Monitoring and Manipulation: The Realities of “Big Brother” and Mind Control!

Concepts such as “Big Brother” – being watched and monitored by “The State” – and mind-control, to many people, are notions that one will find in science-fiction thrillers, but not in real life. The fact is, though, that both are very real parts of our collective existence, with millions of dollars (or equivalent currencies) spent researching and investigating such ideas by intelligence agencies and even corporations worldwide. Moreover, both have been employed for some time, on various levels and for various purposes.

Before we explore the very real world of mind control and how it is happening, in various ways, each and every day, we will turn our attention to how populations are monitored, whether for nefarious-like means or (so-called) legitimate data-gathering.

Perhaps a good place to start would be with the revelations from Edward Snowden in 2013, who leaked thousands of highly classified National Security Agency (NSA) files to several journalists of various newspapers, including The Guardian in the United Kingdom, and The Washington Post in the United States. Needless to say, Snowden became one of America’s most wanted people overnight and is still considered by some as a “traitor” to the country today. Ultimately, he faced charges from the US Department of Justice under the Espionage Act of 1917, which also included theft of United States property. In a further twist, although he made the revelations while in Hong Kong, it was while Snowden was in Moscow (Sheremetyevo Airport to be precise) when his United States passport was revoked as a result of the leaked documents. Eventually, Snowden was granted asylum in Russia (after having previously arranged asylum in Ecuador, where is traveling to at the time his passport was revoked).

Of particular interest to us here are the claims in the documents that various intelligence agencies were involved in the illegal collection of data of not only American citizens but also of other populations around the world. And this data collection included everything from phone calls, email correspondence, and even a person’s Internet search history. Moreover, according to the files, the NSA was the real driver behind this data collection, although the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) of the United Kingdom also played an active role in such accumulation of information. It wasn’t merely citizens that these agencies spied upon, with various world governments being subject to identical data collection methods, including countries that were on “friendly terms” with both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Of course, how accurate these documents are, including in what context they should be taken, remains a talking point for many. However, many of the details match nicely with what many conspiracy researchers have been claiming for years, not least how such information was used, in some instances, for international blackmail. The NSA, for example, had a particular interest in the Internet search histories of world leaders and other high-ranking political leaders and influencers, particularly, as bizarre as it might seem, any search history revolving around pornographic websites. Much like the CIA often used such blackmail methods in the 1950s and 1960s, it would appear that the NSA had such an interest in the questionable search histories of world leaders in the hope that they could be blackmailed for a variety of reasons at a future date. Rather than just being opportunistic in their efforts to use blackmail to exercise international control, Snowden hinted heavily that the agency actively looked to lead “persons of interest” into compromising situations in the hope of using said situations as a blackmail tool.

We will return to the NSA and some of the claims that swirl around their activities shortly. However, whatever we might think of Edward Snowden and his actions, the fact is, authorities gathering data on their respective populations is very real – and this information gathering and population monitoring takes place in a variety of ways.

Let’s take the United Kingdom and how its population is “monitored” for just a moment. According to figures released by the British Security Industry Authority (BSIA) in 2013, there were 5.9 million closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in operation. Just over a decade later, that figure had risen to more than 20 million such cameras. What’s more, the United Kingdom is far from unique, with almost every other country in the world having a similar CCTV presence. It should perhaps not surprise us that this technology is only increasing, both in quantity and quality. China, for example, has used facial recognition technology for years (with many other countries, to varying degrees, using similar technology) and, according to reports, can track any of its citizens from afar in a busy, moving crowd. While there is no doubt that such technology can aid in hunting down genuine criminals, there are perhaps understandable concerns about the increase of such technology as well as the potential for it to be abused.

In fact, with this last point in mind, it is worth highlighting the warnings of former British police officer Tony Porter, who, in 2015, stated that many police forces were abusing number plate recognition technology regularly. Officially, this technology is primarily used to track down uninsured drivers. Porter, however, stated that the software is regularly used as “one of the largest data gatherers in the world!”

It isn’t just visual technology that is increasingly being used. In 2012, Russian company SpeechPro claimed that their software could not only record millions of voices, but could later match those voices to their audio database – and could do this within a matter of seconds. What’s more, such technology is increasingly being utilized throughout the world and looks set to only increase, and of course, with such drastic rollouts, the potential for abuse also increases.   

There are many other ways that the powers that be keep tabs on the general public. Today in our contemporary world, the vast majority of purchases, however small, tend to be made with a debit or credit card. Of course, this not only produces a record of every single purchase, but transactions can also be viewed in real time. If we think about that for a moment, this means that before you have even left the store you have been shopping in, someone, potentially thousands of miles away, can see exactly what you have bought only moments earlier. There is also another side to this: the seemingly persistent drive to become a “cashless” society. What might happen, for example, if “the system” suddenly refused your credit or debit card for any number of reasons? Without cash, that transaction can’t be completed. Ultimately, while unlikely, there is the possibility that a person could be starved out of existence simply by freezing and refusing to release digital currency. There is also the fact that no purchases would be private, whatever those purchases might be, and for whatever reason, a person might wish to keep them private.

It is also worth highlighting seemingly harmless things, such as supermarket loyalty cards, which send information on every one of our purchases back to a databank every time we use them. This information is used in a variety of ways, not least to suit “special offers” directly to each customer based on their shopping habits. However, this data is also shared with companies connected to governments, who then use it to shape advice issued to the general public for “public health” purposes. While this might seem innocent enough, to some people, it is another example of “Big Brother” looking to control every aspect of our lives.  

Even the Internet, which has undoubtedly made life easier for many people, has presented another opportunity for the powers that be to collect information and monitor us. If we take smartphones, for example, which record every move we make, and keeps that data for at least 12 months. We can only imagine where that data goes after that. Smart computers and TVs are another potential area of concern, both of which have built-in cameras and microphones, as well as automatic connections to the Internet. Indeed, as much as you might think you are watching television, your television could very well be watching you. Moreover, in a similar way to the supermarket store card, everything you watch, for however long, there is a record of it. Even each of our online searches are recorded and stored, with certain “keywords” set to raise flags with security agencies (something we will return to in a little more detail later).

Of course, with all of this information, such notions as mind control perhaps become all the easier. As we mentioned earlier, despite the belief of many people that mind control belongs only in Hollywood blockbuster movies, the fact is that mind control is a very real concept. And, as we shall see, it isn’t just authorities and intelligence agencies who employ mind-control tactics and actions.

Although intelligence agencies in the West, particularly those of the United States, as well as the equivalent agencies of the Soviet Union, began exploring mind-control techniques following the revelations discovered in the brutal experiments of the Third Reich at the end of the Second World War, the CIA began to take the notion more seriously after they learned of United States’ soldiers’ experiences in the Korean prisoner of war camps during the Korean War in the early 1950s. Following their release and repatriation to the United States, intelligence agencies found that many of them had, essentially, been “brainwashed” by their captors, and would readily confess to wrongdoings that it was impossible for them to have committed. Further research into the techniques used by the Korean military was similar to those used by the Third Reich – ultimately, repeated threats supported by the use of sudden and random violence.

With this in mind, the CIA began to research the concept under the MKUltra program, and how it could be used for their own purposes, and just to demonstrate how serious these research programs were, MKUltra received a huge six percent of the overall CIA budget. While that might not sound like much, that is a lot of dollars to put into a research program, certainly enough to tell us that the agency was expecting huge results in return for such an investment. Rather than using extreme violence, though (although they certainly used threats thereof), the CIA utilized the use of drugs, specifically, LSD and, to a lesser extent, heroin. They would ensure their “patients” were in an LSD-induced coma-like state while using “white noise” that contained repetitive speech and commands on a constant loop. These commands contained triggers and keywords specific to whatever “assignment” the patient was programmed with. Then, to break the patient down completely and assume control over a person’s mind – similar to what a hypnotist might have – the agency employed the use of electric shock treatment.

Officially, while the CIA admitted they had conducted research into mind control techniques, they claimed that such projects were brought to an end in the 1960s due to a lack of positive results. However, this admission only came following an investigation by The New York Times in 1975 that uncovered the MKUltra program – after the agency had denied its existence for years. Even more suspicious, it was around the time of The New York Times investigation that many of the MKUltra records were destroyed due to the agency attempting to cure their “burgeoning paper problem!” Make of that what you will.

Before we move on to explore some of these experiments and breakthroughs in more detail, there is an altogether darker side to these events. In the early 1990s, the body of a CIA researcher and outspoken critic of the MKUltra program, Dr. Frank Olsen, was exhumed following orders for a reinvestigation into his death, which had originally been ruled a suicide. Upon examination, clear scarring was discovered on his skull, suggesting that he had been attacked by someone using a blunt instrument. Ultimately, there was very clear evidence that he could have been murdered. Even more ominous, when the former CIA director, William Colby, was subpoenaed to testify in court about the potential circumstances behind Dr. Olsen’s death in 1993, he “accidentally drowned” only days later.  

While all of this might sound fanciful and outrageous, mind control and mind control techniques are used all around us every day. Perhaps the best example to use would be advertising, which, especially now in the age of 24/7 TV channels, social media, and the Internet, in general, is around us all the time. Going back to the late 1950s and 1960s, however, there have been several “light-hearted mind control” experiments carried out. Without a doubt, one of the most famous of these featured Coca-Cola, which showed microsecond flashes of their products on cinema screens during showings. These microsecond flashes were so quick that the audience, at least their conscious minds, were unaware they had seen them. However, during the following interval, sales of Coca-Cola products increased dramatically, suggesting that the audience’s subconscious minds were very much aware of what they had seen - and acted upon it.

It is perhaps a sobering thought, then, that with such experiments (and there were many more similar experiments) proving to be successful, that other, darker microsecond flash experiments could have been carried out by dark, largely unaccountable agencies on a much larger scale. Indeed, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that such techniques – albeit refined and modernized – are still happening today.

Of course, a part of advertising is repeated slogans and memorable lines, and much the same can be said of politicians, both individuals and whole political parties. All politicians and parties have their own particular mantra, promise, or battle-cry, which are repeated again and again on campaign trails. While it is perhaps not meant as such, these repeated mantras are, essentially, a form of mind manipulation and control.   

With this in mind, we should also consider research into subliminal audio messages. Experiments have been carried out, for example, in shopping malls, where subliminal messages urging people “not to steal” were placed under typical jingle-type piping music. This resulted in a huge drop in thefts and shoplifting incidents. We might contemplate, if such subliminal messages can result in people resisting the urge to steal, how easy would it be to change the message from “don’t steal” to “kill everyone”?

Even the seemingly harmless activity of being hypnotized on-stage as part of a show is a form of mind control, and quite an authentic and effective one at that. If you have ever spoken to a person who has been hypnotized in such a way, chances are they will have told you that as much as they were aware of their surroundings, and even the absurdity of what they were being asked to do (usually something harmless like walk and cluck like a chicken, for example), they claim they are unable to resist the instruction. They are, for all intents and purposes, under the control of another person. Once more, we might contemplate, if this can be done to a random member of the public by an, albeit professional, stage entertainer, we can only imagine what intelligence agencies with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars can do, and just how drastic a course of action they could manipulate a person into.

Another form of mind control – and something we know the intelligence agencies experimented with – is electrical manipulation and stimulation. Here is a good time to explore some of the early research and experiments carried out on mind control, with the work of Dr. Jose Delgado. Delgado took a faculty position at the prestigious Yale University in 1950 and almost immediately began to study ways of utilizing transistors and electrical technology with the human body. Needless to say, given that much of his research revolved around electrical stimulation of the brain, many likened him to a real-life Dr. Frankenstein and were more than wary of his work. In part, because of how brutal lobotomies were (which were often used to treat people with schizophrenia), Delgado looked for alternative ways to, quite literally, rewire the human brain in people who suffered from this and other similar conditions. He was influenced by basic research and experiments that had been carried out on cats in Switzerland, and believed that by manipulating and controlling the electrical stimuli of the brain, one could alter and control its responses. He further believed that by isolating certain parts of the brain (areas responsible for violent outbursts, for example) and then sending extra stimuli to other, specific areas of the brain, he would, for all intents and purposes, control a person’s mind.

Initial experiments involved the moving of a test-patient’s limbs through nothing but electrical stimulation, experiments that proved to be remarkably successful – so successful, in fact, that by the mid-1950s, Delgado began working directly with schizophrenic patients. In preparation for these experiments, and, in part because of the potential violent nature of the patients he would be working with, Delgado invented a device known as the Stimoceiver. This technological device had several small wires that were inserted directly into the patient’s skull, through which, electrical stimulation was sent straight to the desired area of the brain. This stimulation was controlled via remote control, and the tests once more proved to be amazingly successful. Whether he realized it not, and whether he had intended to or not, Delgado had revealed the technology and knowhow of controlling a person’s mind and, ultimately, their actions.

The more Delgado experimented, the more emotions he learned how to manipulate, ranging from fear, happiness, joy, rage, and even sexual attraction. It was as he was experimenting with these emotions that he realized that as opposed to assisting the mentally ill, he was inadvertently paving the way for mind control that could be used for ominous purposes. Eventually, with the arrival of medical drugs that could achieve what his Stimoceiver could, his experiments came to an end, as did the notion, at least in the mainstream, of rewiring a mentally ill person’s mind through direct electrical stimulation.  However, instead of turning his attention to other matters, Delgado adapted what his research could be used for, insisting that such devices could bring violent prisoners under control with minimum risk to prison officers and other custodial staff.

Delgado proposed that implants could be inserted into the brain, which could then be remotely controlled. To demonstrate that such implants worked, Delgado had them inserted into a particularly ferocious bull. As the bull charged at Delgado, he then used the remote control to stop it dead in its tracks. Officially, such practices were never rolled out. What might have happened behind closed doors, however, is perhaps up for debate.

As well as electrical stimulation and manipulation to achieve mind control, another alleged method researched and, at least according to some researchers and sources, actively experimented with is low-frequency sound waves and low-frequency programming (similar to the subliminal audio messages played under the piping music). According to some researchers, it is perfectly possible for these low-frequency waves to be sent out to the masses through televisions, radios, and even wireless broadband connections. And these low-frequency waves are beyond human hearing, instead simply bypassing the ear and connecting straight to the brain. Ultimately, your subconscious mind has heard something that your conscious mind hasn’t.

As far back as 1993, such concepts were being explored, with one particularly intriguing article on such matters being written by Susan Bryce for Exposure magazine. One of the most interesting and thought-provoking parts of that article stated that “soundwaves timed to the rhythm of the human heartbeat of 72 pulses per minute” can have “controlling” effects on human behavior. She detailed how low-frequency programming experiments with such technology had taken place in movie theatres across the country, resulting in one in six people responding in the desired way. She concluded that in a matter of minutes, a person could “be under their spell” without even realizing it.

It is also worth highlighting another article that appeared in a 1996 edition of Nexus magazine by John St. Clair Akwei. Akwei became involved in a lawsuit against the NSA, claiming that the agency had “the ability to covertly murder US citizens and conduct psychological control operations to cause certain individuals to be diagnosed as insane!” While such claims sound preposterous, to begin with, when we consider the power of the NSA, not least in terms of their access to solicitors to fight such accusations legally, we might ask just why an individual would take such action unless they felt what they were saying was absolute truth.

The details of the case were fascinating and did indeed sound like something straight out of a science-fiction movie. Akwei claimed that the NSA had “blanket coverage of electronic communications in the US and the world” all in the name of “national security!” This control went back to the end of the Second World War in the 1940s and involved some of the “most advanced computers in the world,” which had operated out of Fort Meade since the early 1960s. Even more thought-provoking – and disturbing – are the claims that the agency had “the ability to decode Electro Magnetic Frequency (EMF) waves” that were projected by the electrical currents of the “magnetic flux” which surrounds every person. Even more intriguing, along with the Department of Defense, the NSA, Akwei claimed, were involved in a joint program that could “remotely analyze all objects, whether manmade or organic, that have electrical activity!” Perhaps even more alarming, the NSA was said to have over 50,000 agents working on an “electronic surveillance network” that covered the entire United States. Moreover, this program could be used to pinpoint a single individual or entire groups of people.

Before we move on to more recent revelations, it is worth noting that many of Akwei’s claims would prove to be relatively accurate. At the time, he stated that the NSA had “nanotechnology computers that are 15 years ahead” of the general public. Moreover, they employed artificial intelligence-based programs that screened all communications for “keywords” that were then brought to an agent’s attention. Of course, we know this is exactly the case today, and not just with the intelligence agencies, and not just in the United States. There are also other claims that, while not official, also appear to be scarily accurate. He claimed, for example, that such agencies had technology that could tune into the remote frequency of individual computers, even home computers, and then “change the data of the circuit board” which, essentially, gave the respective agency control of the system in question, allowing them to both collect and plant data on the computer.

With this in mind, we might also consider other claims of just what intelligence agencies can achieve with this advanced technology, one of which, is the alleged ability to “tap into the electrical signals in the brain” and then decode them using advanced computer programs, even resulting in images and words displayed from such electrical signals. Ultimately, this would give authorities the ability to read a person’s thoughts.

Whether or not such technology does exist and is being utilized by one intelligence agency or another remains open to debate. It is interesting to note, though, the many news stories in recent years involving technology that involves “brain power!” There have been several news items about cars that drive through the power of human thought, or computers that act on commands given directly from the human brain. There have even been claims of such technology being used by the military as far back as the early 1990s, using “EMF Brain Simulation” that allowed for “brain-to-computer” links that enabled military personnel to operate flying vehicles remotely through the power of their thoughts.

At this point, it is worth turning our attention to the media platform MuckRock, who claimed in April 2018 that they received accidentally leaked information regarding mind control and frequency weapons after using a Freedom of Information request on a completely unrelated matter. The journalist in question – Curtis Waltman – had requested information from the Washington State Fusion Center (WSFC), who process data on terrorism and extremists. He was seeking information on both white supremacist and anti-fascist organizations. A short time after filing the request, he received confirmation that it had been approved, and a short time after that, the information he requested arrived in electronic format. However, as well as the information he sought, he was sent another zip file that he had not requested, one that was called EM Effects On The Human Body. Immediately curious, he clicked on the file.

He found himself looking at three documents that broke down, in great detail, the effect of “psycho-electronic weapons” on the human body, as well as ways that this energy could be directed. And it read like something out of an old science-fiction television show. According to the files, “psychotronic weapons” could be carried by “communications vans” for covert, individual “remote mind control”, while “black helicopters” could achieve the same from the air. Moreover, “mass mind control” could be achieved by sending out signals from communications towers, which would affect entire communities.  Mind control, incidentally, was just the tip of the iceberg. The documents continued detailing how thoughts could be read and broadcast, how voices and commands could be placed directly into a person’s head (so they would assume they were hearing voices out of nowhere), and “forced waking visions” could also be achieved. Perhaps of more concern, physical effects were also possible, including the sudden racing of the heart, artificial tinnitus, general pain in the joints and muscles, and the sudden onset of persistent itching. The documents also stated that it was the human body’s “low electronic signals” and “vibrational frequencies” that were tapped into and made this control possible.  

Further according to these leaks of information, agencies utilizing such technology – Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) – could have the ability to send “encoded signals” directly to a person’s brain (similar to the subliminal audio messages we examined earlier). These signals go directly to the auditory cortex region of a person’s brain and, essentially, allow “audio communication direct to the brain!” However, the individual concerned wouldn’t hear this communication, at least not their conscious mind. They would, though, react to it, although they would simply believe this reaction was one to their own thoughts. If a person did realize something was wrong and seek medical assistance, it is more likely that a medical expert would diagnose paranoid schizophrenia, rather than suspecting the person was receiving encoded signals. In the same way, images can be sent directly to a person’s visual cortex, which “bypasses the eyes and optic nerves”, and results in the individual thinking simply that these images are their own random thoughts.

There are, though, even more remarkable revelations. According to the documents, this monitoring also had the ability to “map out” electrical signals from an individual’s visual cortex, which then projects these images onto a computer screen, allowing whoever is monitoring such images to “see what the subject’s eyes are seeing!”  If there was any truth at all to such claims, then this technology could potentially give whichever agency is using it complete control over any individual they target. Could they, for example, alter perceptions and moods so much that they caused a person to act completely against their will? Could they even take control of a person so they carried out murders and assassinations – a real-life Manchurian Candidate? Just to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, how many times have we heard a person convicted of several brutal murders insist that they “heard voices” telling them to kill?

At this point, it would be a good time to examine the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the conspiracies that swirled around it, specifically, that the person arrested, charged, and convicted of shooting the would-be President of the United States was “programmed” to carry out the assassination and was, essentially, a victim of mind control.

At just after midnight in the early hours of June 5th, 1968, after addressing supporters after becoming the official Democratic nominee for the race to the White House in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Robert Kennedy was shot at point-blank range by a lone gunman. He died a little over 24 hours later.  The original plan following the speech that evening was for Kennedy to walk through the boardroom itself and then on to another part of the hotel. However, in a move suspicious to some, this was changed at the last minute, with Kennedy now planning to head through the hotel’s kitchen at the back of the ballroom and straight to the press room (the official reason for this change was due to time limitations and an excess of reporters and journalists). This can be seen on news footage of the night in question, where Kennedy originally heads into the ballroom area before he is stopped and told, “No, it’s been changed, we’re going this way!”

As Kennedy went on his new route, stopping to shake hands with supporters as he did – something he routinely did – he was unaware of the fate that awaited him. Despite the expectation that he would be President of the United States in only half a year, the Secret Service only provided security for sitting Presidents or incumbent Presidents, and as such, Kennedy’s only security that evening was two “unofficial” bodyguards who were both former professional athletes and a former FBI agent. It was as Robert Kennedy was shaking hands with a supporter, 17-year-old Juan Romero, that he was shot three times – twice in the torso, and once in the head. A moment later, the apparent gunman was wrestled to the ground near an ice machine and arrested. It appeared Kennedy’s death (much like the official explanation for his brother’s assassination several years earlier) was an open-and-shut, lone gunman case (multiple people witnessed the accused pulling the trigger on the night in question). As the trial, and indeed the years, have unfolded since, there is good reason to contemplate if Robert Kennedy’s death was far more nuanced – and ominous.

The (alleged) gunman was named as 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan, a Jordanian-Palestinian man who had immigrated to the United States with his family when he was only 12 years old. After first settling in New York, the Sirhan family moved to California, where Sirhan remained until the time of the shooting. Initially, he freely admitted to the killing, offering that he had assassinated him due to Kennedy’s apparent intention to send United States military jets to target locations in Palestine, as well as for his support for Israel (Kennedy’s murder, incidentally, is largely seen as the first motivated act of violence on American soil as a result of America’s stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict). Moreover, when his notebooks were recovered and studied, they were full of writings that expressed his apparent desire to murder the Democratic nominee and why he wished to do so. The prosecution had even managed to find a crucial witness – a garbageman named Alvin Clark – who claimed that Sirhan had told him of his plans to assassinate the would-be president. They also had seemingly pieced together Sirhan’s movements in the days leading up to the killing, claiming that he had visited the Ambassador Hotel on June 3rd, likely to become familiar with the layout of the building, while the following day, on June 4th – only hours before the murder – he spent a considerable amount of time at a nearby gun range.

Despite the defense’s plea that Sirhan Sirhan was a “mentally ill man”, he was swiftly convicted of the killing, escaping the death penalty, and instead sentenced to life in prison. There were some people, though, who believed the American people had just witnessed a travesty of justice – one that covered a dark and deadly plot orchestrated by unknown, shadowy elites. Sirhan Sirhan also began to make some intriguing statements himself following the trial, not least that he not only had no recollection of pulling the trigger and killing Robert Kennedy, but he had no recollection of the trial itself. Moreover, the reason he and others who supported him put forward for this lack of memory is that he had been programmed to carry out the killing. In short, he was a victim of mind control.

One of the most intriguing details that emerged as people began to investigate just how safe Sirhan’s conviction was, were the claims from many people (something also backed up with photographic evidence) of a mysterious woman wearing a polka-dot dress seen close to Sirhan on the night of the shooting, and who discreetly and swiftly left the hotel in the immediate aftermath of the killing. Even stranger, while Sirhan was questioned under hypnosis, he was asked who he was with on the night of the shooting, to which he replied, “The girl! The girl!” Was the girl in question the woman in the polka-dot dress? Some people have suggested that this mystery lady could very well have been Sirhan’s “handler” – a person in charge of “activating” him by using a predetermined (and programmed) trigger word and signal – a signal that Sirhan’s programmed brain could do nothing but obey.

If Sirhan Sirhan was programmed to assassinate Robert Kennedy, then we might expect that the intelligence agencies – perhaps specifically the CIA – would have had some kind of involvement. It is interesting to note, then, that there was a strong CIA presence at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the killing, even though the agency had no jurisdiction or reason to be there. The BBC current affairs show Newsnight named one of these agents as David Morales in a 2006 episode. According to the BBC’s findings, it was well known that Morales hated both of the Kennedy brothers, largely due to what he believed was an out-and-out betrayal by John Kennedy over the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. In fact, one witness, Robert Walton, a former attorney of Morales, claimed the one-time CIA agent had told him that he had been present at both of the Kennedy brothers’ deaths. Make of that what you will.

Whether there is any truth at all to the suggestion that Sirhan Sirhan was programmed to purder Robert Kennedy remains open to debate to some. At the time of writing, however, he remains incarcerated.

In more recent times, in January 2017, 26-year-old Esteban Santiago walked into the Arrivals Department of Fort Lauderdale Airport just outside of Miami, Florida, after arriving on a flight from Alaska, and opened fire, killing six people and injuring 36 others. According to witnesses, Santiago had calmly walked into the airport, removed a gun from his luggage with equal calm, and then began firing the weapon, seemingly without a care in the world. Perhaps amazingly, after firing 15 shots, Santiago simply stopped shooting, placed the weapon on the floor, and lay on the ground. Police officers were able to arrest Santiago without even firing a shot a little over a minute after the shooting had begun. In the aftermath of the shooting, some of the initial news reports were intriguing, to say the least.

It was claimed that only two months before the shooting spree, Santiago – a former National Guardsman – had arrived at the FBI offices in Alaska. He was in a clear state of distress, and insisted that he had been the victim of “government mind control!” Moreover, those behind this, he claimed, were the CIA. He continued that he had been programmed to “fight for terror organizations” that were not sympathetic to the United States, something they achieved over many months by subjecting him to constant propaganda-type footage. The FBI insisted he be evaluated medically, although their subsequent investigation into Santiago found no links to any terror organizations or other criminal activity. Ultimately, he was sentenced to multiple life sentences and will almost certainly spend the rest of his life in prison. Were his claims a desperate cry for help? Or could there have been, however unlikely, any truth in his assertions?

A good place to end our look at mind control would be with the alleged influence television has over the masses, perhaps particularly Hollywood, which has had many dark conspiracies swirling around its sign for decades. And while we should perhaps take the majority of these with a pinch of salt, some of them are of particular interest to us here, not least that the CIA has a discreet influence within Tinsel Town. This influence exists under the Entertainment Industry Liaison Office, which, officially at least, acts in an advisory capacity. However, according to some researchers, this office exists to ensure that specific slants, angles, and messages are put forward and advanced in popular television shows and blockbuster movies.

One person who has researched, investigated, and written extensively about the CIA’s influence in Hollywood (and various other media outlets) is journalist Carl Bernstein. He claimed that this operates under the codename Project Mockingbird, and that it has been used since the days of the Cold War to sway public opinion on a whole variety of issues. What’s more, it is, potentially at least, remarkably easy to achieve this. We have already mentioned how advertising and political slogans are a form of mind control. When we add “Hollywood” into the mix, “popular public and social opinion” begins to shape the actions of many. And while this is just speculation, it is worth noting that many people in the upper echelons of the entertainment industry often have connections, whether direct or indirect, to such industries often referred to collectively as Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Oil, who certainly have a lot to gain financially from people turning to their products or services.

Although we are straying into hardcore conspiracy territory, with these last points in mind, we should at least mention the suggestion from some researchers that not only are many of the stars of the entertainment industry part of mind-control exercises in terms of purposely repeated mantras, or even from promoting a particular product, but they themselves are the product of mind-control, perhaps as part of an off-shoot of the CIA’s MKUltra program. Some researchers suggest these alleged mind-control victims are purposely controlled to assist the intelligence agencies in shaping public opinion and belief. Others have put forward that the experiments are simply to ascertain just how far a mind can be influenced and pushed. Over the years, numerous celebrities have been linked to such claims, and while we should most definitely treat these claims with a pinch of salt, it is not completely beyond the realms of possibility that there could be partial truths to at least some of them.

The fact is, while it might not be in a way that most of us would define or understand it, mind control is very real concept, and one that is employed in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons, ranging from looking to decrease cases of shoplifting, to encouraging a person to buy more of a certain product, to even, in the most extreme cases, controlling a person’s actions so they commit horrific crimes, including murder.

Likewise, as well as this tidal wave of mind control exercises and programs, the notion that authorities and huge corporations are collecting data and keeping watch on all of us is another that has much more truth to it than many of us would wish to admit, even to ourselves. Indeed, if there is one thing more valuable than money, it is information, which, in turn, leads to more money and information – each feeds the other. Ultimately, monitoring and mind control go hand in hand, and are, perhaps, two sides of the same coin.

We might ask ourselves just how much of our daily lives are being recorded and monitored, and how will that information be used, and when? Of more concern, however, we might contemplate just how many of our thoughts and even desires are our own, and how many might have been intentionally placed there by one agency or authority or another, bypassing our conscious mind and connecting directly with our subconscious brain? Do you really like bacon sandwiches first thing in the morning, for example? Is red wine really your favorite tipple of an evening? And even your social and political beliefs – are they really your own, or have you been subconsciously told to think in such a way?