PROJECT MK ULTRA: ORIGIN, EXPERIMENTS AND VICTIMS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The Project MK Ultra was a CIA program carried out between 1953 and 1973 in which the US intelligence agency conducted experiments with humans, many of which went against the laws of the country. Most of them focused on research on mind control, especially applying it to procedures such as interrogation and espionage.

The goal of Project MK Ultra was to find a way to control people's minds without their consent. To do this, numerous methods were tested. Among the most striking are hypnosis, the administration of drugs (especially LSD), sensory deprivation, verbal, physical and sexual abuse and different forms of torture.

Shield of the CIA, agency in charge of Project MK Ultra. Source: user: Duffman

The project's appearance was due to the discovery by the US government that the Soviet Union and its allies were using brainwashing to interrogate American prisoners of war. Therefore, the CIA was tasked with finding a viable way to do something similar, with the goal of gaining a tactical advantage in the Cold War.

Many of the MK Ultra Project experiments are believed to have been carried out on participants forcibly, without their consent; and on other occasions, investigations were carried out in a covert manner. However, today we do not know much about this program, as the United States government ordered the destruction of all records about it in 1973.

Origin and why it was wanted to do

MKULTRA Declassified Documents Page. The documents were "provided by the Central Intelligence Agency under a request of the Freedom of Information Act in 1995."

The MK Ultra Project takes its name from various sources. On the one hand, the digraph mk indicates that the investigation was funded by the CIA Technical Services Team, since the letters were used to refer to this department. On the other hand, the word ultra was used to classify the most secret projects of the agency during World War II.

The idea behind Project MK Ultra was to develop mind control tools that could be used against the enemies of the country, mainly the Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans. According to reports at the time, these three nations were using brainwashing to extract information from POWs from the United States.

Originally, the project aimed to create a "truth drug" that could be used to interrogate Soviet prisoners and spies during the Cold War. Soon after, however, the MK Ultra was expanded to other forms of mind control that could serve this purpose.

In fact, it is known that the project leaders planned to create other divisions of the project, with related but different objectives. The most famous was "Subproject 54", with which they wanted to design a machine capable of emitting infrasound that could erase the memory of a person. However, this section never got started.

Other related goals

In addition to studying mind control, the MK Ultra Project was gradually expanded to include other objectives related to it. Thus, the CIA also began investigating techniques that would cause a target person to expose herself in public, lose her influence, or be severely humiliated.

The goal of these parallel projects was to destroy the ability of the country's enemies to harm the United States, in any way necessary.

Later, several experiments related to Project MK Ultra changed the focus and focused on being able to incapacitate or even assassinate enemy agents in a "clean" and discreet way. Thus, for example, they began to investigate radioactive, toxic and biohazard elements to achieve these goals.

Experiments that were done

LSD experiments

The first investigations that were made in the context of the MK Ultra Project were based on the use of LSD, a psychedelic drug that had become very famous at that time.

The CIA wanted to find out if they could use it to get Soviet prisoners to act against their will, and to see if the Russians could do the same to their own agents.

When the project began in April 1953, the experiments that were carried out involved administering LSD to people who "could not defend themselves," as explained by one of the officers in charge of the operation. For example, in one of them the drug was given to a Kentucky patient for 174 days in a row, to observe the effects this would have on his brain.

Most of the experimental subjects in this phase were prisoners, patients of mental institutions, drug addicts or prostitutes; but on some occasions CIA employees, doctors and other government agents also participated, to compare their reactions with those of the former. In most cases, patients were not informed of what was going to happen.

The ultimate goal of these first experiments was to develop a variant of the drug that would erase the content of the minds of those who took it, in such a way that they could be reprogrammed later.

Best known research

One of the most famous experiments in Project MK Ultra was the operation known as "Midnight Climax." In it, the CIA created several fake brothels on agency-controlled land in San Francisco. Their aim was to attract to them men who were ashamed enough of their actions to speak of what had happened to them.

As clients arrived at the alleged brothels, CIA agents gave them LSD against their will, and watched and recorded them to see what happened.

Other studies were related to fields such as interrogation. In one of the most famous, several prisoners of war were given high doses of LSD, and their surroundings were modified to cause them to have unpleasant or frightening hallucinations. Later, they were told that doses would continue to be administered until they confessed what they knew or cooperated with the agency.

One of the most famous cases was that of Officer Wayne Ritchie, who was administered LSD in his drink without his knowledge. The man suffered a bad trip, and ended up threatening all the people who were in a bar with his weapon. Ritchie lost his job, and did not discover that he had been the victim of an experiment until several decades later.

Ultimately, the inconsistent results of these experiments caused the CIA to abandon its attempts to use LSD to achieve mind control. Funding was completely withdrawn when several super-hallucinogens were developed in 1962, such as the famous BZ, which were thought to be most useful in the agency's secret projects.

Experiments with other drugs

Although LSD was the most widely used substance in Project MK Ultra, it was by no means the only one. During the decades this operation was unfolding, the CIA experimented with many different types of drugs, studying their effects on people's mental states and their potential for mind control.

Thus, for example, in some experiments subjects were administered a mixture of sedatives and amphetamines that made them lose control of themselves. In this altered state, people could give helpful answers to some questions against their will.

In addition to this, many other substances capable of altering the subjects' state of consciousness were tested. Among them were alcohol, cannabis, heroin, morphine, mescaline, scopolamine, or the famous sodium pentoate, known in some circles as the "truth serum."

Hypnosis

But Project MK Ultra wasn't just about drug testing. Much of the research that was carried out throughout the process had to do with hypnosis, and its usefulness in obtaining the answers and results that the CIA wanted to achieve. To achieve this, agents developed numerous ways to apply this psychological technique.

Thus, for example, CIA scientists discovered how to use hypnosis to create artificial fears and phobias in their prisoners, in such a way that they would be more inclined to speak if exposed to them. They also tried to reach trance states in which people would reveal whatever information was asked of them, even against their will.

On the other hand, the CIA also tried to use hypnosis to enhance the capabilities of its own agents. Thus, among other things, they tried to use this technique to achieve better memory and attention skills.

Finally, the agency also conducted experiments in which it mixed hypnosis with the administration of different types of drugs, to try to combine the effects of both and thus achieve the best possible results.

Victims

Most of the experiments associated with Project MK Ultra were extremely dangerous and damaging; but because the agency destroyed much of the documents related to it, we will probably never know how many were the victims of these studies. However, several deaths related to the study have been recorded, the most famous of which is that of Frank Olson.

Olson was a biochemist working for the United States Army doing research in the field of biological weapons. In 1953, he was part of a CIA experiment related to Project MK Ultra in which he ingested a dose of LSD without knowing what he was doing.

According to the official version, hours later Frank Olson jumped from the window of the 13th floor of his hotel, committing suicide in the middle of what seemed a psychotic break. The person in charge of this particular investigation, Sidney Gottlieb, was severely punished as he failed to take into account Olson's previous suicidal tendencies, which could have been exacerbated by the drug.

Sidney Gottlieb approved a MKUltra sub-project on LSD in this letter dated June 9, 1953.

However, Olson's family claims that the official version of events is false. According to them, the investigator was assassinated as the CIA believed he could divulge several of the agency's deepest secrets.

A few days before his death, Frank had left his job due to a moral dilemma about the nature of his investigations with biological weapons, drugs and mind control tools.

Later, forensic evidence indicated that Olson appeared to have received a blow to the head that had knocked him unconscious before falling out the window, which appeared to point to the hypothesis of a murder.

Despite the fact that the family received almost 1 million dollars in compensation, today the case about the possible murder of the scientist is still open.

End of project

1977 United States Senate Report on MKUltra

During the Watergate scandal in 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all files related to Project MK Ultra. Most of them were irretrievably lost, in such a way that today we do not know much data about this investigation.

However, in 1974 the New York Times published a report in which he spoke that the CIA had carried out several secret investigations that involved very serious crimes, such as the forcible administration of drugs to several people. This opened the door to various investigations into the activities of the CIA, the FBI, and other related agencies.

Despite the fact that most of the data on the project had been destroyed, the researchers were able to find several files through which they discovered what was the nature of the MK Ultra. The scandal caused involved the creation of new restrictions and security regulations applicable to US intelligence agencies, which remain in effect today.

The US government's version is that Project MK Ultra ceased operations in 1973. However, many people believe that today there are similar secret projects that continue their legacy and that have not yet come to light..

MK Ultra in popular culture

The history of the project caused quite a stir when it was first discovered. For this reason, there are many references to it in popular culture, both in series and movies and in books and songs. Some of the most famous are the following:

- The Bourne movie saga is based on the techniques developed during this project.

- Stephen King's Firestarters book story is a fictionalized version of MK Ultra.

- The British band Muse has a song called MK Ultra that supposedly causes hallucinogenic effects in those who listen to it.

- The Netflix series Stranger Things has several characters directly related to the secret CIA project.

References

1. "Project MKUltra And The CIA Plot To Defeat The Soviets With Mind Control" in: All That Is Interesting. Retrieved on: September 19, 2019 from All That Is Interesting: allthatisinteresting.com.
2. "MK - Ultra" in: History. Retrieved on: September 19, 2019 from History: history.com.
3. "What was the MK Ultra project?" in: Very History. Retrieved on: September 19, 2019 from Muy Historia: muyhistoria.es.
4. "MK Ultra" in: Rational Wiki. Retrieved on: September 19, 2019 from Rational Wiki: rationalwiki.org.
5. "Project MK Ultra" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: September 19, 2019 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.