Non-Lethality: John B. Alexander, The Pentagon's Penguin

Non-Lethality: John B. Alexander, The Pentagon's Penguin


by Armen Victorian

from MindControlForums Website



The following article which appeared in the U.K. magazine, LOBSTER, in June 1993, is reproduced at the request of the author. (LOBSTER magazine, which specializes in intelligence and conspiracy matters, is published twice yearly.)

’Non-Lethality: John B. Alexander, The Pentagon’s Penguin’, was republished in Nexus (October/November, 1993) as ’Psychic Warfare and Non-Lethal Weapons’ under Henry Azadehdel’s ’hobby’ name of Armen Victorian



On April 22, 1993, both BBC1 and BBC2 showed on their main evening news bulletins a rather lengthy piece concerning America’s latest development in weaponry - the non-lethal weapons concept. David Shukman, BBC Defense Correspondent interviewed (Retired) U.S. Army Colonel John B. Alexander and Janet Morris, two of the main proponents of the concept (1). The concept of non-lethal weapons is not new. Non-lethal weapons have been used by the intelligence, police and defense establishments in the past (2).



Several western governments have used a variety of non-lethal weapons in a more discreet and covert manner. It seems that the U.S. government is about to take the first step towards their open use.


The current interest in the concept of non-lethal weapons began about a decade ago with John Alexander. In December 1980 he published an article in the U.S. Army’s journal, MILITARY REVIEW, "The New Mental Battlefield," referring to claims that telepathy could be used to interfere with the brain’s electrical activity. This caught the attention of senior Army generals who encouraged him to pursue what they termed "soft option kill" technologies.

After retiring from the Army in 1988, Alexander joined the Los Alamos National Laboratories and began working with Janet Morris, the Research Director of the U.S. Global Strategy Council (USGSC), chaired by Dr Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA (3). I examine the background of Janet Morris and John Alexander in more detail below.

Throughout 1990 the USGSC lobbied the main national laboratories, major defense contractors and industries, retired senior military and intelligence officers. The result was the creation of a Non-lethality Policy Review Group, led by Major General Chris S. Adams, USAF (retd.) former Chief of Staff, Strategic Air Command (4). They already have the support of Senator Sam Nunn, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to Janet Morris, the military attaché at the Russian Embassy has contacted USGSC about the possibility of converting military hardware to a non-lethal capability.

In 1991 Janet Morris issued a number of papers giving more detailed information about USGSC’s concept of non-lethal weapons (5). Shortly after, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, VA, published a detailed draft report on the subject titled "Operations Concept for Disabling Measures." The report included over twenty projects in which John Alexander is currently involved at the Los Alamos national Laboratories.

In a memorandum dated April 10, 1991, titled "Do we need a Non-lethal Defense initiative?" Paul Wolfwitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, wrote to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney,

"A U.S. lead in non-lethal technologies will increase our options and reinforce our position in the post-Cold War world. Our Research and Development efforts must be increased."




HOW LETHAL IS NON-LETHAL?

To support their non-lethal weapons concept, Janet Morris argues that while,

"war will always be terrible... a world power deserving its reputation for humane action should pioneer the principles of non-lethal defense (6)." In "Defining a non-lethal strategy," she seeks to establish a doctrine for the use of non-lethal weapons by the U.S. in crisis "at home or abroad in a life serving fashion."

She totally disregards the offensive, lethal aspects inherent in some of the weapons in question, or their misuse, should they become available to "rogue" nations. Despite her arguments that non-lethal weapons should serve the U.S.’s interests,

"at home and abroad by projecting power without indiscriminately taking lives or destroying property (7)," she admits that "casualties cannot be avoided (8)."

Closer examination of the types of weapons to be used as non-lethal invalidates her assertions about their non-lethality. According to her white paper, the areas where non-lethal weapons could be useful are,

"regional and low intensity conflict (adventurism, insurgency, ethnic violence, terrorism, narco- trafficking, domestic crime) (9)."

She believes that,

"by identifying and requiring a new category of non-lethal weapons, tactics and strategic planning" the U.S. can reshape its military capability, "to meet the already identifiable threats" that they might face in a multipolar world "where American interests are globalized and American presence widespread (10)."




THE POTENTIAL INVENTORY

Janet Morris’ "White Paper" recommends "two types of life-conserving technologies":

ANTI-MATERIAL NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES

To destroy or impair electronics, or in other ways stop mechanical systems from functioning. Amongst current technologies from which this category of non- lethal weapons would or could be chosen are:

Chemical and biological weapons for their anti-materiel agents "which do not significantly endanger life or the environment, or anti-personnel agents which have no permanent effects (11)."

Laser blinding systems to incapacitate the electronic sensors, or optics, i.e. light detection and ranging. Already the Army Infantry School is developing a one-man portable and operated laser weapons system known as the Infantry Self-Defense System. The U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineer Center (ARDEC), is also engaged in the development of non-lethal weapons under their program called "Low Collateral Damage Munitions" (LCDM). The LCDM is trying to develop technologies leading to weapons capable of dazzling and incapacitating missiles, armored vehicles and personnel.

Non-lethal electromagnetic technologies.

Non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse weapons (12). As General Norman Schwartzkopf has told the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, one such weapons stationed in space with a wide-area-pulse capacity has the ability to fry enemy electronics. But what would be the fate of enemy personnel in such a scenario? In a join project with the Los Alamos National Laboratories and with technical support from the Army’s Harry Diamond Laboratories, ARDEC are developing High Power Microwave (HPM) Projectiles. According to ARDEC, the Diamond lab has already "completed a radio frequency effects analysis on a representative target set" for (HPM).

Among the chemical agents, so-called super caustics - "Millions of times more caustic than hydrofluoric acid (13)" - are prime candidates. An artillery round could deliver jellied super-acids which could destroy the optics of heavily armored vehicles or tanks, vision blocks or glass, and "could be used to silently destroy key weapons systems (14)."

On less lethal aspects the use of net-like entanglements for SEAL teams, or "stealthy" metal boats with low or no radar signature, "for night actions, or any sea borne or come-ashore stealthy scenario" are under consideration (15). More colorful concepts are the use of chemical metal embitterment, often called liquid metal embitterment and anti-materiel polymers which would be used in aerosol dispersal systems, spreading chemical adhesives or lubricants (i.e. Teflon-based lubricants) on enemy equipment from a distance.




ANTI-PERSONNEL NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES

Hand-held lasers which are meant "to dazzle," could also cause the eyeball to explode and to blind the target.

Isotropic radiators - explosively driven munitions, capable of generating very bright omni-directional light, with similar effects to laser guns.

High-power microwaves (HPM) - U.S. Special Operations command already has that capability within their grasp as a portable microwave weapon (16). As Myron L. Wolbarsht, a Duke University opthalamist and expert in laser weapons stated:

"U.S. Special Forces can quietly cut enemy communications but also can cook internal organs (17)."

Another candidate is Infrasound - acoustic beams. In conjunction with the Scientific Applications and Research Associates (SARA) of Huntingdon, California, ARDEC and Los Alamos laboratories are busy "developing a high power, very low frequency acoustic beam weapons." They are also looking into methods of projecting non-diffracting (i.e. non-penetrating) high frequency acoustic bullets. ARDEC scientists are also looking into methods of using pulsed chemical lasers. This class of lasers could project,

"a hot, high pressure plasma in the air in front of a target surface, creating a blast wave that will result in variable but controlled effects on materiel and personnel."

Infrasound. Already some governments have used it as a means of crowd control - e.g. France.

Very low frequency (VLF) sound (20-35 KHz), or low-frequency RF modulations can cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal pains.

"Some very low frequency sound generators, in certain frequency ranges, can cause the disruption of human organs and, at high power levels, can crumble masonry (18)."



The CIA had a similar program in 1978 called Operation Pique, which included bouncing radio or microwave signals off the ionosphere to affect mental functions of people in selected areas, including Eastern European nuclear installations (19).




JOHN ALEXANDER

The entire non-lethal weapon concept opens up a new Pandora’s Box of unknown consequences. The main personality behind it is retired Colonel John B. Alexander. Born in New York in 1937, he spent part of his career as a Commander of Green Berets Special Forces in Vietnam, led Cambodian mercenaries behind enemy lines, and took part in a number of clandestine programs, including Phoenix. He currently holds the post of Director of Non-lethal Programs in the Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Alexander obtained a BaS from the University of Nebraska and an MA from Pepperdine University. In 1980 he was awarded a PhD from Walden University (20) for his thesis "To determine whether or not significant changes in spirituality occur in persons who attended a Kubler-Ross life/death transition workshop during the period June through February 1979." His dissertation committee was chaired by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

He has long been interested in what used to be regarded as "fringe" areas. In 1971, while a Captain in the infantry at Schofield Barracks, Honolulu, he was diving in the Bemini Islands looking for the lost continent of Atlantis. He was an official representative for the Silva mind control organization and a lecturer on Precataclysmic Civilizations (21).



Alexander is also a past President and a Board member of the International Association for Near Death Studies; and, with his former wife, Jan Northup, he helped Dr C.B. Scott Jones perform ESP experiments with dolphins (22).





PSI-TECH

Retired Major General Albert N. Stubblebine (Former Director of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command) and Alexander are on the board of a "remote viewing" company called PSI-TECH. The company also employs Major Edward Dames (ex Defense Intelligence Agency), Major David Morehouse (ex 82nd Airborne Division), and Ron Blackburn (former microwave scientist and specialist at Kirkland Air Force Base).



PSI-TECH has received several government contracts. For example, during the Gulf War crisis the Department for Defense asked it to use remote viewing to locate Saddam’s Scud missiles sites. Last year (1992) the FBI sought PSI-TECH’s assistance to locate a kidnapped Exxon executive (23).

With Major Richard Groller and Janet Morris as his co-authors, Alexander published THE WARRIOR’S EDGE in 1990 (24). The book describes in detail various unconventional methods which would enable the practitioner to acquire "human excellence and optimum performance" and thereby become an invincible warrior (25). The purpose of the book is "to unlock the door to the extraordinary human potentials inherent in each of us. To do this, we, like governments around the world , must take a fresh look at non-traditional methods of affecting reality. We must raise human consciousness of the potential power of the individual body/mind system - the power to manipulate reality. We must be willing to retake control of our past, present, and ultimately, our future (26)."

Alexander is a friend of Vice President Al Gore Jnr, their relationship dating back to 1983 when Gore was in Alexander’s Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP "presented to selected general officers and Senior Executive Service members (27)" a set of techniques to modify behavior patterns (28). Among the first generals to take the course was the then Lieutenant General Maxwell Thurman, who later went on to receive his fourth star and become Vice-Chief of Staff at the Army and Commander Southern Command (29). Among other senior participants were Tom Downey and Major General Stubblebine, former Director of the Army Intelligence Security Command.

"In 1983, the Jedi master (from the Star Wars movie - author) provided an image and a name for the Jei Project (30)."

Jedi Project’s aim was to seek and "construct teachable models of behaviorable/physical excellence using unconventional means (31)." According to Alexander the Jedi Project was to be a follow-up to Neuro-Linguistic Programming skills. By using the influence of friends such as Major General Stubblebine, who was then head of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, he managed to fund Jedi. In reality the concept was old hat, re-christened by Alexander.



The original idea which was to show how "human will power and human concentration affect performance more than any other single factor (32)" using NLP skills, was the brainchild of three independent people; Fritz Erikson, a Gestalt therapist, Virginia Satir, a family therapist and Erick Erickson, a hypnotist.






JANET MORRIS

Janet Morris, co-author of THE WARRIOR’S EDGE, is best known as a science fiction writer but has been a member of the New York Academy of Sciences since 1980 and is a member of the Association for Electronic Defense. She is also the Research Director of the U.S. Global Strategy Council (USGSC). She was initiated into the Japanese art of bioenergetics, Joh-re, the Indonesian brotherhood of Subud, and graduated from the Silva course in advanced mind control.



She has been conducting remote viewing experiments for fifteen years. She worked on a research project investigating the effects of mind on probability in computer systems. Her husband, Robert Morris, is a former judge and a key member of the American Security Council (33).

In a recent telephone conversation with the author (34), Janet Morris confirmed John Alexander’s involvement in mind control and psychotronic projects in the Los Alamos National Laboratories. Alexander and his team have recently been working with Dr Igor Smirnov, a psychologist from the Moscow Institute of Psychocorrelations. They were invited to the U.S. after Janet Morris’ visit to Russia in 1991.



There she was shown the technique which was pioneered by the Russian Department of Psycho-Correction at Moscow Medical Academy. The Russians employ a technique to electronically analyze the human mind in order to influence it. They input subliminal command messages, using key words transmitted in "white noise" or music (35). Using an infrasound very low frequency-type transmission, the acoustic psycho-correction message is transmitted via bone conduction - ear plugs would not restrict the message.



To do that would require an entire body protection system. According to the Russians the subliminal messages by-pass the conscious level and are effective almost immediately.





C.B. SCOTT JONES

Jones is the former assistant to Senator Clairborne Pell (Democrat, Rhode Island). Scott Jones was a member of U.S. Naval Intelligence for 15 years, as well as Assistant Naval Attaché, New Delhi, India, in the 1960s. Jones has briefed the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee, and has testified before House and Senate Committees on intelligence matters.



After the navy he,

"worked in the private sector research and development community involved in the U.S. government sponsored projects for the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command."

He has been head of the Rockefeller Foundation for some time and chairs the American Society for Psychical Research (36).





BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Alexander and C.B. Jones are members of the AVIARY, a group of intelligence and Department of Defense officers and scientists with a brief to discredit any serious research in the UFO field. Each member of the Aviary bears a bird’s name. Jones is FALCON, John Alexander is PENGUIN.

One of their agents; a UFO researcher known as William Moore, who was introduced to John Alexander at a party in 1987 by Scott Jones, confessed in front of an audience at a conference held by the MUTUAL UFO NETWORK (MUFON) on July 1, 1989, in Las Vegas, how he was promised inside information by the senior members of the AVIARY in return for his obedience and service to them. He participated in the propagation and dissemination of disinformation fed to him by various members of the AVIARY.



He also confessed how he was instructed to target one particular individual, an electronics expert, Dr Paul Bennewitz, who had accumulated some UFO film footage and electronic signals which were taking place in 1980 over the Menzano Weapons Storage areas, at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. As a result of Moore’s involvement, coupled with some surreptitious entries and psychological techniques, Bennewitz ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

Just before the publication of my first paper unmasking two members of the AVIARY (37) I was visited by two of their members (MORNING DOVE and HAWK) who had travelled to the U.K. with a message from the senior ranks advising me not to go ahead with my expose. I rejected the proposal.

Immediately after the publication of that paper, and with the full knowledge that myself and a handful of colleagues knew the true identities of their members, John B. Alexander confessed that he was indeed a member of the AVIARY, nicknamed PENGUIN. The accuracy of our information was further confirmed to me by yet another member of the AVIARY, Ron Pandolphi, PELICAN. Pandolphi is a PhD in physics and works at the Rocket and Missile section of the Office of the Deputy Director of Science and Technology, CIA.

In his book, OUT THERE (38), the NEW YORK TIMES journalist Howard Blum refers to "a UFO Working Group" within the Defense Intelligence Agency. Despite DIA’s repeated denials (39), the existence of this working group has been confirmed to me by more than one member of the group itself, including an independent source in the Office of Naval Intelligence.



The majority of the group’s members are senior members of the AVIARY:

Dr Christopher Green (BLUEJAY) from the CIA (40)

Harold Puthoff (OWL) ex-NSA

Dr Jack Verona (RAVEN) (DoD, one of the initiators of the DIA’s Sleeping Beauty project which aimed to achieve battlefield superiority using mind-altering electromagnetic weaponry)

John Alexander (PENGUIN)

Ron Pandolphi (PELICAN)

The mysterious "Col. Harold E. Phillips" who appears in Blum’s OUT THERE is none other than John B. Alexander.

John Alexander’s position as the Program Manager for Contingency Missions of Conventional Defense Technology, Los Alamos National Laboratories, enabled him to exploit the Department of Defense’s Project RELIANCE "which encourages a search for all possible sources of existing and incipient technologies before developing new technology in-house (41)" to tap into a wide range of exotic topics, sometimes using defense contractors, e.g. McDonnel Douglas Aerospace.



I have several reports, some of which were compiled before his departure to the Los Alamos National Laboratories when he was with Army Intelligence, which show Alexander’s keen interest in any and every exotic subject:

UFOs

ESP

psychotronics

anti-gravity devices

near death experiments

psychology warfare

non-lethal weaponry

John Alexander utilizes the bank of information he has accumulated to try to develop psychotronic, psychological and mind weaponry. He began thinking about non-lethal weapons a decade ago in his paper "The New Mental Battlefield." He seems to want to become a "Master."



If he ever succeeds in this ambition the rest of us ordinary mortals had better watch out.





NOTES:

1. Letter dated 2 April, 1993, to author from Mrs Victoria Alexander.
2. The U.S. Army Chemical and Military Police used "Novel Effect Weapons" against the women protesters at the Greenham Common Base.
3. The United States Global Strategy Council is an independent think tank, incorporated in 1981. It focuses on long-range strategic issues. The founding members were Clare Boothe Luce, General Maxwell Taylor, General Albert Wedemeyer, Dr Ray Cline (Co-chair), Jeane Kirkpatrick (Co-chair), Morris Leibman, Henry luce III, J. William Middendorf II, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer USN (retd), General Richard Stillwell (retd), Dr Michael A. Daniles (President), Dr Dalton A. West (Executive Vice President). Its Research Directors were Dr Yona Alexander, Dr Roger Fontaine, Robert L. Katula and Janet Morris.
4. NONLETHAlITY: DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL POLICY AND EMPLOYING NONLETHAL MEANS IN A NEW STATEGIC ERA - a Project of the U.S. Global Strategy Council, 1991, p.4. Other staff members of the USGSC are Steve Trevino, Dr John B. Alexander and Chris Morris.
5. The USGSC has issued a wide variety of papers on the Nonlethal Weapons Concept. For example, IN SEARCH OF NONLETHAL STRATEGY (Janet Morris); NONLETHALITY: A GLOBAL STRATEGY - WHITE PAPER; NONLETHALITY BRIEFING SUPPLEMENT No.1; and NONLETHALITY IN THE OPERATIONAL CONTINUUM.
6. IN SEARCH OF A NONLETHAL STRATEGY, Janet Morris, p.1.
7. NONLETHALITY: A GLOBAL STRATEGY - WHITE PAPER, p.3. 8. IN SEARCH OF... P.3.
9. In the recent cult siege in Waco, Texas, a "nonlethal" technique, projecting sublimal messages, was used to influence David Kuresh - without effect.
10. NONLETHALITY: A GLOBAL STRATEGY - WHITE PAPER, p.2.
11. The computer data base compiled during the CIA/Army’s Project OFTEN, examining several thousand chemical compounds, during 1976-1973, is a most likely candidate for any chemical agents for nonlethal weapons.
12. The British MoD is already developing a "microwave bomb." Work on the weapon is going on at the Defence Research Agency at Farnborough, Hampshire. See SUNDAY TELEGRAPH September 27, 1992, partly reproduced in LOBSTER 24, p.14. The Royal Navy is already in possession of laser weapons which dazzle aircraft pilots. The Red Cross has called for them to be banned under the Geneva Convention because could permanently blind.
13. IN SEARCH OF A NONLETHAL STRATEGY, p.13.
14. Ibid.
15. The U.S. Navy, through its Project SEA SHADOW, has already developed a stealth boat. Like the Lockheed F117A, stealth fighter, it leaves no radar signature - BBC, Newsround, April 28, 1993.
16. Taped conversation with Janet Morris, March 1, 1993.
17. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, January 4, 1993.
18. IN SEARCH OF A NONLETHAL STRATEGY, p. 14.
19. REMOTE CONTROL TECHNOLOGY, Anna Keeler (FULL DISCLOSURE, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., 1989) p.11.
20. Walden University, 801 Anchor Road Drive, Naples, Fl. 33904, U.S.A. Walden University considers itself a non-traditional university and does not offer any undergraduate courses to its students.
21. Brad Steiger, MYSTERIES OF SPACE AND TIME (Prentice Hall, Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey) pp.72 and 3. The U.S. Army Command and General College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, issued this on Alexander’s career: "Colonel John B. Alexander, U.S. Army Retired, manages Antimateriel Technology at Los Alamos National Laboratories, Los Alamos, New Mexico. His military assignments included; Advanced Systems Concepts Office, Laboratory Command; manager, Technology Integration Office, Army Material Command; assistant deputy chief of staff, Technology Planning and Management, Army Material Command; and chief, Advanced Human Technology, Intelligence and Security Command."
22. Taped telephone conversation with Dr Scott Jones, August 17, 1992.
23. Taped telephone conversation with Maj. Edward Dames, June 27, 1992; and THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, December 1992, p.6.
24. THE WARRIOR’S EDGE, Col. John B. Alexander, Maj. Richard Groller and Janet Morris, (William Morrow Inc., New York, 1990).
25. Ibid. p.9.
26. Ibid. pp.9 and 10.
27. Ibid p.47.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid. pp.72 and 3.
31. Ibid. p.12.
32. Ibid. p. 13.
33. The American Security Council (ASC) Box 8, Boston, Virginia 22713, USA. ASC is militarist, anti-communist and right-wing. Formed in the mid 1950s, the Council acts as a right-wing think tank on foreign policy and lobbies for the expansion and strengthening of U.S. military forces. In 1985 the ASC had 330,000 members. See, for example, the entry for the ASC in THE RADICAL RIGHT: A WORLD DIRECTORY, compiled by Ciaran O Maolain (Longman, London 1987).
34. Taped telephone conversation with Janet Morris, March 1, 1993.
35. In 1989 a U.S. Department of Defense consultant and contractor explained to the author how he was asked to examine the possibility of devising operational methods of transmitting subliminal messages through the TV screen.
36. "Will the Real Scott Jones please stand up?" - unpublished paper by George Hansen and Robert Durant, February 20, 1990, pp.4 and 5.
37. "The Birds" Armen Victorian, in U.K. UFO Magazine, Vol.11 No.3, July/August 1992, pp 4-7.
38. OUT THERE, Howard Blum (Simon and Schuster, London 1990) pp.44, 46-51, 55-57.
39. DIA’s letters to author dated July 12, 1991, July 8, 1992 and December 18, 1992.
40. Dr Chistopher "Kit" Green, BLUEJAY, has admitted that the CIA has compiled over 30,000 files on UFOs, 200 of which are extremely interesting. Green was a key CIA member in examining the UFO problem for several years.
41. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Institutional Plan Fiscal Year 1992 - Fiscal Year 1997, p.14.