:33:09.025 --> 00:33:10.785 for every 10,000 bits generated. 837 00:33:10.864 --> 00:33:12.685 So if you're thinking these people were 838 00:33:12.785 --> 00:33:15.244 shutting down computers using the force. 839 00:33:15.630 --> 00:33:18.209 The actual reported results was a computer producing 840 00:33:18.209 --> 00:33:20.810 a very slightly different string of numbers. 841 00:33:21.189 --> 00:33:21.459 Later, 842 00:33:21.709 --> 00:33:24.270 researchers reviewed similar experiments and debated whether 843 00:33:24.270 --> 00:33:26.819 the statistical patterns represented any real effect. 844 00:33:27.030 --> 00:33:29.630 The results never established any dependable way 845 00:33:29.630 --> 00:33:31.339 to alter computers with your thoughts. 846 00:33:31.630 --> 00:33:34.150 But the intelligence-related paper carried the idea 847 00:33:34.150 --> 00:33:37.020 into some pretty spectacular military scenarios. 848 00:33:37.270 --> 00:33:38.520 Can you imagine somebody has 849 00:33:38.645 --> 00:33:41.306 Secret codes needed to authenticate a nuclear order. 850 00:33:41.605 --> 00:33:44.326 Normally those codes are protected by layers of security. 851 00:33:44.485 --> 00:33:45.666 The report argued that 852 00:33:45.806 --> 00:33:47.745 a genuinely gifted psychic 853 00:33:47.885 --> 00:33:49.625 might bypass those protections 854 00:33:49.806 --> 00:33:52.526 by extracting the information from somebody who knew it. 855 00:33:52.725 --> 00:33:54.276 It also discussed the possibility of 856 00:33:54.276 --> 00:33:56.625 interfering with computer systems through alleged 857 00:33:56.965 --> 00:33:58.355 psychokinetic effects. 858 00:33:58.526 --> 00:34:00.755 And the proposed defenses were just as bizarre, 859 00:34:00.786 --> 00:34:01.306 I think. 860 00:34:01.501 --> 00:34:04.421 The report discussed mediation and even certain religious 861 00:34:04.421 --> 00:34:07.881 rituals as possible ways of reducing psychic influence. 862 00:34:08.101 --> 00:34:09.882 It didn't identify any kind of 863 00:34:10.101 --> 00:34:11.402 military countermeasure, 864 00:34:11.451 --> 00:34:14.210 and there was no demonstrated attack to defend against. 865 00:34:14.460 --> 00:34:16.581 I'm imagining the briefing where an officer 866 00:34:16.581 --> 00:34:19.201 explains that the new cybersecurity protocol involves 867 00:34:19.541 --> 00:34:20.342 stronger encryption, 868 00:34:20.501 --> 00:34:21.652 fewer USB drives, 869 00:34:21.661 --> 00:34:24.342 and everyone in command center attending an exorcism. 870 00:34:24.739 --> 00:34:29.489 The thing I keep coming back to after reading these CIA files is that the CIA 871 00:34:29.780 --> 00:34:31.958 actually invented a reality check card 872 00:34:32.179 --> 00:34:34.540 to teach its own officers in that card game 873 00:34:34.540 --> 00:34:37.478 how to challenge operations that make no sense. 874 00:34:37.699 --> 00:34:40.649 And after seeing what happened inside some of these real programs, 875 00:34:40.899 --> 00:34:44.199 I think the government could use a few more of those reality checks. 876 00:34:44.620 --> 00:34:45.540 If you want to learn more, 877 00:34:45.699 --> 00:34:49.159 check out this video on the Pentagon's top secret shady black budget 878 00:34:49.370 --> 00:34:51.129 worth billions and billions of dollars. 879 00:34:51.350 --> 00:34:52.290 I'm Chris Cappy, 880 00:34:52.300 --> 00:34:53.739 and I'll see you in the next transmission.