In Our Heart of Hearts - a case story
Steen Hjortsoe
The paramount national security interest of avoiding war with an external
enemy is an important piece in the interpretation of the puzzling series of
fatal 'accidents' and 'suicides' (12 - 25 experts died in mysterious
circumstances from August 1986 to September 1988) among radar scientists and
computer specialists employed in British companies serving the defence
industry. When the Guardian started reporting the deaths extensively in its
columns, several high-placed British officials felt urged to note in public
that obviously there was mischief brewing here and one cannot but agree with
them: it would be strange indeed if this high number of alleged suicides and
fatal accidents within two years in such a limited group of scientists could
be assigned to mere coincidence. Of course it is far more probable that
there is a link, some connecting pattern between the tragic deaths of these
in most cases comparatively young men, which the Guardian surveyed as
follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Vimal Dajibhai, 24, engineer. MARCONI Underwater Systems. Body found August
1986, under Glifton suspension bridge, Bristol. Verdict: open.
Ashad Sharif, 26, MARCONI analyst. Found dead in car with rope tied round
his neck to a tree. October, 1986. Verdict: suicide.
Victor Moore, 46, design engineer. MARCONI Space and Defense Systems. Took
drug overdose. February 1987. Verdict suicide.
David Sands, 37, project manager. Easams (MARCONI sister company). Car
crashed at 80 mph into disused café. March 1987. Verdict: open.
Trevor Knight, 52, engineer. MARCONI Defence Systems. Died, carbon monoxide
poisoning, March 1988. Verdict: suicide.
Brigadier John Ferry, 60, marketing manager, MARCONI. Found dead in flat.
August 1988. Verdict: open.
Professor Keith Bowden, 46, computer scientist, Essex University. Car
plunged into disused railway line. March 1987. Verdict: open.
Richard Pugh, 37, MoD consultant. Found dead with plastic bag over head.
January 1987. Verdict: accident.
John Brittan, 52, scientist. Royal Military College of Science. Found in
parked car with engine running. January 1987. Verdict: accident.
Peter Peapell, 46, senior lecturer, RMCS. Found beneath car. February 1987.
Verdict: open.
Alister Beckham, 50, software engineer. Plessey. Found dead in garden shed.
August 1988. Verdict open.
Andrew Hall, 33, engineering manager. British Aerospace. Found dead in car
with hosepipe connected to exhaust. September 1988. Verdict: suicide.
The first attempt at an explanation that one can think of, that the KGB
might be involved, was aired at an early moment in the British press, but
keeping in mind the mutual shrinking from brinkmanship and escalation of war
I believe we hold our ground when we say that this is one of the least
probable possibilities.
A theory of subliminal messaging as the trigger instigating the 12 men to
commit suicide was examined in the British periodical Computer News. Its
editor, John Cheeseman reports that the magazine was threatened under the
Official Secrets Act. 9) The theory he proposed was that the subliminal
messages were embedded in, and between the texts on the monitor of the
victims' workstations.
Neither the idea that the origin of these messages could be spatially remote
while proceeding in real time, nor that the subliminal messages themselves
could be received directly by the human ear and brain through microwave
hearing appear to have crossed the minds of the editors of Computer News.
But then, is it at all possible to suggest an intelligent and even-tempered
scientist to commit suicide in the course of hours or a few days? Maybe this
is possible, but only in rare 'lucky' cases?
Based on the research review by the American psychiatrist Robert W.
Firestone, 10) we are able to give an unambiguous and, I believe, very
surprising and maybe hard-to-believe answer to that question.
It is the rule that, expert subliminal suggestions if not defended against,
can suggest the idea of committing suicide to every grown-up person within a
few hours or days. That a person would be capable of resisting such
suggestions during several days would constitute a rare exception.
According to Firestone, the 'voice', a partly conscious thought process,
refers according to an internal system of hostile thoughts and attitudes
that are running counter to the interests of the self. It may reach a
life-threatening expression in suicidal behaviour. The process of
'listening' to the voice prompts an individual to negative and
self-defeating behaviour. Firestone adduces clinical evidence to the effect
that the behaviour of potential suicide victims is conditioned by a feeling
of being tortured by a subliminal voice or thought process that is degrading
to the self. Under certain conditions, this system of hostile thoughts
becomes progressively ascendant until it finally prevails against thought
processes of rational self-interest. Examples of the self-punishing thought
process are known to every one of us in the style of talking to ourselves
commonly referred to as an 'inner dialogue'. For instance, after making a
mistake which of us does not recognise exclamations like, "you clumsy fool!
Look at what you did! Can't you do anything right ?"
Normally, only fragments of these self-recriminations become conscious, but
they are only the tip of an iceberg. They are isolated phrases from a
well-developed underlying system of destructive thoughts and derogatory
attitudes toward the self which the healthy person, if his mental balance is
not tampered with, is able to control.
Firestone's work amounts to a description of a preformed trigger situation.
What is lacking to complete the picture of the - almost - perfect crime is a
message agent, another person's voice intruding subliminally from outside.
However, this raises a new question. Does such an attempt to deceive another
person to mistake the voice of an intruder for his own inner voice have any
practical chances of success at all? The answer is regrettably that a
sufficiently low sound intensity, an individual has normally little or no
direct introspective access to the origin of his own behaviour, in terms of
precise verbal stimuli. (11-12)
To make things worse, as far as the perception of verbal messages vehicled
by microwaves is at all audible, i.e. superliminal, the sounds appear
subjectively to originate from within or just behind the head. (13) It is
hardly too difficult for the military psychologist, while always avoiding to
let his intruding voice stand out, to transfer his voice's fake quality of
coming from the 'right' place (within the victim's head) to the subliminal
state, i.e. suggesting in the victim an illusory experience of being moved
by his (the victim's) own, hardly discernible, but authentically felt, inner
voice.
For more than a decade, the British military intelligence have pinned their
faith on the unavailability of evidence of these serial killings. And for
just as long, the British society has accepted that the burden of proof lies
with the general public, not with the military intelligence community. It is
tolerated that military intelligence are entitled to kill people without
giving a reason to the general public. But it is not just the judgment of
military intelligence that is accepted, it is also the system itself.
The system should not be accepted, but rejected and a new public order ought
to be instigated. High-placed officials protest and we know there is
evidence to be found, since there are killers still alive whose identity is
known within the British military intelligence. I would suggest that this
episode together with countless other perpetrations could be adopted as part
of the revolutionary programme of the British people at the revelation after
Doomsday. I suggest that they politely ask British military intelligence to
hand over all the facts of this case - and of a couple of other cases too -
maybe giving the procedure a twist if this absurd bowing-and-scraping comedy
should result in a polite refusal or standard irrelevant talk at the first
attempt. To forestall enquiries about my being entitled to this kind of
proposal, I should perhaps add that free-for-all sex games also have been a
favourite of British MI's, which in collusion with Danish military
'sexologists' have carried out physical torture and sexual violence against
thousands of my Danish compatriots. I am against that.
The change of procedure I suggest is revolutionary. It may also be the best
thing which has happened to the British since they bravely contributed to
Hitler's downfall and liberated my country from the German occupation.
References:
1. The Guardian: 06 March 87: MP inquires into double Death mystery/Bristol
case of Ashad Sharif and Vimal Dajibhai.
2. The Guardian: 21 March 87: 'Secret' deaths remain a puzzle / Bristol
police investigation into suicide of two computer specialists.
3. The Guardian: 01 April 87: Radar scientist dies in 'car bomb' crash.
4. The Guardian: 02 April 87: Death of three scientists coincidence, say
police: MP demands official inquiry into 'bizarre' case.
5. The Guardian: 21 May 87: Interpol to hunt for scientist.
6. The Guardian: 23 May 87: Open verdict on satellite scientist's car crash.
7. The Guardian: 28 March 88: Researcher's death brings total to 12.
8. The Guardian: 08 October 88: New inquiry launched in computer death
mystery.
9. Collins, Tony: Open Verdict. An Account of 25 Mysterious Deaths in the
Defence Industry.London, Sphere Books, 1990.
10. Firestone, Robert W.: The "Inner Voice" and Suicide. Psychotherapy, Vol.
23, No. 3, Fall 1986.
11. Nisbett, R.E. & Wilson, T.D.: Telling more than we can know: Verbal
reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 1977, 7. pp 231-259.
12. Nisbett, R.E. & Bellows, Nancy: Verbal reports about causal influences
on social judgments:Private access versus public theories. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 35, No. 9, September 1977.
13. Chou, Chung-Kwang, Guy, Arthur W. & Galambos, Robert: Auditory
Perception of radio frequency electromagnetic fields. Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 71, No. 6, June 1982.
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