Ong's Hat, Super Soldiers, and Other Mysteries

If you've been following this blog lately, you know I've been fascinated and disturbed by the rash of murders involving special operators at Fort Bragg. This topic was previously discussed at length here and updated here. 

While Christmas brought a reprieve for Fort Bragg, special operators still managed to make headlines across the country over the holiday weekend, and in tragic fashion. At the Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state, a former special operator (of the US Army Special Forces, more commonly known as the "Green Berets") nearly beat his wife to death in front of their children. Fortunately, no deaths were involved in this incident, just a lengthy police standoff in which the operators threatened to kill himself. 

Elsewhere, things were much more dire in Rockford, Il. There, a Green Beret on leave went on a shooting spree at a bowling alley that left three dead and three wounded. So it goes. 

While there has been a staggering amount of deaths in general involving military personnel at domestic bases in recent years, the rash of killings involving special operators warrants close attention in light of other, ongoing developments. As I noted before here, the aftermath of the 2020 election witnessed some staggering changes to the national security apparatus. The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has effectively been made it's own branch of the military, while a veteran special operator (also a Green Beret) whose never held a rank higher than colonel was made the acting Secretary of Defense. Elsewhere, one of the staunchest cronies of General Michael Flynn (who earned his reputation heading intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command) was placed in command of all special operations forces and military intelligence. These moves were followed by the Pentagon informing the CIA that it was cutting off its access to special operators. If this move stands, this is effectively the end of the CIA as a major cover operations forces. 

So against this backdrop, the rash of killings involving special operators is most curious. But, is it just related to recent developments? Or, are these deaths, and many of the other bizarre ones that have unfolded across domestic military bases for years now, indicative of something darker? Something like a real-life "super soldier" program run amok? 

Why wait till 2050?

This is but one of many fascinating topics David Metcalfe and I cover during The Farm's most recent premium episode. While many of your probably haven't heard of Metcalfe, his CV is mighty impressive. Not mentioned there, but most relevant to our discussion, is Metcalfe's longstanding friendship with Ong's Hat creator Joseph Matheny and his nearly two decades in the alternate reality game (ARG) community. Thus, Metcalfe brings an insider's perspective to ARGs, a topic that is highly relevant now. And, closely related to the rise of the special operators. 

Another topic David and I explore is one that's already been discussed here and on The Farm: Is QAnon an ARG, and if so, is it one launched by the US intelligence and/or special operations community?  You guys know what I think, but now you can hear an ARG insider's take on the phenomena. 

the ultimate ARG?

Besides super soldiers and "QAnon as ARG," Metcalfe and I found the time to cover a host of other interrelated topics: the metaphysics of Chicago and the glorious 1980s counterculture; the personality profiling used by Joseph Matheny; "mastermind groups"; Adam Parfrey, Genesis P-Orridge, and the attempted Process revival; whether Cambridge Analytica and/or Steve Bannon would have been interested in the ARG format; and so much more. 

This is a great discussion guys. Please consider becoming subscriber. This episode alone is worth the price of admission. 

And on a more personal note, thank you all again. I have the best fans in the whole wide world. Happy New Year's to you all!

You're Gonna Miss Me

Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson was both an American original and an American tragedy. He is most well known now as the American Syd Barrett, but with a somewhat happier ending. The body of work Erickson put together over the course of nearly six decades in the music industry (sans a decade or two when he gave up music) has proven to be enormously influential. A host of acts ranging from ZZ Top, Echo & the Bunnymen, Julian Cope, the Butthole Surfers, R.E.M., Primal Scream, and legions of modern neo-psych bands claim him as an influence.  When Erickson passed away on May 31, he was several decades into a remarkable career resurgence that would have seemed impossible in the 1980s.

During that particular decade Erickson was practically homeless at times, almost completely incapacitated by mental illness, and suffering numerous other health and substance abuse problems. He had almost completely given up on music, and was often seen wandering about Austin, Texas in a disheveled state, adding to his legacy as one of the 1960s most notorious acid causalities. And yet, by the middle of the last decade, he was the subject of a successful documentary, releasing new studio albums, and even performing live with upstarts acts such as the Black Angels who based so much of their sound on Erickson's work from the 1960s.

After enjoying some regional success with the Spades, his first band, Erickson co-founded the legendary 13th Floor Elevators in 1965. The Elevators, in turn, are considered to be one of the pioneering psychedelic acts, their sound crystallizing concurrent to, and largely independent of, the far more well known San Francisco sound. Indeed, it is likely that the San Francisco psychedelic scene was even more influenced by happenings in Texas than vice versa. Both Janis Joplin and Family Dog's Chet Helms had spent time in the same Austin scene that spawned the Elevators before relocating to San Fran. Helms in particular would play an enormous role in shaping both the music and counterculture of the city during the 1960s to the point that he has been described as the father of the Summer of Love.

Janis Joplin and Chet Helms

The Elevators emerged out of the burgeoning psychedelic scene centered around the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) during the early 1960s. This scene was fueled, unlike other such happenings, by peyote rather than LSD. The hallucinogenic and spiritual properties of the cactus buttons had first been observed by anthropology students during 1960 and later spread to others across the campus. At the same time, some curious figures were lurking about the school.

There was Whitley Strieber, the famed horror novelist turned UFO abductee and New Age guru. And then there was the infamous Charles Whitman. At one time a student at the Austin branch of the University of Texas during the early 1960s, the former Marine would return there on August 1, 1966, and embark upon a shooting spree that earned him the nickname the "Texas Tower Sniper." Whitman used the university tower as a sniper's nest, using multiple firearms to pick off students indiscriminately. When all was said and done, fourteen people were dead with an additional 31 wounded. At the time, the Elevators had just been subjected to the first of many drugs busts days before hand.

Strieber (top) and Whitman (bottom), who were both students at the UT Austin during the early 1960s along with several future Elevators

Austin remains a curious place to this day. In many ways, it seems like it should be a part of California. Its music scene, which the Elevators played no small part in putting on the map, has become the stuff of legends. Thanks to the efforts of filmmaker Richard Linklater and his Austin Film Society, it has a vibrant role in the motion picture industry as well. Elsewhere, Austin has become one of the leading tech hubs in the South as well. Locals have even gone so far as to refer to a part of the city as Silicon Hills.

As both the entertainment and tech industries are closely related to the intelligence sector, it should come as little surprise that at least one major private intelligence company calls Austin home. That would be Stratfor, which Barron's once referred to as "the shadow CIA." Unsurprisingly, famed conspiracy theorists (and CIA asset) Alex Jones also calls Austin home.

Jones

Given all these associations, it should come as little surprise that the Elevators have provided ample fodder to the likes of David McGowan and Jan Irvin in their efforts to prove every aspect of the 1960s counterculture as some type of CIA plot. And indeed, if one subscribes to this particular brand of "Aquarian conspiracies," no 1960s rock 'n roll band may better fit this mold than the Elevators. They and their hanger-ons were all from solidly upper middle class backgrounds, and had parents connected to the military and/or the Texas elite of the time. The band sold drugs, most notably LSD, to make ends meet, with one member eventually linking up with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. 

That member, electric jug player and chief lyricist Tommy Hall (who had previously displayed far right views), made no bones about his agenda for the band: namely, to use it as venue to promote his acid-fried spiritual vision that adopted a host of occultic and esoteric concepts. Indeed, Hall had a far more profound notion of occult doctrine that practically any other rock 'n roller circa 1965. While the Beatles were just beginning to dip their toes in, Hall had already catapulted into the deep end. Hell, they even adopted Great Pyramid and All Seeing Eye as their logo! The band had all but walked out of the Illuminatus! Trilogy.

But things are not always as they seem. Unlike their LA and San Francisco counterparts, the Elevators were crack musicians (at least until they toured San Fran and embraced the habit of not practicing) who wrote the bulk of their own material. In other words, they were not a studio creation like so many LA and San Fran bands of the era (see The Wrecking Crew). Further, rather than achieving stardom, the Elevators were confined to cult status thanks to the inexplicable ineptitude of their label, the infamous International Artists (IA). With little promotion, the Elevators had achieved a hit single in "You're Gonna Miss Me."  This, combined with the musical/songwriting prowess of the band and Erickson's movie star good looks, all but ensured they could have been huge. If you thought the occult influence of the Beatles and the Stones on America's youth during this era was a problem, be thankful that Tommy Hall never got such a platform.

the enigmatic Tommy Hall

Indeed, IA appears to have done everything in their power to suppress the band, effectively refusing to promote any of their material after "You're Gonna Miss Me." This ensured that the Elevators were rarely heard outside of Texas during the 1960s. And as for the band members themselves, they suffered profound personal tragedies --unlike so many of their California counterparts.

At the forefront was Roky Erickson. In 1969, after a minor drug bust, he was admitted to Rusk State Hospital in 1969. There, he was subjected to electroshock "therapy" while rubbing elbows with the criminally insane that comprised the bulk of Rusk's population. Former bandmates and family members largely insist that Roky's time in Rusk is what fueled his later mental health problems rather than the LSD, as is commonly claimed. While the acid no doubt contributed on some level, there's no question that the three years he spent in Rusk profoundly changed Roky. It especially evident in Erickson's post-Elevators solo work.

"Meanwhile Roky survived hell at Rusk. His resurrection was simple – Horror Rock. The whole point of good horror is that the audience is meant to suffer and, in turn, horror could be viewed as a subtle form of revenge for what had happened to him. One of Roky's biggest problems was countering his sense of the mundane, and horror offered a highly theatrical cast of monsters and gremlins to express himself. Although he prefers not to elaborate on the background of his songs, it's not hard to spot the adaptation of horror titles from his youth into autobiographical metaphors: 1943's 'I Walked With a Zombie' for the 'Thorazine shuffle' and 1957's 'Night of the Demon' for Rusk and 1955's 'Creature With the Atom Brain' for electric shock treatment. Screamin' Jay Hawkins employed voodoo and the macabre in his songs and Roky's hero Joe Meek used extraterrestrials. In 1975 Roky lost all his manuscripts in a huge fire and set about a marathon typing session assisted by Billy Miller in which he recalled all of his songs. What's intriguing was that Roky had become absorbed in the twin motion of acceptance and rejection and typed many of the songs with the lyrics 'God' and 'Jesus,' which were then crossed through with red pen and then replaced with 'Lucifer' and 'Satan.' "

(Eye Mind, Paul Drummond, pg. 380)

While I've always preferred Roky's work with the Elevators, there's no denying the power of his "Horror Rock" stage. While look to both 1950s horror and rock 'n roll for inspiration, Roky offered up a truly demented attempt to make sense of his experiences at Rusk. In addition to "Creature with the Atom Brain," there's no question that songs such as "Bloody Hammer" were also attempts to make sense of the electroshock "therapy" he was subjected too. An effort was made by Creedence Clearwater Revival's Stu Cook to record many of these songs during the late 1970s. Eventually, they were collected together during the early 1980s for the classic The Evil One.

But despite the creativity Roky was still capable of in the 1970s, there's no question his mental state had seen better days. In 1975, he had an attorney draw up an official document declaring that he was not human, but rather a Martian. Erickson's mental state would only get worse. By the 1980s, he had largely given up on music all together, as well as basic hygiene. Erickson had claimed to have heard voices since the late 1960s, but by the 80s the situation had become dire. Erickson, by now a recluse, spent much of his time holed up in his house with countless TVs and radios, all tuned to different stations, blaring at once. He allegedly used the white noise from these devices to drawn out the voices in his head. This would remain his preferred form of medication until the 1990s.

While Erickson seemed destined to fade away into obscurity, the Herculean efforts of his brother, Sumner, during the early 00s spurred a remarkable transformation in Roky. After wresting away custody from their mother in 2001, Roky was finally able to get effective psychiatric treatment. By the end of the decade, he was once gain touring and even recording.

After spending much of the 1980s and early 1990s in a special kind of hell, Roky's striking career resurgence was a fitting coup de grace for one of the most enigmatic figures in rock 'n roll. After years of obscurity, Roky finally possessed a fitting cult following of a respectable scale. And the poor bastard finally made some money, after years of being exploited by family members and assorted hanger-ons. As such, Roky had about the closet thing to happy ending as this type of saga is likely to produce.

the Elevators

But Roky will always be most remembered for his work with the Elevators. And the Elevators' story is ultimately a tragic one. Like Icarus flying to close to the sun, the band rubbed shoulders with powerful forces as part of their psychedelic evangelicalism and more than a few band members were burned in the process. For more information on these tragedies, check out my early series on the Elevators, "Slip Inside This House: The Nightmare Trip of the 13th Floor Elevators":

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

Before signing off, I would like to note that the reverberations continued even with Erickson's death. As was noted above, he died on May 31. Reverse the numbers in 31 and one is left with a 13. And it just so happens, Roky's death is not the only tragedy that unfolded on May 31, 2019 related to 13. That date also witnessed a mass shooting, the Virginia Beach shooting, to be precise. Twelve individuals were gunned down by the perpetrator, who was later was killed by police. This resulted in a total of 13 deaths.

Powerful forces, indeed. And with that, I shall sign off. Until next time dear readers, stay tuned.

Some Thoughts

And now for your deep state civil war update.

For starters, #releasethememo largely proved to be much ado about nothing, #asexpected. Sure, it technically "revealed" that the FBI investigation of the Orange One was largely based upon the ludicrous Steele dossier, but this has been known for some time now. And in this day in age, having something confirmed is rather anti-climatic.

Don't get me wrong, its shrewd politicking as Congress battles over a new budget and the Orange One attempts to reach bipartisan "immigration" reform. But ultimately, it was just another salvo in the ongoing civil war rather than the knock blow some were expecting.

As far as the budget and immigration goes, I fully expect the Democrats to blink as they did last month. That's because another salvo is already on deck --an inspector general's report on the FBI's handling on the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Reportedly FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was forced into early retirement last week due to the pending results of this probe. Whether he's the only head to roll as a result of this investigation remains to be seen, but certainly Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein probably shouldn't be getting too comfortable in his post right about now.

Andrew McCabe

This is yet another tough break for the Democrats and their backers. Investigations are starting to mount at a time when #metoo has already started to take out prominent Democratic donors and supporters with a vengeance.

This is most curious as it is widely believed that the Orange One's chief political mentor was attorney Roy Cohn, best known for role as Joseph McCarthy's lead counsel during the Second Red Scare. And is just so happens that there have been rumors surrounding Cohn for years that he was involved in staging "honey traps" for some branch of the US intelligence community. Rumors such as this:

"... According to the former head of the vice squad for one of America's biggest cities, 'Cohn's job was to run the little boys. Say you had an admiral, a general, a congressman, who did not want to go along with the program. Cohn's job was to set them up, then they would go along. Cohn told me that himself.' "

(The Franklin Scandal, John DeCamp, pg. 179)

Roy Cohn

And now we're seeing many prominent Democrats in Hollywood being laid low by #metoo while some of Trump's more controversial policies, such as his tax cuts, are rammed through Congress with shockingly little opposition. Why, this seems remarkably like Cohn's alleged playbook!

But don't feel too bad for the Democrats or their backers, who hardly seem to be taking Trump's challenge laying down. Consider, for instance, this bizarre incident:

"A train carrying dozens of Republican members of Congress, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, to their legislative retreat in West Virginia hit a truck Wednesday, leaving at least one person dead...

"Amtrak said in a statement that the train came into contact with a vehicle that was on the tracks at 11:20 a.m. ET in Crozet, Virginia, outside Charlottesville.

"Republican members of Congress on the train, which left Washington's Union Station, were on their way for a retreat at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The retreat starts Wednesday and ends Friday. Vice President Mike Pence, who was not on the train, is scheduled to speak to members later Wednesday and President Donald Trump is scheduled to address the event on Thursday. A GOP congressman told CNN Wednesday that the retreat will go on as planned."

Ah yes, Republic lawmakers on a "retreat" to a "former" nuclear shelter that was a part of the highly secretive COG network when their train runs into a dump truck... parked in the middle of the railroad tracks. No, this isn't at all suspicious, especially coming in the wake of an assassination attempt on Republican lawmakers at a soft ball game last summer.

Steve Scalise, the House Republican shot during the softball game

Much has of course been made of House Republicans retiring in droves. Many liken it to rats fleeing a sinking ship. This isn't a bad theory when the Orange One is the head of your party, but being a House Republican person does seem like a rather hazardous profession of late.

Interestingly, the House has generally been the home of various darlings of the far right such as Larry McDonald and Ron Paul. The Senate, by contrast, has typically been dominated by the Rockefeller Republican wing of the party. Naturally, things don't seem to be as hazardous for Senators at the moment. And of course there's John McCain, who simply refuses to die. No doubt his soundbites are invaluable to the "resistance."

Things aren't going much better in the Orange One's sometime-favorite past time either. Last year saw the New England Patriots pulling out the Super Bowl, which provided the Orange One with his only successful meet-and-greet with a championship athletic team last year. This year, however, the Pats fell to the Philadelphia Eagles, who have made a big deal about social activism, or some such shit, during the present season. This should provide the "resistance" with some more choice soundbites eventually, aided along by New England coach Bill Belichick's inexplicable decision to bench one of his best defenders (who had previously made a game-winning play in a prior Super Bowl no less) throughout a Super Bowl in which his defense was shredded for what has been described as a combination of a rough week of practice and/or violating a minor team rule.

Malcolm Butler, the benched Patriot weeping during the antheme

And what about that market? After finishing down 665 Points (har har) this past Friday it lost nearly 1200 points on Monday. the biggest single day point loss ever. Is Trump about to lose the bull market? Its a fool's errand to guess what the market will do --many have been predicting an imminent crash for nearly a decade now and yet it keeps going up. Still, with the decline of anti-Trumpism, something is clearly needed to succeed the collapsing Russiagate.

And with I shall sign off now with one final note: Apologies for the lack of recent updates. Life continues to intrude, but I'm hoping to have a much longer piece up later in the week that will be the kind of research-heavy work regular readers expect from this blog. For now, I thought this civil war update will provide some food for thought for those of you missing VISUP. Until next time, stay tuned dear readers.

A Sniper in Dallas

Over the last few days the headlines read like something out of a synchro-mystical nightmare. The week began with two more questionable shootings of African-American men (Alton Sterling and Philando Castile) by US police officers under highly dubious circumstances. And then there was Thursday night's main event in which a US Army veteran rained sniper fire down on Dallas police, allegedly as a result of a desire to kill police officers and "white people."

Obviously, there are more than a few parallels to the Kennedy assassination, and in fact the shooting took place mere blocks from Dealey Plaza. Thus, a lot of the twilight language associated with the Kennedy assassination is potentially applicable here. What's more, the shooting took place on 7/7, the date of Britain's most notorious alleged Islamic terror attack. As Loren Coleman noted on his blog, there are also curious overlaps between the life and death of the nation's most recent sniper and Mark Essex, a former African-American Navy man who murdered several police officers in New Orleans with a high powered rifle in 1972.

There is also a deep political implication behind this event as well. The shooting unfolded in the midst of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest. The BLM movement has received much of its financial support from George Soros's Open Society Foundations (OSF). OSF and other Soros foundations have been linked for nearly fifteen years now to a host of "bloodless" "color revolutions", mostly in Eastern Europe:

"... the so-called Orange Revolution which had taken place in Kiev, in the Ukraine, in the late fall and early winter 2004. The Orange Revolution, as informed observers knew very well, had been the result of a cynical destabilization of Ukraine by US and British intelligence --especially by the National Endowment for Democracy, the various Soros foundations, Gene Sharp's Albert Einstein Institute, and other entities that we may refer to for the sake of brevity and clarity as the privatized or quasi-government left wing of the US intelligence community or left CIA in the post-1982 era of President Reagan's Executive Order 12333.

 "The 2004 Orange Revolution was not a unique event, but had been preceded by similar exercises in destabilization and subversion, especially in the former Warsaw Pact and Soviet spaces. These have included the successful so-called Bulldozer Revolution in Belgrade, Serbia in 2000 and the Roses revolution in Tiflis, Georgia in 2003. There had been an attempt at a Cedars Revolution in Lebanon in 2006, but it had been blocked by the organized mass mobilization capacity of Hezbollah. Another attempted coup in Belarus in 2001 had also been defeated by that nation's government."

(Obama: The Postmodern Coup, Webster Griffin Tarpley, pg. 13) 

George Soros, who has also provided a lot of the funding for the modern cannabis and entheogen movements

The coups have not always been bloodless, however. The Open Society Foundations' recent activities in the Ukraine have contributed to the civil war that has destabilized the former Soviet Bloc nation since 2014.

Thus, the appearance of a Soros' funded "mass movement" at an event of this magnitude should always give one pause. Even more curious is the time spent by the shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, in the US Army. Johnson had apparently been considering a career in the Army prior to graduating from high school. Raw Story reports:

"Johnson graduated in 2009 from John Horn High School in Mesquite, where he participated in JROTC, the high school officer training program, according to the school district. Family photographs on Facebook show him posing in a red mortarboard. 

"He joined the Army Reserve the same year he completed high school, serving with the 420th engineering brigade. His jobs included a stint at Jimmy John's in Richardson. Chris Jennings, who owns the sandwich shop, said in an email that Johnson went to work there in 2011 and 'departed of his own accord in 2012.' 

"The following year, he was deployed to Afghanistan for 12 months. Several soldiers who served with him told The Dallas Morning News that they had been ordered not to discuss him.

"One family friend said Johnson had changed when he returned from overseas.... 

"At some point, Johnson appears to have worked at General Dynamics, a defense company with offices in Richardson. A woman who answered the phone there Friday said he had been an employee. People at the business said employees had been told not to talk to the media. A spokeswoman for the parent company would not confirm or deny his employment.

"Pentagon records do not reveal the reason for Johnson's Army discharge in April 2015. But a military lawyer who represented him said Johnson had been accused of sexually harassing a female soldier and had to leave the service. Bradford Glendening, a military attorney who practices near Fort Hood, said that the Army sent Johnson home from Afghanistan, which was unusual. Discipline for sexual harassment is typically counseling, he said...

"The woman asked that Johnson receive 'mental help' and asked for a protective order for herself and her family, Glendening said, adding that he wasn't sure which type of discharge Johnson ultimately received.

"Johnson's passionate interest in the black power movement began to manifest itself on his Facebook page this year. On April 30, he changed his profile picture to a shot of him with Professor Griff, a member of the hip-hop group Public Enemy known for calling out police brutality."

Micah Xavier Johnson circa 2009

Here's some more from MSNBC about the incident that got Johnson drummed out of the Army:

"For six years starting in 2009, Johnson served in the Army Reserve as a private first class with a specialty in carpentry and masonry, the military said.

"In May 2014, six months into his Afghanistan tour, he was accused of sexual harassment by a female soldier. The Army sent him stateside, recommending an 'other than honorable discharge,' said Bradford Glendening, the military lawyer who represented him. 

"That recommendation was 'highly unusual,' Bradford said, since counseling is usually ordered before more drastic steps are taken...

"According to a court filing Glendening read over the phone Friday, the victim said she wanted Johnson to 'receive mental help,' while also seeking a protective order to keep him away from her and her family, wherever they went. Johnson was ordered to avoid all contact with her.

"Glendening said Johnson was set to be removed from the Army in September 2014 because of the incident, but instead got an honorable discharge months later — for reasons he can't understand.

" 'Someone really screwed up,' he said. "But to my client's benefit.' "

So, to recap: Johnson appears to have been a fairly normal individual with a longstanding dream of being in the Army. He enlists and is in the Reserve for six years. In 2013, he is sent to Afghanistan. He has some type of breakdown there that appears to involve a female soldier. The Army apparently has great concern about his conduct and mental stability, yet they end of granting him an honorable discharge and seemingly take no real legal actions against him.

A little over a year after he has been honorably discharged, he develops an interest in militant black power groups. And then, several months later, he launches an attack on Dallas police that has been described as "well-planned" and "well thought out." He is then killed by Dallas police via a robot/drone, leaving no opportunity to question him and certainly not for a trial (to say nothing of creating a disturbing precedent). And of course, there were the inevitable initial reports that Johnson was not acting alone, since changed to the familiar "lone wolf" narrative.

Bizarrely, another African-American Army veteran was accused of opening fire on passing cars on a highway in Tennessee hours before the Dallas incident. He also alleged that he had been triggered by recent police killings of people of color.

Lakeem Keon Scott, the Tennessee shooter

These are strange times indeed. It seems likely that these events have some ulterior purpose, but it is to early discern. Many will pick up on the Open Society Foundations/Soros link to the BLM movement and reduce to this to a domestic operation by the "liberal CIA" faction. But this researcher believes the possibility exists that BLM and their backers are being set up by some other force, one that sees the mounting opposition to the police state as a direct threat to the national security apparatus.

But only time will tell. Until then, stay tuned and be safe in these interesting times.

The Orlando Massacre and the Legacy of Wackenhut -Updated 6/15/16

By now I'm sure regular readers of this blog have some notion of the events that unfolded in Orlando early Sunday morning (6/12/16) in Orlando, but for those of you living under a rock or discovering the article in the future, here is a brief rundown:

At roughly 2 AM one Omar Mateen, 29, walked into a Orlando-based LGBT club known as Pulse and opened fired with an assault weapon. When the smoke cleared, nearly a third of the club goers (the venue could hold around 300 people) were wounded. At present (6/13/16) 49 are reported dead and another 53 were wounded. The shooter was allegedly killed by a SWAT team around 5 AM after it raided the club. Mr. Mateen had apparently been holed up in the club for several hours with dozens of hostages before the SWAT team intervened. It is at present unknown how this effected the situation.

Mr. Mateen claimed to be a member of ISIS, and the group claimed credit for the attack,but it is unknown at this point if he actually had contact with the terror network, or was merely a supporter. The FBI had apparently investigated Mr. Mateen for terrorist ties in both 2013 and 2014, but naturally found nothing. Mr. Mateen's parents were from Afghanistan though he was reportedly born in New York. Given his age, it is possible that his parents immigrated to the United States during the Soviet-Afghan War. This simply speculation on this researcher's part, however, as I have found nothing credible to confirm this.

Marteen

Easily the biggest red flag thus far revealed about Mr. Mateen was his employment with G4S, the notorious British security firm. RawStory reports:

"Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, had worked for G4S since 2007, and was employed at a gated retirement community in South Florida, the company said in a statement late on Sunday.

"He underwent two instances of company screening and background checks – once when he was hired in 2007, and again in 2013.

"In 2013, the company learned that Mateen had been questioned by the FBI but that the inquiries were then closed...

"G4S, which employs 620,000 people and operates in more than 110 countries, provides security services to a slew of U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, Justice Department, U.S. Army and Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security, according to a brochure on its U.S. website.

"Mateen was an armed security officer for G4S, and the company was trying to ascertain whether any guns used in the attack were related to Mateen’s work, said a spokesman who declined to be named...

"The company is no stranger to controversy. It has come under fire from rights advocates for providing services to Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said in 2014 it sold its stake in G4S.

"Three of the firm’s security guards were acquitted of manslaughter charges in 2014 in the cardiac arrest death of an Angolan aboard a flight from London whom they were repatriating to his native country."

This is only scratching the surface and does not even address the controversy surrounding a subsidiary of GS4, the infamous Wackenhut security firm. Wackenhut was one of the trailblazers of the private security racket and has been a lightening rod for controversy decades before it became a part of G4S in 2004. It was originally founded in 1954 in Coral Gables, FL, by George Wackenhut, a former FBI man. While Wackenhut seems to have originally been founded as a private detective agency, it soon added guard services to its wares and soon thereafter its profile began to skyrocket.

George Wackenhut

By the 1960s it had won lucrative contracts to guard the Kennedy Space Center and the Atomic Energy Commission's nuclear test site in Nevada. Most famously, however, are the guard services Wackenhut provided to Area 51. Stories of amateur Ufologists being chased off the the site by brown-uniformed Wackenhut men are legion.

Unsurprisingly, there have long been allegations that Wackenhut had ties to the US intelligence community:

"Of all the articles written about Wackenhut Corporation, probably the most provocative was written by John Connolly for SPY magazine, published in September 1992, pp. 46-54. Connolly, a former New York police officer turned writer, began his story with the following introduction 'What? A big private company – one with a board of former CIA, FBI and Pentagon official; one in charge of protecting nuclear-weapons facilities, nuclear reactors, the Alaskan oil pipeline and more than a dozen American embassies abroad; one with long-standing ties to a radical right-wing organization; one with 30,000 men and women underarms – secretly helped Iraq in its effort to obtain sophisticated weapons? And fueled unrest in Venezuela? This is all the plot of a new best-selling thriller, right? Or The ravings of some overheated conspiracy buff, right? Right? wrong'.

 "Connolly highlighted George Wackenhut as a 'hard-line right-winger' who was able to profit from his beliefs by building dossiers on Americans suspected of being Communists or left-leaning 'subversives and synthesizers' and selling the information to interested parties. By 1965, Wackenhut was boasting to potential investors that the company maintained files on 2.5 million suspected dissidents – one and 46 American adults then living.

"In 1966, after acquiring the private files of Karl Barslaag, a former staff member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Wackenhut could confidently maintain that with more than 4 million names, it had the largest privately held file on suspected dissidents in America.

"Connolly wrote that it was not possible to overstate the special relationship that Wackenhut enjoys with the federal government. Richard Babayan, claiming to be a CIA contract employee, told SPY that 'Wackenhut has been used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for years. When they [the CIA] needed cover, Wackenhut is there to provide it for them.'

"Another CIA agent, Bruce Berckmans, who was assigned to the CIA station in Mexico City, but left the agency in January 1975 (putatively) to become a Wackenhut international-operations vice president, told SPY that he had seen a formal proposal submitted by George Wackenhut to the CIA offering Wackenhut offices throughout the world as fronts for CIA activities. In 1981 Berckmans joined with other senior Wackenhut executives to form the company's Special Projects Division... 

"SPY also printed testimony from William Corbett, a terrorism expert who spent 18 years as a CIA analyst and is now an ABC news consultant in Europe. Said Corbett, 'For years Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the DEA. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandestine operations. Additionally, Corbett said that Wackenhut supplied intelligence agencies with information, and it was compensated for this – 'in a quid pro quo arrangement' – with government contracts worth billions of dollars over the years."

(The Last Circle, Cheri Seymour, pgs. 46-47) 

Even more ominous are the ties Wackenhut had to the Westland New Post, a Belgian neo-fascist paramilitary outfit that has long been linked to the Brabant massacres that rocked Belgium during the 1980s.

"... Wackenhut also drew for some of its employees on the Westland New Post paramilitaries. One of these was a known bomber and hitman, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Calmette, a notorious veteran of the OAS rebellion against de Gaulle and a close conspirator of Yves Guerin-Serac. He was director of the Belgian division of Wackenhut up until 1981, while doubling as a senior Westland New Post commander. These were curious relationships for such a prominent businessman in the security business...

"In 1982, Barbier was assigned as a Wackenhut security guard to the synagogue on the Rue de la Regence in Brussels. During his watch, it mysteriously blew up. The plans of the building were later found in Barbier's home. This same Marcel Barbier was later discovered to be a close personal associate Paul Latinus, effectively his deputy. The plot thickened. Security duties agreed with the Belgian Army involved the strange melting away of Wackenhut security patrols during a number of incidents in which these bases were supposedly attacked by revolutionary forces. In every case, the Strategy of Tension assaults were mounted by paramilitary units, with Westland New Post to the fore...

"In the mid-1980s, Wackenhut closed down in Belgium, amid reports of marching orders from the Ministry of Defense. It may have been that things got too hot for comfort, and the chief clients wanted the show out of town. Judged in the light of later events, Wackenhut's activities in Belgium anticipated mercenary activities by trigger-happy private security contractors of several decades later, notably the infamous Blackwater outfit."

(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pgs. 306-307)

Marcel Barbier

Much more information on Wackenhut's involvement in what was likely false flag terrorism in Belgium during the 1980s can be found here.

At this point I would like to stress that all of this is highly speculative and many facts are still coming in regarding the Orlando Massacre. But this researcher believes that Wackenhut's history in Belgium is highly suggestive of how deep intrigues may have played a part in the Orlando Massacre. Obviously Wackenhut is no more and now a part of G4S. But clearly G4S has its own deep intrigues as well and it is certainly possible that it may provide similar services to the CIA or other American and/or Europe intelligence agencies.

Update 6/15/16

Here's some more information concerning G4S and its most notorious subsidiary, Wackenhut. As to the later, it found itself implicated in a triple murder stemming from a partnership between Wackenhut and the Cabazon tribe, whose reservation resides in Coachella, California, near Indio (a part of the Palm Springs area). In 1981 the Cabazon tribe founded Cabazon Arms, an arms-manufacturing venture that has been linked to a host of intrigues. One is the above-mentioned triple murder:

"In 1982, Fred Alvarez, a Cabazon tribal leader, and two companions, were found murdered on the Indio reservation. Alvarez had been critical of Nichols' and Wackenhut's dealings with the Cabazon tribe, and he had mentioned to friends that he had received death threats. Investigative reporter Virginia McCullough later came to believe that Alvarez had discovered that monies rightfully belonging to the Indians were being embezzled by the partnership called Bingo Palace Inc. Alvarez knew what he was getting into, however. He had told the Indio Daily News, 'My life is on the line. There are people out there [on the reservation] that want to kill me."

(The Octopus, Kenn Thomas & Jim Keith, pg. 34)

Fred Alvarez

The above-mentioned Nichols is Robert Booth Nichols, a notorious alleged CIA man who has been implicated in a host of scandals, most notably the Inslaw affair and the collapse of Sam Israel's financial empire.  There are allegations Nichols attempted to use Cabazon Arms to provide equipment for the Contras:

"The crux of the Wackenhut involvement in arms development and shipments through various sources, including Peter Zokosky, Robert Booth Nichols, John Vanderwerker, and others, was tied irrevocably to the Reagan administration's efforts to aid the Nicaraguan Contras.

"A Special Operations Report emanating from the Riverside, California, District Attorney's Office which was sent to John Cohen, investigator for the House Judiciary Committee on Inslaw, provided indisputable proof that Wackenhut sold arms to the Contras.

"The Special Operations Intelligence Report entitled 'Nicaraguans and Earl Brian at Lake Cahuilla – 9/10/81' described the meeting held between two groups, the Nicaraguans and Wackenhut/Cabazon officials, at a county-owned police firing range at Lake Cahuilla in Riverside County. 

"According to the surveillance report, the purpose of the meeting was 'to test a new night vision device and weapons. All [the] weapons tested were semi-automatic. [A] new sniper rifle tested was a 50 caliber with a 308 bullet.'

"The report went on to note that 'some automatic weapons were present, but all had necessary permits through Meridian Arms. Meridian Arms [is] owned by Michael Riconosciuto, Robert Booth Nichols (no relation to John Philip Nichols), and Don Oliver – Undersheriff of San Diego County. Meeting and testing took about one hour, then all parties left.' "

(The Last Circle, Cheri Seymour, pgs. 146-147) 

Robert Booth Nichols (left) and Sam Israel (right)

George Wackenhut would no doubt be pleased that G4S has continued Wackenhut's legacy of controversy. Some of the recent allegations involving G4S and/or Wackenhut include;

"G4S has previously been accused of improperly vetting its employees. In 2009, Danny Fitzsimons, a former British paratrooper and employee of a G4S subsidiary, killed two colleagues in Iraq, claiming to be 'the antichrist' and saying he 'must satisfy' his 'bloodlust.' An official investigation concluded that his employer did not properly vet his psychological health.

"In 2007, G4S signed contracts with five Israeli prisons and 'interrogation centers,' leading to accusations that it was complicit in torture and the imprisonment of children. In 2010, three G4S security guards killed an Angolan national during a deportation flight from the U.K., by restraining him in an asphyxiating position.

"In January, five G4S officers were arrested after a BBC expose revealed systematic abuse and neglect at a G4S-run youth jails.

"G4S has also become a focal point for the Israel-focused Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement over its partnerships with Israeli prisons and military checkpoints. Activist pressure has led to divestment from the company by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Methodist Church, and UNICEF in Jordan. G4S has since announced that it would end its Israeli prison contracts.

"In 2002, G4S acquired the United States-based Wackenhut Corporation, a private security and prison contractor with a deeply troubled history, including the widespread sexual assault of inmates at a Texas detention center in 1999.

"Wackenhut went on to win a contract to guard the U.S. Embassy at Kabul, worth $189 million over five years. In 2009, the Project on Government Oversight sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with photographic evidence that embassy guards had created a 'Lord of the Flies environment,' at the embassy, said to include guards and supervisors 'peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks… [drunken] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity.'

"Nevertheless, Wackenhut was hired by the U.S. government and BP in 2010 to manage perimeter security for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf Coast.

"In 2011, G4S won a contract to provide security for the 2012 London Olympics – only to overcharge the British government and provide understaffed security."

one of the notorious G4S Israeli private prisons

For years Wackenhut was one of the largest operators of private prisons in the United States and one of the trailblazers of the private prison racket. G4S seems to have not only followed in these footsteps, but also internationalized Wackenhut's approach to private prisons.

The same article notes that G4S was provided with ample indications of Mateen's instability:

"G4S confirmed in a statement that Omar Mateen had worked for the company since 2007, and said it was 'shocked and saddened' by the shooting. A later statement said that Mateen was subject to 'detailed company screening' in 2007 and again in 2013, 'with no adverse findings.'

"But one of Mateen’s former coworkers told the New York Times that he 'saw it coming,' that Mateen 'talked about killing people all the time,' and that he was 'always angry, sweating, just angry at the world.'

"The coworker, who said he quit his job due to harassment from Mateen, explained that he 'complained multiple times' to G4S, because Mateen didn’t like 'blacks, women, lesbians, and Jews.'

"Yet G4S continued to employ Mateen, who was able to obtain a 'security officer' license to buy firearms in addition to his state license and conceal carry permit.

"Mateen was even allowed to work at G4S while under FBI investigation. According to the FBI, Mateen was suspected of involvement in terror in 2013. The FBI investigation included the use of paid informants, recording conversations, following him, electronic surveillance, and interviewing him three times, FBI Director James Comey said on Monday. The investigation was closed because it produced no hard evidence of terrorist complicity."

Mateen

Apparently the FBI investigated Mateen for almost a year in 2013 and even approached him with undercover informants:

"Mateen first appeared on authorities’ radar in 2013 after the security guard’s colleagues alerted the FBI to inflammatory statements he made to colleagues claiming 'family connections to Al Qaeda,' according to Comey. 

"Mateen also told coworkers he had a family member who belonged to Hezbollah, a Shia network that is a bitter enemy of ISIS — the network he pledged allegiance to the night of the carnage, Comey noted.

"The FBI’s Miami office opened an inquiry into Mateen.

" 'He said he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so he could martyr himself.' Comey said.

"Nevertheless, FBI investigators investigated Mateen, who was born in New York, for 10 months. They introduced him to confidential informants, spied on his communications and followed him. They also interviewed him twice."

It is also interesting to note that Mateen was living in Port St. Lucie, Florida, at the time of the attack. Port St. Lucie is near the notorious Jupiter Island. Featuring less than a thousand residents, Jupiter Island is one of the most exclusive communities in the United States. It is alleged to be a key hub of the deep state:

"Few individuals, even now, are aware of the significance of Jupiter Island. Located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, just a few miles north of Palm Beach, the island measures a mere half a mile wide and nine miles long. According to authors Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, island residents read like a 'Who's Who' of the Anglo-American establishment. Many have close connections to the intelligence apparatus and not a few are, or have been, members of the notorious Skull and Bones Society, a secretive and influential Masonic lodge formed at Yale law school.1 Interestingly, many of the early residents, including Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush-George Bush's father-were strong supporters of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party prior to World War II. Even in recent years, George Bush continued to have unfinished work with Nazis domiciled in South America, Tatum says-especially while the world's eyes were turned towards Saddam Hussein and Iraq during Desert Storm. That, however, is another story.

"Jupiter Island boasts hyper-security. All vehicles are tracked by sensors placed in the roads and every housekeeper, gardener or other non-resident is required by ordinance to be fingerprinted and registered. Residents themselves are carefully screened prior to being permitted to purchase real estate (many purchase by invitation, it is thought) and one of their primary duties as good residents is to perform active 'surveillance' to ensure the island remains secure.2 It was here that Tatum met with and discussed sensitive projects with then Vice President and later President Bush, at the residence of his mother, Rose Bush."

George H.W. Bush

"Incidentally," George H.W. Bush's birthday is on June 12, the same exact day the Orlando shooting unfolded.

Meanwhile, the FBI has ensured that its "investigation" will generate a good laugh or two. Consider the latest angle the Bureau is working:

"The murky picture of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen grew more complex Tuesday with word that the FBI is investigating whether he had been a regular at the gay dance club he attacked and had been leading a secret life as a gay man...

"On Tuesday, a U.S. official said the FBI is looking into a flurry of news reports quoting patrons of the Pulse as saying that Mateen frequented the nightspot and reached out to men on gay dating apps. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Some psychologists raised the possibility that Mateen was sexually conflicted and lashed out against gays, or that he was casing the nightclub for an attack and trying to find victims online."

This should be interesting...