Ex-CIA Officer: We Hypnotised a Man for 4.5 Hours

Highlights

• MKUltra ran from 1952 to 1975 and involved dosing CIA employees and citizens with LSD while pumping germs into the air.

• Only 15% of MKUltra documents survived after the CIA director ordered staff to shred records following a 1975 Church Committee warning.

• An uneducated Greek farmer and walk-in source held his arm suspended in the air without muscle strain for four and a half hours during a hypnosis session.

• Initial information retrieved from the hypnotized source under hypnosis included a license plate number that traced back to a stolen police car.

Timeline

1. 00:00 - 03:00

   Origins of MKUltra and Early Brainwashing Fears

   Initial concerns about remote mind control emerged from a recruited Soviet source reporting on KGB efforts, which triggered panic inside the CIA. Although the KGB operation did not exist, the agency initiated MKUltra. This program caused multiple deaths through unethically administered LSD and germ warfare experiments on unsuspecting populations, including an incident where an entire French village was dosed via bakery flour. Following congressional oversight, most documentary evidence was destroyed, leaving only a fraction of records intact.

   • Intelligence agencies pursued brainwashing operations heavily starting in the early 1950s based on reports of foreign programs.
   • The CIA launched MKUltra as a catch-up initiative running from 1952 to 1975 after panicking over unverified Soviet capabilities.
   • Senator Church instructed the CIA director to preserve records in 1975, but only 15% of documents survived wholesale shredding.
2. 03:00 - 06:35

   The Assassination Witness and the Decision to Hypnotize

   Following the high-profile assassination of the British defense attaché in Athens by the 17 November organization, a local walk-in appeared at the embassy with potential witness information. The individual claimed to have stopped near a chapel shortly after the killing, where he witnessed a van, a motorcycle, and a dialogue regarding the victim's status. Because the witness was uneducated and lacked comprehensive recall during standard interviews, headquarters personnel proposed utilizing hypnosis to extract deeper details.

   • British defense attaché Brigadier General Stephen Saunders was assassinated in Athens in April 2000.
   • A local farmer walked into an embassy months later and reported seeing suspicious activity near a highway shortly after the murder.
   • Investigators decided to use hypnosis because the uneducated witness struggled to answer detailed debriefing questions.
3. 06:35 - 11:02

   The Four-And-A-Half-Hour Hypnosis Session and Subsequent Fabrication

   Transported to a neutral country, the witness was subjected to a structured hypnosis session led by a certified psychiatrist. Upon counting backward from ten after lifting his arm, the subject entered an unyielding physical state, holding his arm in position for four and a half hours without visible strain. Questioning yielded precise observational data, including a van license plate number that traced back to a stolen police car. Although initial recollections proved accurate, subsequent meetings required cutting off the source because he began fabricating details to impress the handlers.

   • A certified psychiatrist conducted the hypnosis session in a secure third country with customized relaxation techniques.
   • The subject maintained his arm in the air without muscle strain for four and a half hours under hypnosis.
   • Details provided during the initial session, including a stolen police car license plate number, were verified as true.