The House of Mellon Part IV: A Death in the Family

Several years ago I published a series on the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, who for many decades have been one of the nation's wealthiest and most influential, if little acknowledged, families. While rarely mentioned by conspiracy researchers in the same breath as more notorious American families such as those of Morgan (which hasn't been a major power for nearly half a century) and Rockefeller (whose influence has been in decline since the 1970s and will likely fall off a cliff with David Rockefeller's death), the Mellons have wielded a considerable degree of influence for well over a century now. What's more, they've proven quite adept at straddling the lines between competing factions in the various  American Establishments.

The patriarch of the family was Thomas Mellon, who rose to prominence less than a decade after the conclusion of the American Civil War. In 1870 he established what became the Mellon Bank, which by the end of the nineteenth century had become the largest financial institution in these United States outside of New York City. The family later branched out into the oil business at the onset of the twentieth century via Thomas Mellon's grandson, William Larimer Mellon Sr., who established the Gulf Oil Corporation in 1907. Finance and oil would serve as the linchpins of the Mellon empire in the decades that followed.

Probably the most famous (or infamous) of the Mellon clan was Andrew Mellon (addressed before here), who truly turned the family's business concerns into an empire.

"But what was more important at the time was that Andrew also built a great business empire. He and his brother Richard created first a national bank, then a steel concern, and then an empire. Young Mellon cornered the bauxite market. He shared in the profits of Carnegie Steel... The Mellons together established the enormous Aluminum Company of America; later they picked up Bethlehem Steel. They invested in Spindletop, the Texas gusher that opened the Gulf Coast oil industry. By the time Hoover reached adulthood, the Mellons also were players in the steel, railway, construction, and insurance industries. Succeeding Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon ruled Pittsburgh in a way that not even the president ruled Washington."

(The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes, pgs. 24-25) 

Andrew Mellon

Mellon is probably best remembered, however, for his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury. He held the post from 1921 until 1932, an eleven year period in which he oversaw the Roaring Twenties as well as the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. As such, Mellon's tenure as Secretary of Treasury remains highly controversial. During that era he received ample blame for the Depression and was routinely attacked by FDR up until his death in 1937.

The Occult, UFOs and Intelligence

For our purposes here, it is interesting to note that Mellon was also a prominent Freemason who contributed to the Masonic architecture in Washington, D.C. Probably the most well known instance of this the Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain, approved by Congress ten years after Andrew's death and completed in 1952. The Fountain has some very curious features.

"... The fountain was completed by 1952, and located – as Congress ordered – in a triangular area at the eastern tip of the Federal Triangle. The water from the fountain's jets rains down into a raised inner bowl, which overflows to discharge into an even larger basin, whence it flows into a wide basin at ground level: thus, the water overflows three times from the central basin into the ground-level bowl. Below the lip of the second bowl, inset on the side so as to be obscured by the flow of water, are the 12 signs of the zodiac designed by Sidney Waugh.

"These zodiacal images were carved with considerable insight and feeling. It was probably the architect Eggers – aware of the Masonic tradition that permeated Washington architecture – who insisted that the image for the zodiacal sign Aries... should be oriented so that it received the first rays of sunlight on March 21, which marks the vernal equinox."

(The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital, David Ovason, pg. 281)

one of the zodiacal images found on the Mellon Fountain

The dedication for the Fountain was on May 9, 1952, and presided over by President Harry S. Truman, himself a prominent Freemason. On the whole, 1952 proved to be a banner year for high weirdness, especially UFOs. In March of that year, the Air Force launched Project BLUE BOOK to investigate the phenomenon. Three months later, rocket scientist and Crowleyite Jack Parsons (who is also alleged to have encountered a UFO while in the company of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard) blew himself up in a bizarre accident. Then in July Washington itself witnessed countless UFO sightings from the 12th through the 29th in what is considered one of the largest UFO flaps in recent history. The year then concluded with ARTICHOKE scientist Andrija Puharich making contact with entities he dubbed "The Nine" (noted before here), alleged extraterrestrials than now existed outside of time and space, in a seance held on New Year's Eve.

While this may seem a bit off topic, we shall be returning to UFOs in a moment and as such, I find it curious the highly occultic Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain was unveiled in one of the most active years ever for UFO sightings. As was noted above, the Fountain was approved by Congress in 1947, another banner year for high weirdness that witnessed the Kenneth Arnold sighting and Roswell, which effectively ushered in the modern UFO era. Crowley also died in 1947 while the first wave of CIA/Pentagon behavior modification experiments were also begun in that year. But I digress.

Before moving along, it is worth noting that that Mellon Fountain is not the only piece of architecture associated with the family with strong occultic overtones. Consider the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh:

the Gulf Tower, which bares a remarkable resemblance to a ziggurat with a ritual complex at the top...

For years it was the largest building in Pittsburgh. As you can see, the top features a step-pyramid and mausoleum. Reportedly this design was inspired by the  Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Mausoleum was the last of the said wonders to be destroyed, surviving mostly intact till some point in the late Middle Ages. Its ruins were discovered in 1402 by the Knights Hospitaller, now known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), who used them to build a castle in what is now known as Bodrum. Curiously, the Mausoleum also inspired the design of the House of the Temple, the Washington, D.C.-based headquarters of the Scottish Rite branch of Freemasonry. But moving along.

The Mellon family and their in-laws also has a rich tradition in the netherworlds of the US intelligence community dating back to at least World War II. Both Paul Mellon and David Bruce, Andrew Mellon's son and son-in-law respectively, served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA. After the war the relationship continued, with the CIA frequently using various Mellon family foundations as a source of funding for various projects.

One Mellon highly active in such pursuits was Richard Mellon Scaife (noted in length before here), who maintained a decades-spanning association with the CIA.

"... Scaife's ties to the intelligence community span many years – he owned and operated Forum World Features, an international CIA news outlet that supplied over 300 newspapers until its exposure 1975 – and he has been one of the most generous sugar daddies of the New Right, providing the seed money for the Heritage Foundation and for the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress..."

(Spiritual Warfare, Sara Diamond, pg. 194)

Richard Mellon Scaife

Scaife, whose father Alan Scaife had also served in the OSS. also provided funding for both US and UK-based organizations linked to the Le Cercle network (noted before here and here), which was essentially the far right's response to the Bilderberg Group. Compromised largely of reactionary European aristocrats, various Western military and intelligence officers and fanatical Catholic sects like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and Opus Dei, Le Cercle has been deeply implicated over the years in various acts of terrorism and elite pedophile networks.

On the other end of the spectrum there was William Mellon Hitchcock (noted at length before here), whose friends addressed him as "Mr. Billy." Mr. Billy came from the same generation as Dick Scaife, but he would use his share of the Mellon fortune for quite different objectives. Mr Billy, along with his sister Margaret "Peggy" Mellon Hitchcock, were major sponsors of the 1960s psychedelic movement. They became early patrons of Timothy Leary, with Mr. Billy offering up his estate at Millbrook to Leary in 1963 to carry on his research after Leary was kicked out of Harvard.

Mr. Billy is on the right

While Mr. Billy eventually became disillusioned with Leary, his interest in psychedelics remained strong throughout the 1960s. By the end of the decade he had become the financier for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which at the time was the largest LSD distribution network in the world. As was noted before here, during this time frame Mr. Billy also became a major investor in Resorts International, a gaming interest with extensive ties to the Syndicate and the US intelligence community. Eventually Donald J. Trump became the CEO of Resorts in 1986.

A Curious Death

The Mellon family has continued to wield considerable influence on both a national and international level into the twenty-first century, but they've generally avoided the limelight. But of late the family has turned up in the headlines again, most recently regarding a death:

"On Sunday, Matthew Mellon flew in a private jet to Cancun, Mexico, intending to check into a rehabilitation clinic. But the 54-year-old banking heir, who had been battling an addiction to opioid pills, never made it to the treatment facility.

" 'He never checked in,' says Alberto Sola, medical director of Clear Sky Recovery, a rehab clinic in Cancun. 'He was supposed to check in to the clinic on Monday morning. Then Monday morning they told us he had died.' "

Early reports, however, indicated that he had in fact died at the drug rehab center, which seems to offer an especially psychedelic brand of rehab:

"Mellon, who had faced substance abuse issues for decades, had decided to seek an experimental treatment in Mexico earlier this year, attracted to therapies with hallucinatory properties that are illegal in the United States. Clear Sky Recovery clinic specializes in ibogaine therapy, a plant-based medicine with psychedelic properties that’s derived from a West African tree. Clear Sky advertises itself as 'the world’s foremost experts in medically-based ibogaine treatment.' Sola said Mellon had died in his hotel room, but declined to comment on the cause of Mellon’s death. According to one report, Mellon was also experimenting with ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink, and died from a heart attack after taking it."

Matthew Mellon is from the same branch of the Mellon family as Peggy and William Hitchcock, all of whom are descendants of Gulf Oil founder William Larimer Mellon. Thus, his interest in psychedelics is hardly surprising.

Matthew Mellon

Prior to his death, Matthew Mellon had gained much notoriety for trading cryptocurrencies, beginning with Bitcoin in the early part of this decade, and then onto Ripple. At the time of his death, he had amassed a considerable fortune:

"In addition to leaving behind three children, Mellon’s death raises many unanswered questions, including what will happen to the estimated $500 million of XRP digital currency he owned. Mellon’s XRP had been worth well over $1 billion earlier in 2018 and he told Forbes in March he had been adding to the position as the price of the cryptocurrency plunged.

"XRP is the digital currency of financial payments company Ripple and Mellon had acquired a large amount of it, mostly from an initial investment of about $2 million, prior to the boom in cryptocurrencies. Mellon said he kept the digital keys to his XRP locked in cold storage in other people’s names at various locations around the U.S."

Forbes goes onto note that in his final months Mellon had had conversations with Donald Trump concerning cryptos while also becoming increasingly paranoid about his safety:

"He began the year in Los Angeles with great promise and a flurry of activity. Late last year, Mellon, who lived in New York, searched online for the most expensive rental house in Los Angeles and booked a futuristic looking home in the Hollywood Hills for $150,000 a month. With a massive cryptocurrency fortune and fearing for his security, Mellon got an armored car that resembled a tank and added a security detail while maintaining an active social schedule.

"... In late March, Mellon told a Forbes reporter, he dined with President Donald Trump.

" 'I shared with him that he should become blockchain friendly if he wants the next Millennial vote,' Mellon told Forbes in late March."

While no doubt many will link Mellon's sudden and bizarre death to his involvement with cryptos, its interesting to note that his brother, Christopher Mellon, had made some interesting statements of his own a little over a month before Matthew's death. Specifically, he called for greater defense spending in regards to UFOs in an Op-Ed that appears in the Washington Post:

"Lately, media coverage of the issue of unidentified aerial vehicles has focused on an expired $22 million congressional earmark for Bigelow Aerospace, a contractor with ties to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.). The money mostly funded research and analysis by that contractor, without participation from the Air Force, NORAD or other key military organizations. The real issue, though, is not a long-gone earmark, helpful though it may have been, but numerous recent incidents involving the military and violations of U.S. airspace. It is time to set aside taboos regarding 'UFOs' and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.

"Within a roughly $50 billion annual intelligence budget, money is not the issue. Existing funds would easily cover what’s needed to look into the incidents. What we lack above all is recognition that this issue warrants a serious collection and analysis effort. To make headway, the task needs to be assigned to an official with the clout to compel collaboration among disparate and often quarrelsome national security bureaucracies. A truly serious effort would involve, among other things, analysts able to review infrared satellite data, NORAD radar databases, and signals and human intelligence reporting. Congress should require an all-source study by the secretary of defense while promoting research into new forms of propulsion that might explain how these vehicles achieve such extraordinary power and maneuverability." 

Christopher Mellon, like many family members before him, has longstanding ties to the US intelligence community and the DoD. He spent nearly ten years as the Staff Director for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 1998, he became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security and Information Operations. Then, in 1999, he became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, a post he held until 2002. After leaving the DoD, he became a Minority Staff Director for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence member Senator Jay Rockefeller.

Christopher Mellon

Mellon is no minor figure in other words, by the scion of one of the nation's wealthiest and most powerful families, and a longstanding veteran of the US intelligence community. He is also involved with To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, a disclosure project launched by former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge. Another member of said organization recently exposed Robert Bigelow's secret UFO program. As was noted before here, this may have been part of the ongoing deep state civil war, as Bigelow is a major Trump backer.

Was Matthew Mellon's death related to his brother's work in the UFO disclosure, his exposure to cryptocurrencies, the deep state civil war or some combination of all three? Certainly this is a curious series of events, from a branch of the family that his been linked to strange intrigues in the past. Even more bizarre is the fact that the active psychedelic component of ayahuasca, which is what is presently being blamed for Mellon's death, is DMT. As I noted before here, DMT has been known to induce visions of extraterrestrial-like nonhuman entities while curious and tragic medical issues have at times followed.

It would certainly be interesting to know if cryptos were the only thing discussed in Matthew Mellon's March meeting with Trump. Several weeks later the financier was dead, under still murky circumstances that at least nominally are being blamed on some type of entheogenic-centric treatment for opioid abuse. Clearly, something does not add up here.

The waters are further muddied by where the Mellon family fits into the elite hierarchy. While nominally aligned with the Rockefeller-dominated globalist wing of the American Establishment, family members such as Richard Mellon Sciafe and even psychonaut William Mellon Hitchcock have been very at home with members of the far right. In terms of the Mellon brothers we've just considered, Christopher is clearly in the former camp while Matthew was a long time backer of the Republican Party and does not seem to have been especially uncomfortable with Trump. Of course, Matthew was also dating a member of the Kennedy family at the time of his death as well.

In conclusion, all I can come up with is phrase that is becoming more and more common every day: Truly, we live in incredible times.

Fringe: The Strange Dealings of Bob Bigelow

With the recent bombshell revelations concerning a secret UFO program being run by the Pentagon, I thought the time was right for an update in an ongoing series I've been working on for over a year that I've dubbed "Fringe." It was originally focused on the connections between the far right and a host of arcane topics ranging from UFOs, psi, mind control, Tesla weapons, human potential, the occult and so on. The series thus far has generated over ten installments, plus two appendix, one dealing with the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon and another (which can be found here and here) focused on the ties between these bizarre topics and a highly classified national security project typically referred to as Continuity of Government (COG).

As such, the reader is strongly advised to check out several of these posts for further background on the present matter at hand.

And with the introductions out of the way, let us get to the matter at hand. I'm sure many of you already have some awareness of the UFO program, but for those living under a rock, here's a rundown from The New York Times, one of the first publications to "break" the story:

"In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find.

"Which was how the Pentagon wanted it.

"For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze.

"The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.

"The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space." 

It is also interesting to note that this project was apparently largely overseen by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The DIA is the Pentagon's largest intelligence service, though it is largely overshadowed by the CIA, FBI and NSA in the public consciousness. Conspiracy researchers are generally not very impressed by the DIA either. To this researcher's mind, this is a grave oversight as the DIA has been at the heart of strange dealings inside the US intelligence community for decades.

The High Weirdness of the DIA

The DIA first officially waded into such murky waters when it was tapped to take on the Pentagon's legendary remote viewing program, variously known by such handles as GRILL FLAME and later, under the DIA, STARGATE. The DIA officially expressed interest in ESP as far back in 1972, when they issued an alarmist account of Soviet efforts in said field.

"By the late 1960s the US intelligence community was becoming aware of all this, by way of popular books, official studies, Pentagon and CIA translations of foreign psi research papers, and agents and émigré reports. The first big result was a curiously titled Defense Intelligence Agency report, Controlled Offensive Behavior – USSR, which appeared in 1972. It noted that 'the major impetus behind the Soviet drive to harness the possible capabilities of telepathic communication, telekinetics, and bionics are said to come from the Soviet military and the KGB.'...

"Thanks to the Soviet 'head start' in psi research, argued the DIA report-writer, 'Soviet knowledge in this field is superior to that of the West.' In other words, the United States, which already had to worry about a possible missile gap – a Soviet numerical superiority in ICBMs – now faced the prospect of a devastating 'psi gap.' "

(Remote Viewers, Jim Schnabel, pgs. 94-95)

By decade's end,  the DIA was well on its way to closing the "psi gap," real or imagined. In 1979 it had taken on funding and coordination of the Pentagon's remote viewing program and took over complete control of it by the mid-1980s. The program would remain under DIA control until 1995, when it was shuttered.

For our purposes here, it is interesting to note that the DIA remote viewing program spawned an 1980s exploration of the UFO question known as the UFO Working Group that has curious links to the modern program. The UFO Working Group was first exposed in 1990 by another New York Times journalist, one Howard Blum, in his classic Out There. Blum was first clued into the existence of the UFO Working Group in the mid-1980s.

"The UFO Working Group was a spin-off of the remote viewing program and known more accurately as the 'coordinate remote viewing' CRV program. One version of the account told by Blum states the whole thing started in the fall of 1985 during a meeting held in the secure vault of President Reagan's Scientific Advisor, George Keyworth.

"Dr. Hal Puthoff, then running the SRI remote viewing program, explained that Ingo Swann, a remote viewer, would demonstrate 'A new perceptual channel through which individuals are able to perceive and describe remote data not presented to any known sense.'

"A short series of precise geographical coordinates were read to Swann, and he proceeded to describe a building. Once revealed the target turned out to be the country dacha of Mikhail Gorbachev.

"Following this, a demonstration took place to show how the displayed 'Scannate' technology was proficient in antisubmarine warfare. They showed Ingo Swan a series of pictures of submarines, some American, some Soviet, some in dry docks, some not built yet. His job was to provide the exact coordinates for each submarine.

"As he was set to call up the coordinates of the Soviet Delta-class submarine in one of the photographs, he stopped and reported that he saw something above submarine. Swann was asked to draw what he saw on a piece of paper, and he proceeded to render a sketch of classic flying saucer. 

"A report was made by the SRI team of the incident and sent to the DIA who was the 'primary client.' About this same time, money from the Army for the CRV program ended, and the entire program moved to the DIA. 

"The Swan submarine incident led to a DIA/Navy Intelligence sponsored program to use 'Scannate' to search for Soviet submarines. According to Blum's information, the DIA was able to detect at least 17 UFO objects connected to Soviet submarines over the next 14 months. The project was called Project Magnet, and the DIA Directorate for Management and Operations supervised it. 

"Moreover, the incidents of the 'hovering UFOs' around submarines provided inspiration to Col. John Alexander, then Director, advanced concepts U.S. Army Lab. Command, Adelphi, M.D. 

"Alexander was a Colonel in the US Army and had been interested in the UFO mystery since 1947 when he was young boy. He also had done work on 'esoteric projects, specifically in the intelligence community was psychokinesis.' 

"Alexander wrote a book on his UFO investigations called UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities. In the book, Alexander pointed out that although UFOs are real, they are of no interest to the American government, and therefore there is no cover-up of the facts by American officials. 

"Alexander is also well-known in the UFO community for hosting a Top Secret – Special Access series of meetings in the mid-1980s to evaluate a possible new way of the government's approach to the UFO question. Alexander's group was known as the Advanced Theoretical Physics Group and bore the same 'Top Secret – Restricted Classification' found on the MJ-12 set of documents. 

"According to Blum, Alexander proposed that the DIA Project Aquarius viewers should view an area above Kickapoo, Texas. It was there that NORAD reported an unknown object had tripped a man-made electromagnetic fence extending up to 15,000 miles above the earth. 

"The three viewers were all asked to view anything unusual at that latitude and longitude in the last 48 hours. But in the day, on three CRV viewers had sent back drawing of a UFO. With this additional evidence in hand, Alexander convinced the DIA to set up a 'top-secret working group to investigate the possibility that extraterrestrials with making contact with this planet'... 

"Based on this psyche confirmation of a UFO been obtained by radar, the UFO Working Group formed in February 1985. Col. Alexander sent out the invitations for others he had chosen to generate a top-secret review of the UFO situation."

(Managing Magic, Grant Cameron, pgs. 107-109)

There's a lot to take in here and I will pick up the thread of this 1980s-era UFO group and its connection to the Pentagon's most recent one, but first a few points must be made.

First, the DIA appears to have been very active in the UFO field in general during the 1980s. Infamous Ufologist Bill Moore was in contact with a group of US intelligence officers that have sense been dubbed "the Aviary" on account of their use of bird names. The above-mentioned Colonel John Alexander was a part of this group and allegedly used the handle "Penguin." Moore's chief informant, who is still unknown, went by the codename "Falcon" and is widely suspected of being a DIA agent. As was noted before here and here, Moore threw the UFO community into a tailspin in the 1980s that it still hasn't fully recovered from and it would appear that the DIA was at the forefront of this disinformation campaign.

Another point that should be made are the allegations, first raised nationally by Jon Ronson in his classic The Men Who Stare At Goats, that the Pentagon's remote viewing program had been reactivated with the onset of the War on Terror. This is rather ominous in light of reports that the DIA, along with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have initiated Project ARTICHOKE-like "interrogation" methods, some including mind altering drugs. As was noted before here and here, the CIA/Pentagon remote viewing programs largely grew out of ARTICHOKE's 1950s forays into psi.

And with that out of the way, let us move along to the really juicy stuff.

The NIDS

Colonel John Alexander is a figure readers of my "Fringe" series should be well aware of by now. As was noted before here and here, he has been involved in the development of so-called "nonlethal" weapons for decades, more than a few of which may have been partly inspired by research conducted by ARTICHOKE, MK-ULTRA and like programs in prior decades. What's more, Alexander also appears to have been extensively involved in efforts by the Pentagon to create so-called "supersoldiers" (which, as was noted before here, was one of the original objectives of ARTICHOKE) during his time with Project Jedi. And despite becoming something of a New Age superstar in recent years, Alexander has decades-spanning ties to the most far right elements of the United States national security complex. In fact, Alexander appears to have first gained a foothold in this type of fringe research thanks to such elements.

Colonel John Alexander

But back to the matter at hand. After retiring from the Army, Alexander found himself playing a key role in one of the premier civilian groups dedicated to investigating unexplained phenomena. It was known as the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). Alexander described the NIDS as such:

"... NIDS had been established by a local real estate developer, Robert Bigelow, to examine scientifically two specific anomalous areas. One was the continuation of consciousness beyond physical death, and the other was UFOs..."

(UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities, John Alexander, pg. 41)

Yes, the above-mentioned Robert Bigelow whose Bigelow Aerospace ran the most recent Pentagon forays into the UFO question. The NIDS, which Bigelow was the founder and president of, was established in 1995 and officially shuttered its doors in 2004. In addition to Alexander, it also featured the above-mentioned Hal Puthoff on its scientific advisory board.

Puthoff was of course a founder of the CIA-sponsored SRI remote viewing program (after having previously served in the Office of Naval Intelligence) that spurred the DIA's 1980s-era investigations into UFOs. Alexander and Puthoff were but two of numerous other-intelligence linked personnel who became involved with NIDS in its less than-a-decade of existence.

Hal Puthoff

Easily the most famous investigation launched by the NIDS involved the infamous "Skinwalker" ranch in Utah. By all accounts, Bigelow went all in on this mecca of high weirdness.

"... The organization called NIDS has been mentioned as was its mission to explore UFO sightings. Some readers also will be aware of the most unusual ranch in southeastern Utah that was acquired by Robert Bigelow. Sometimes known as Skinwalker Ranch, it has been a focal point for a wide range of phenomena for at least decades, possibly centuries... 

"It was the UFO reports that attracted Bob's attention to the property. However, what happened there did not fit into any neatly organized box...

"Orbs or balls of light were often reported by the Gormans, who worked the ranch. They were very troublesome and contributed to the decision to sell the ranch. In one memorable instance, three of the Gormans' dogs were observed snapping at the orbs as they floated through the eastern part of the ranch close to where they lived. These orbs seemed to tease the dogs and led them off into a nearby pasture. The dogs never returned to the house. When Gorman searched for dogs the following day, all he found were three grease spots on the ground, which he took to be the remains of the dogs. Fearing that his teenaged sons might provoke the orbs, he decided to vacate the premises, selling it to Bob."

(UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities, John Alexander, pgs. 232-233)

In addition to the UFOs and orbs, there were also frequent reports of cryptids (the infamous Skinwalkers, somewhat related to Bigfoot-like creatures), poltergeist activity and a host of other strange activity.

On the whole then it would seems that the NIDS had interests that went far beyond UFOs or even near death experiences (NDEs). The presence of famed Ufologist Jacques Vallee, who frequently drew comparisons between UFOs and supernatural encounters from earlier eras, has led many to believe that the NIDS developed a working hypothesis concerning UFOs that was stranger than mere spaceships from another planet.

Putting It All Together

Now, let's take a look at the timeline of these events:

• the mid-1980s: Colonel Alexander allegedly forms the first DIA-linked UFO study group around 1985, thanks in no small part to interest raised in the subject by the CIA/Pentagon remote viewing program. During this same time the DIA also appears to have been running interference in the UFO community at large
•  1988-1990: Alexander retired from the Army in 1988 and shortly thereafter his UFO Working Group was exposed by Howard Blum in Out There. This appears to have briefly brought the UFO Working Group to a halt
• 1995: Project Stargate, the final name of the DIA's remote viewing program, is officially shuttered this year. At the same time Bigelow launches the NIDS with several key figures from the remote viewing program. 
• 2001: 9/11 unfolds, unleashing the War on Terror. Rumors persist of a reactivation of the CIA/Pentagon remote viewing program while both outfits roll back out techniques they spent decades researching under the banner of programs such as ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA in the name of "enhanced" interrogation methods
• 2004-2007: the NIDS is shuttered after allegedly inconclusive results. Despite this, the Pentagon taps Bigelow three years later to launch a highly secretive UFO program under the guise of his aerospace company. 

For years there were rumblings that the NIDS was simply a front for further CIA/Pentagon forays into high weirdness and recent revelations concerning Bigelow seem to confirm this. It would appear that the Pentagon's most recent investigation into UFOs had its origins with Alexander's 1980s-era UFO Working Group, which relocated into the deep private after the end of the Cold War. For years it was nurtured there by the generous contributions of Bigelow and the US intelligence community. This ensured that whatever discoveries made in these investigations would be well beyond the eyes of the public.

The question then becomes, why is this now being revealed to the public?

It would seem that this is partly the result of the ongoing civil war within the American power elite. The project was chiefly exposed by its former head, Luis Elizondo, who protested these program's secrecy to Secretary of Defense James "Mad Dog" Mattis shortly before going public. Since then Elizondo has attached himself to the disclosure project of Blink 182's Tom DeLonge.

DeLonge's project in turn appears to be little more than a continuation of a similar disclosure project effort launched by Laurence Rockefeller in the early 1990s. A key source to both efforts was none other than the infamous John Podesta, whose interests in UFOs became a lightening rod for controversy during the 2016 US presidential election (noted before here). These claims were of course latter overshadowed by Pizzagate, but there is no question the strange dealings of Podesta, a long time Clinton alley, had disastrous effects on Hillary's campaign.

John Podesta

By contrast, Robert Bigelow was an early backer of the Orange One and appears poised to receive ample government funding for his aerospace industry. Bigelow, who is based out of Las Vegas, may have had prior dealings with Trump of a less than legal nature, given the Orange One's roots in organized crime.

Robert Bigelow

On the whole, Las Vegas looms over all this like a specter. John Alexander is a key figure in the Las Vegas chapter of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), an organization believed to covertly manage the US intelligence community. Another key figure there is Alexander's friend, Colonel Michael Aquino, another figure with extensive ties to the far right (noted before here) who appears to have been running disinformation campaign in the UFO community for years as well.

And then there's the nearby Area 51, a long time staple of UFO lore that was largely leaked by the far right (noted before here). Curiously, Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock is believed to have been taking shots at a classified airline that supplied Area 51 shortly before beginning his killing spree. There is of course much speculation online at present that Paddock was a gun runner for some branch of the US intelligence community and with the covert revival of ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA, this raises some strange questions about the actual motive of Paddock's shooting spree.

It would seem then that Vegas is at the absolute black heart of much of the deep private's forays into high weirdness. But whether these recent revelations (and attacks) were simply payback for the 2016 election and outing of the Podesta brothers, or something far stranger and sinister is impossible to say at this point.

All that really can be said is that its been that kind of year.

Men in Black: The Hidden History of the Knights of Malta Part I

In all the annuals of conspiracy literature there is probably no other organization more misunderstood and misrepresented than the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), more commonly known as the Knights of Malta. The Maltese knights trace their origins back to the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, more commonly known simply as the Knights Hospitaller. For a time they were also known as the Knights of Cyprus and Rhodes and a host of other such variations. The Order has an almost totally unbroken lineage that stretches back to the eleventh century, hundreds of years before many of the more common bugaboos of conspiracy literature can be reliably dated.

As regular readers of this blog are no doubt well aware that I've touched on SMOM quite extensively in the past and as such, there will be some overlap with the data presented in previous series. For the sake of brevity I will probably not delve too much into the modern intrigues of SMOM or those of the countless splinter groups and mimic orders the Maltese knights have spawned over the years. Some of the more notorious, such as the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ), have already been chronicled elsewhere (see "Unspeakable Cults, Churches and Secret Societies" sidebar).

Still, this leaves me with a rather extensive amount of history to cover and as such, I shall mainly focus on the aspects of the Order that no doubt most interest my readers: namely, its ties to espionage and the occult. It is for this reason the series is entitled "Men in Black" (MIB).

The Men in Black are of course staples of UFO literature, but reports of them predate the modern era. Gray Baker, one of the earliest MIB chroniclers, noted:

"Dennis Stanley, in a chapter that appeared in The Truth About the Men in Black... believes that 'visits by unknown agents are seeded throughout UFO literature and newspaper accounts of flying saucer sightings. For many years, they were overlooked or not recognized for what they were. Today, just about every UFO investigator has encountered these Men in Black. The history of demonology, witchcraft, and the occult filled with similar incidents, leading one to speculate that the UFO phenomena are at least partly "psychic" in nature.

"UFO magazine editor Allen H. Greenfield has pointed out that there is usually a consistent reference associating the term 'Black Man' with the Devil, along with a mention of an Indian-like appearance supposedly attributed to the Devil by witches. Greenfield has noted that there was a concentration of such cases beginning at the time of the Elizabethan, post-Reformation era in the 1600s. Several occult volumes classify these beings into a group of their own and refer to them as Men in Black, Demons, Devils, Apparitions, or Black Men – the latter being the most commonly used. 

"The writings of arch which-hunter Cotton Mather mention a 'Black Man' associated with the Indians. And there was mention of a man dressed in black during the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts." 

(Men in Black: The Secret Terror, Gray Baker, pg.41)

Historically these Men in Black were viewed as tricksters and tempters, and often appeared in relation to witchcraft and ritual magic. But in modern times, with the advent of UFO lore, they have become suppressors par excellence. Numerous reports exist of them harassing UFO researchers, stealing evidence and so on in an effort to hide the truth from the public. This perception has seeped into pop culture with a vengeance, eventually inspiring a film series. The influence of the MIBs is felt beyond even UFO-related material, with The Matrix memorably using MIBs (dubbed "Agents") as suppressors of the Demiurgic nature of reality.

Curiously, the black grabbed Maltese knights may have been serving a similar function for centuries in regards to the occultic and arcane. With that in mind, let us leap head long into the Order's mysterious origins.

Murky Beginnings in the Holy Land

It is generally agreed that the Knights Hospitaller grew out of a hospital established in Jerusalem to treat Christian pilgrims via papal edict in the seventh century. Some four hundred years later, in the early eleventh century, it was destroyed by Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. During the 1020s, efforts were made to rebuild it with the project falling under the sway of the Benedictine order.

The stage was set for the appearance of the Knights Hospitaller when an alleged lay brother of the Benedictine order known only as Gerard was appointed to head the Hospital of Saint John at some time around 1080. "Blessed" Gerard is the mysterious first Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller. Virtually nothing is known about his life prior to his arrival in the Holy Land, though it has long been claimed that his birthplace was Amalfi.

Blessed Gerard

What is known is that he first rose to prominence during the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099. Reportedly, his assistance proved to be invaluable to the Christian Crusaders and for reasons that went beyond medical care. 

"One of the ejected Christians was Blessed Gerard, master of the Amalfi hostel in the city, who immediately approached the Christian leaders to assist them with first hand knowledge of the layout and the defenses of Jerusalem. Needless to say, his intelligence was indeed most welcome. The crusading leaders ensured that their plans for the city's fall would encompass and indeed utilize Gerard's inside information."

(The Sword and the Green Cross, Max J. Ellul, pgs. 76-77)

Thus, the Order's proto history can be linked directly to espionage. This is a well the Order would return to time and again, as we shall see. But moving along.

Needless to say, the Crusader leaders did not forget Blessed Gerard's good work and his Hospital soon found itself the recipient of lavish donations. However it was not till Garard's successor, Raymond du Puy, that  the true Hospitaller order began to emerge. It was du Puy that transformed the Order's mission from simply administering medical care to pilgrims (apparently with some intelligence gathering) to actively guarding them. To this end, the famed Hospitaller knights arrived.

Not only did these endeavors receive Papal blessings in 1113, but recognition from one of the premier European powers of the era fairly early in the game. In 1185, 67 years after du Puy succeeded Blessed Gerard as Grand Master and militarized the Order, it received protection and a charter of privileges from Frederick Barbarossa, arguably the greatest Holy Roman Emperor of the Middle Ages. This would mark the beginning of a longstanding relationship between the Order and the Holy Roman Empire that continues in a fashion to this day. The Order would grow especially close to the Habsburg dynasty that ruled the Holy Roman Empire for well over four hundred years.

the imperial banner of the Holy Roman Empire

One such Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, granted the Knights Hospitaller Malta in 1530 after they lost their holdings in Rhodes. In 1607, the Grand Master was awarded the status of Reichsfurst, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The connection between the Order and the Habsburg dynasty continued well into the later half of the twentieth century, as was noted in my examination of the mysterious organization known as Le Cercle, which featured ample backing from both the Maltese knights and the Habsburgs (noted here and here). But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Holy Lands the Order frequently rubbed shoulders with two darlings of conspiracy literature: the Knights Templar and the Nizari, more commonly referred to as the Assassins or Hashshashins. As to the latter, it would appear that the Hospitaller ad the Nizari established a relationship so close by the late thirteenth century that it reportedly bordered on heresy.

"... By 1228, the Syrian Nizaris had in fact become tributaries to the Hospitallers under the terms of a cooperative pact, while they continue to pay tribute to the Templars. It was also around this time that the Nizaris began to lend occasional support to the military orders in their campaigns against some of the Christian rulers of the Latin states; and at least the Hospitallers reciprocated by defending the Nazaris against the encroaching forces of Antioch and Tripoli. The Nizari involvement in the Hospitaller campaign of 1230 launched by Krak des Chevaliers against Bohemond IV of Antioch represented one such instance of cooperation.

"It was against this background that Bohemond V (1233-57), the next prince of Antioch and Raymond's brother, wrote Pope Gregory IX complaining that the Grand Master of the Hospitallers was then in league with the 'Assassins.' In response to this complaint, on 26 August 1236, Pope Gregory wrote to the Archbishop of Tyre and the bishops of Sidon and Beirut insisting that the Hospitalers should terminate any compromising connections with

the Assassins, the enemies of God and of the Christian name, who formerly dared to slay treacherously Raymond [son of Bohemond IV]... and many other magnates and Catholic princes, and are striving to overcome our faith by force... and what is far graver still the aforesaid Assassins, on account of the promise made by the after mentioned Master and brethren [of the Hospital] to support and protect them Christian attacks, and undertaken to pay them a certain sum of money every year. Therefore we have sent them orders writing to desist from defending these same Assassins... And so we now charge you that if the said Master and brethren should fail to observe this our command, you shall compel them to abandon this understanding by the censures of the Church, without right of appeal, after giving them due warning."

(The Assassin Legends, Farhad Daftary, pgs. 75-76)

the Nizari showing why they are forever remembered as "Assassins"

Over the years there has been much speculation over the Nizari, who became infamous throughout Christian and Islamic lands during the Middle Ages for their curious ability to assassinate heads of state (hence the reason why the word "assassin" derives from "Hashshashins"). Frequently these assassinations occurred in broad daylight and in crowded place where the assassin had no chance to escape after the deed was done. As such, it was common for a Nizari to die immediately after taking out their target.

The killers were reportedly so stoic in performing their deeds, despite their own certain death, that the methods employed to produce such dedicated killers has spurred much interest over the years. The CIA itself even referenced the legendary founder of the Assassins branch of the Nizari, Hassan-i-Sabbah, in an early assassination manual.

"... A 1952 draft version of the manual describes a man named Hasan-Dan-Sabah who used the drug hashish to 'induce motivation in his followers, who were assigned to carry out political and other murders, usually at the cost of their lives.' Hasan-Dan-Sabah's credo with his closest initiates and most skilled assassins was: 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.' States the CIA's manual, 'Assassination is a term thought to be derived from "Hashish," a drug similar to marijuana.' It is certainly intriguing, for a number of reasons, that the Agency included this reference in its assassination manual. First and foremost is the nexus among Hasan-Dan-Sabah (also known as the Old Man of the Mountain), Hassan-I-Sabbah, an Iranian born in 1056 near modern day Tehran, and the Knights Templar, a legendary group that nearly all of the CIA's founders and earliest employees openly admired and sought to emulate."

(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 263-264)

Hassan-i-Sabbah

Contrary to popular belief, there is no real compelling evidence that Hassan-i-Sabbah used hashish to induce his followers into committing assassinations, or that the Nizari that followed him indulged in it. Most of these allegations likely derive from the reign of Hassan's great-grandson, Hassan II (the fourth lord of Alamut), in which standards had become much more lax since Hassan's day.

In point of fact, Hassan-i-Sabbah was known for sobriety and rigid discipline was imposed upon his sect. It was likely this that served as the cornerstone of the sect's brainwashing, namely relentless religious indoctrination combined with physical deprivation induced by long days and lack of proper nutrition. Such methods are still used to good effect by modern day cults such as the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon.

Still, it is curious that the CIA would look to the Nizari in the early 1950s for inspiration in conducting assassinations at the same time their numerous behavioral modification experiments were in fools swing. Even more curious is the fact that many key early members of the CIA such as Allen Dulles and James Jesus Angleton had had close dealings with the Knights of Malta, the direct descendants of the Medieval Knights Hospitaller, who were warned by the papacy for their close ties to the Nizari, the "enemies of God and the Christian name." As is often the case, many have continued to focus on the interest the early CIA had in the Knights Templar while ignoring the actual membership many key CIA officials had in the Maltese knights.

But back to the Holy Land. The Nizari were but one of several strange sects, along with the likes of the closely related Druze, the Yazidis, and the Mandaens, engaged in highly esoteric practices that the Hospitallers and other Crusaders encountered in the Holy Lands. The Sufi movement was also in its infancy at this time and its possible that remnants of the Harran Sabians could still be found in Syria at the same time the Knights Hospitaller were rubbing shoulders with the Nizari.

ruins of the legendary city of Harran

The Harran Sabians were a curious bunch. The Sabians were mentioned several times in the Quran as "peoples of the Book" and are now believed by many scholars to be derived from the Mandaens, Johnites whose belief system is closely related to Gnosticism. The Harran Sabians, by contrast, appear to have adopted the name Sabian to spare their pagan beliefs after the Islamic conquest. At the core of their belief system was a reverence for Hermes Trismegistus.

"Notable in this process of translation and research was the Sabian intellectual community of Baghdad, which thrived under an enlightened caliphate between the ninth and mid-tenth centuries AD. The Sabians had, in order to qualify for respect as 'people of the Book' as directed by the Koran, taken the philosophical writings of Hermes Trismegistus as their prophetic work, their holy book.

"The philosophy of Hermes was congenial to Baghdad's Muslim authorities because it represented the unity of God and the cosmos. Hermes was congenial to the so-called Sabians because they had originally come from Harran in northern Syria, where the lights of the cosmos were venerated; Harran had seven temples, each dedicated to a planet."

(The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians, Tobias Churton, pgs. 103-104)

I've digressed to discuss the Harran Sabians here because the Maltese knights appear to have developed quite an interest in alchemy several centuries later and it is generally felt that Western alchemy arose from Hermeticism. And the Harran Sabains were one of the key conduits to transfer Hermeticism from the ancient world to the Middle Ages. They were also reported to be early alchemists as well.

As such, there would have been no shortage of esoteric creeds ranging from Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Isma'ilism, among others, for the Crusading knights to absorb. As one of the wealthiest and most influential orders of the Crusader era, the Knights Hospitaller would have been especially well placed to study such creeds. But their potential involvement with these sects has been largely overshadowed by their far more famous rivals, the Knights Templar.

The Hospital and the Temple

The relationship between the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller has long been shrouded in controversy. The Hospitallers predated the Templars and there appears to have been an early influence. But the Templars took up arms before the Hospitallers, which no doubt led to the transformation of the latter into a full blown military order. Many accounts insist, however, on an ever growing rivalry between the two orders that appeared headed towards open conflict in the years leading up to the suppression of the Templars.

"As part of the planning of a new Crusade, the pope had indicated that he wanted to discuss the proposal that the Templars and the Hospitallers be merged into one order, an idea that had been coming up more more frequently in recent years. Just two years earlier a Dominican friar, Raymond Lull, had written a merger plan that had aroused much interest. He proposed that the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and the Knights of the Temple of Solomon be combined into a single order to be called the Knights of Jerusalem, and that all of the rulers of Europe combine their Crusading forces under a single commander to be known as the Rex Bellator, the 'War King.' A few years earlier a French priest, Pierre de Bois, had submitted a written plan for the recuperation of the Holy Places called De Recuperatione Sanctae, in which he cited the efficiencies to be achieved by combining the military orders. 

"The pope had responded favorably to the merger concept. The Hospitalers had brought new hope for a crusade and new respect to themselves by the recent invasion of the island of Rhodes, and the pope leaned towards the appointment of Foulques de Villaret, Grand Master of the Hospitallers, as Grand Master of the proposed combination."

(Born in Blood, John J. Robinson, pg. 128) 

Pope Clement V, who oversaw the persecution of the Knights Templar

This proposed merger was effectively carried out with the suppression of the Knights Templar in 1312, of which the Knights Hospitaller were one of the chief benefactors of.

"That order has managed to escape any criticism in the matter of the Templar suppression, but apparently only because it had kept a low profile throughout, probably for the very good reason that its role and its rewards at been worked out in advance. It is well known that the papacy was in favor of the union of the Templars and Hospitallers and had already determined that Foulques de Villaret, master of the Hospitallers, would be the Grand Master of the combined orders. The Templars, at their headquarters in Cyprus, had heard of the serious intent to combine the orders and had taken the time to prepare a written rebuttal. The Hospitallers, at their own headquarters on the same island, must have received the same information, yet they prepared no rebuttal, written or verbal. In fact, de Villaret managed to stay away from the meeting in France altogether, with no recorded papal criticism for his absence. That was undoubtedly because his presence wasn't needed and because there was no point in chancing a confrontation between the two orders, especially since the pope was already dedicated to looking after the interests of the Hospitallers. Not only did the Hospitallers offer no objection to the concept of the merger, but they made no attempt whatever to speak up for their brother warrior-monks as they were arrested and tortured. They simply stayed out of it and bided their time, until Clement V, much to the anger of King Philip, declared that all of the confiscated Templar property would go to the Knights Hospitallers and that all released Templars could be taken into the Hospitaller order, thereby achieving de facto the union he had been planning all along, with full Hospitaller approval and cooperation. If one looks for motive, the Hospitaller order was the major beneficiary of the suppression of the Templars, as it probably been plan from the beginning. The pope and the Hospitallers together thwarted the aims of Philip of France, and there should be no doubt that the Hospitallers rank as one of the three assassins of the Order of the Temple." 

(Born in Blood, John J. Robinson, pgs. 272-273)

There's a lot to taken in here. A good starting point may be the little-remarked upon role the above-mentioned Ramon Llull played in the suppression of the Templars. A Spanish Franciscan monk, was one of the earliest and most vigorous supporters of merging the Templars and the Hospitallers. Llull had ventured to the island of Cyprus in 1299 to convert the infidel and appears to have been poisoned in 1302. He was ultimately saved by Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar who famously burned at the stake.

Jacques de Molay

Afterwards Llull reportedly pitched de Molay his merger plan, which the Grand Master was not favorably disposed towards. Despite de Molay having saved his life, Llull continued to promote his merger plan and went on to argue for the confiscation of Templar property by the Knights Hospitaller in the wake of the suppression of the former order. 

In addition to being a Franciscan with some sway in the Catholic hierarchy, Llull was also a mystic and early alchemist. One would expect him to be very interested in the ideas the Templars and the Hospitallers were being exposed to in the Holy Lands and to be sympathetic in general to the plight of the Templars. Not only had his life been saved by de Molay, but he was a fellow heretic operating within the frame work of the Catholic Church. And yet he backed the Hospitallers.

Ramon Llull

Was there something about the Knights of the Hospital that intrigued Llull beyond their ability to continue the Crusades? Unfortunately, this is a question little explored. But moving along.

The above reference Robinson makes to the "three assassins of the Order of Temple" is a reference to Masonic myths surrounding the Biblical figure of Hiram Abiff, whom the Masons claim as their founder. In Masonic lore Hiram is murdered by three unworthy craftsmen (some times referred to as "Ruffians") while working on the Temple of Solomon. Robinson speculated that these "Ruffians" (referred to as Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum) were stand-ins for the suppression of the Templar order, with the three unworthy craftsmen representing King Philip of France, Pope Clement V and the Knights Hospitaller.

This is in stark contrast to much conspiracy literature, which tends to depict the Knights of Malta as lackeys of the Freemasons. There is little evidence of this, however. The Scottish Rite degree named after the Knights of Malta appears to reflect Robinson's take on the Maltese knights as assassins (while still showing a certain admiration for the Order). And famed nineteenth century Freemason Albert Mackey, in his encyclopedia of Masonry, proclaimed the Maltese knights to be longstanding foes of the Masons:

"As regards Freemasonry it may be said in general that the Knights were antipathetic to it, or to any such teachings or truths as Masons held at any period. In particular, the Order was twice used in attempts to destroy Freemasonry, and it therefore has at one time or another belong to that long chapter of the history of the Fraternity which is called Anti Masonry.

"It has been an open and confessed military arm of the Vatican before the Pope issued their first Bull against Freemasonry in 1738, and it was ordered to oppose Freemasonry wherever it could. In about 1800 it was instrumental in driving Freemasonry out of Russia. When Metternich after 1815 and the Congress of Vienna became the dictator of Europe he made the complete climination of the Fraternity one of his open and principal aims; and to a large extent he succeeded for some years, and may be described as the most powerful Anti-Mason of the nineteenth century.

"The Knights of Malta were one of the agencies employed by him..."

(Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. 3, Albert Mackey, pg. 56)

In recent years the linkage between the Knights of Malta and Freemasonry has been revived by no less than Pope Francis himself, who has demanded that the Maltese knights purge Freemasons from their ranks.

Pope Francis

The presence of Freemasons among the Maltese knights is deceptive, however. In modern times this connection was laid bare in the scandal surrounding Propaganda Due (P2), the infamous Italian Masonic lodge linked to Operation Gladio and a host of terror attacks in Italy and beyond. As was noted before here, the upper echelon of P2 was almost totally dominated by the Maltese knights and the closely related Opus Dei. In other words, reactionary Catholic orders were using Masonic lodges (as there were other Propaganda lodges across Europe) as cover for a host of illegal and immoral activities. Some have suggested that this use of "unclean hands" was to further distance the Maltese knights from the deeds they were engaged in.

This is compelling, but I suspect there was another motive: to give yet another black eye to a longstanding foe of the Order. P2 has provided much fodder to conspiracy researchers obsessed with Masons (virtually all of them, in other words) who in turn almost totally ignore the dominating influence the Maltese knights had over P2. In many ways, it would be difficult for a reactionary Catholic order to come up with a more perfect cover.

***

And with that I shall wrap things up for now with the following thoughts: the Knights of Malta emerged during the Crusades and spent nearly two centuries roaming the Holy Lands. There they likely encountered a host of esoteric ideologies from the likes of the Nizari, Mandeans, Yazidis, Druze and possibly even the Sabians and Sufis. It has been long suspected that their fellow Crusading military order the Knights Templar adopted some type of esoteric doctrine derived from some combination of these groups.

The Templar are then suppressed and persecuted in Europe, with the Knights Hospitaller ending up with their properties, members and possibly whatever occultic doctrines the Templars subscribed too. Certainly this more than echoes modern encounters of Men in Black who perform a similar function in regards to UFO revelations.

For the Knights of Malta, this was only the beginning. In the years to come they would encounter even more strange doctrines that they potentially embraced internally while suppressing among the general public. On the whole this is in rather stark contrast to speculative theories of the Knights Templar. If the Templars did in fact inspire Freemasonry, they ultimately made a host of esoteric doctrines accessible to the public at large through their lodges. The Knights of Malta, by contrast, preferred to keep this knowledge hidden.