Chapter
11
Mind
Bender
Mid-August 1987
Lately I got some
vindictive pleasure over the startling news that Xeno Corporation, my
former employer, had declared bankruptcy. Most of its remaining
Seattle workforce (including three of Servercomp's current investors)
were put on the unemployment line. Xeno simply couldn't cut it
against the competition from personal computer software, which was
transforming the business computing market. And even its feared
competitor, the mighty IBM, was having trouble adjusting to the new
reality.
Shelly, the young woman
I trained to replace me at Xeno, had lost her job there. But on my
recommendation, she was quickly hired by Servercomp as a second-shift
system administrator, since business was now brisk enough to justify
staffing the office late into the night. Business was so good, in
fact, that I was finally getting paid for my work and was able to
quit my tedious temp job. My position at Servercomp was only
slightly more interesting, though: when I wasn't recovering crashed
servers, I was processing customer credit card transactions or
performing other mundane accounting chores - not exactly the career
on the cutting edge of technology I had envisioned. The work wasn't
fulfilling but it was potentially rewarding. Whenever the
workday got too boring, I consoled myself with the thought that eight
cents of every dollar of profit would eventually end-up in my pocket.
Within a few days of
quitting the temp agency (and probably not by coincidence), a
representative of MJ Recruiters contacted me at Servercomp. I had
not heard from them since early-1986. Over the phone, I told the
recruiter, a man whom I knew only as Augustus, “I'm really busy, so
we better make this a quick conversation. Hey, how did you get
this number, anyway?”
He said, “I got it
from an interested client.”
“I wonder if they know
my unlisted home number, too - never mind, dumb question. Well, you
can tell them that I'm very happy with my current situation.”
“All right, but don't
be too hasty. They're making an extremely generous offer.”
Chuckling, he added, “You were pretty smart to hold-out this long.”
“That
was easy enough to do, since I have no interest in government
work anymore.” Becoming impatient, I told him, “For the life of
me, I can't understand why they keep trying to hire me. I'm just a
nobody - a clerk, for chrissakes.”
“I believe we've
talked about that before, Denny. They merely want somebody who can
start working immediately, without going through a long drawn-out
vetting process. Say, could we set-up a face-to-face meeting? I
can't go into very much detail on the phone.”
“Naw, I'm sure it
would just be a waste of our time. Um, just out of curiosity, what
are they offering this time -
45, 50 grand a year?”
Since I had just
displayed a bit of interest in spite of myself, he ramped-up the
enthusiasm. “Even better than that, Denny! Come on, man, let's get
together and at least discuss it.”
With my my mind already
made-up, I turned him down flat. “It wouldn't do any good,
Augustus. As your client must be aware of by now, I'm part-owner of
this business, and so far, things are going great. I don't plan on
doing anything else for the duration.”
“I understand. Well,
good luck with the computer business. Here's my new contact number,
in the event that you change your mind someday...” I absently
scribbled his number on a scrap of paper and stuck it into a
forgotten corner in my wallet, with no expectation of ever calling
him.
During the early-80s,
after being discharged from the US Air Force, I hadn't been overly
surprised to be recruited for a civilian government position. But
now, six years later, their interest in me was as strong as ever, if
not more so. While it was true that the military had entrusted me
with highly classified intelligence, that in itself did not explain
the government's persistence.
The only really unusual
duty I pulled while in the military occurred near the end of my
enlistment, in 1980, after volunteering (for a $1,000 bonus) to spend
a weekend in McLean, Virginia, where I underwent a battery of
psychological tests being conducted by an unnamed government agency.
Among the tests I took were the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory, the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Gittinger
Personality Assessment System. They never did reveal to me any of
the test results. But apparently I had scored enough “correct”
answers, because one month later I was invited to volunteer for
further testing conducted at an undisclosed location in the Las Vegas
area. I happily volunteered - for the $2,000 bonus they offered for
participating. The tests were being conducted 60 miles northwest of
Nellis Air Force Base, where I was stationed.
To my astonishment, the
psychological examinations I endured next involved the testing of my
potential psychic abilities. Shortly after arriving at a deceptively
rundown-looking scientific laboratory located on a federal facility
near Mercury, Nevada, I was tested for my talent at guessing the
symbols printed on cards drawn from a deck of Zener Cards, an
Extra-Sensory Perception test which most people are familiar with.
Then, after receiving a rudimentary course in meditation delivered by
a yoga specialist, I was given another run-through on the Zener
Cards. In a slightly different test, they gave me the task of
guessing the exact order of a well-shuffled 52-card deck of regular
playing cards which lay untouched on a table before me. Next came a
test of my psychokinetic ability: I sat in front of an extremely
sensitive, delicately balanced set of scientific scales and attempted
to tip the scales - even by a miniscule amount - by force of will
power alone. On that first day, I underwent these three tests
repeatedly, with each repetition preceded by a 15-minute session of
meditation and controlled breathing.
The second day's
activities began with an hour of meditation followed by a test in
telepathy: I was placed in a tiny, windowless sound-proofed room. On
the table inside was a closed-circuit TV monitor, a pencil and a
sketch pad. At 30-second intervals, a randomly-selected image
appeared on the screen. Then I would concentrate on the image, such
as a zebra or a baseball or what-have-you, and try to broadcast the
image mentally to another test subject who was sitting in a similar
room down the hall. After 20 minutes of my being the “sender”,
the monitor went dark and then I became the “receiver” of mental
images. Every 30 seconds a musical tone would sound, prompting me to
scrawl a crude picture of whatever image popped into my mind at that
moment. This procedure was repeated during all of the third day,
between increasingly long meditation sessions.
I had been told
beforehand that the tests would take three days to complete. But as
I packed my overnight bag for the drive back home to Nellis that
afternoon, the Duty Officer - an army lieutenant - came to my private
room and asked me to report ASAP to the office of Dr Bender, who was
this classified project's lead parapsychologist. I would have been
shocked if he had not
been affiliated with the CIA in some way. Kindly-looking Dr
Bender had been lurking in the background throughout these psychic
experiments, but I had never spoken with that distinguished
white-haired researcher. Moreover, all test subjects - 12 of us -
had been kept in virtual isolation from each other and also from the
personnel who were conducting the tests.
I knocked on the
doctor's door, and he bade me to enter. “Hello! Have a seat,
Sergeant Smith.” Closing a manila folder, he said, “Well, I've
been looking over your personnel files and medical records. You'd
make a fine candidate for another round of tests we have planned over
the next two days. Now if you agree to participate, your bonus will
be doubled.”
“Really? That's cool.
But what's so special about me? Did I do well in the tests?”
“Sorry, but we can't
delve into the subject of your tests scores. The particular thing
that qualifies you for further testing is your record of drug usage -
specifically, LSD and marijuana.”
Slightly embarrassed, I
replied hesitantly. “Aah, not, not anymore, doctor. I'll lose my
security clearance if I fail another urine test.”
He leaned back in his
executive chair and said, “That won't be a problem.” He went on
to explain that the upcoming tests would be identical to the ones I
had already taken, the only difference being that prior to the first
day of testing I would consume a relatively moderate dose (300
micrograms) of LSD. For the second day, each test would start with
my taking an ever-increasing dose of distilled extract of marijuana
(THC), in pill form. With nothing better to do than return to my
paper-shuffling job, I signed the Informed Consent release form and
signed one other form, titled Temporary Exemption From the
Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The
doc then told me, “Copies of these will go into your security file,
so there won't be any trouble, I can assure you.” Hearing that, I
was unsure whether or not that was actually a good thing, since my
enlistment was nearly at an end anyway.
The psychic tests I took
under the influence of LSD didn't appear to turn out well, although I
never was informed of the results. In the past, I had dropped acid
experimentally, in high-school, but the hallucinogenic effects felt
during those youthful trips were nothing compared to the way this
Pure CIA Acid affected me. As soon as the acid began to deliver a
pleasant body buzz, I underwent the Zener Card test. About halfway
through the test, I noticed that my grandfather's reedy voice seemed
to be speaking into my ear, telling me the name of each symbol on the
cards - circle, cross, square, star or wavy lines - which I
faithfully repeated aloud as a research assistant drew them
one-by-one from the deck. After the last card, I chuckled in
amusement and said, “Thanks, grampa!” The young assistant gave me
an askance look, as if I had been referring to him.
At the start of the
psychokinesis test, 30 minutes later, I was laughing helplessly at
the notion that it was possible to move objects with the power of the
mind. I gesticulated with arms and hands elaborately as if casting a
magic spell, and then I observed arcs of iridescent blue light
flaring from my fingertips. I commanded with a pompous air,
“Sim-sim-salobim! I hereby order this delicate scientific
instrument to be physically influenced merely by the force of my
indomitable will - so move, motherfucker! WAAHAHOOOHAHA!”
With my mind in a dense
fog, and intense colors swirling before my eyes, orderlies assisted
me while I staggered down the hall to a sound-proofed room for the
telepathy test. The LSD was peaking at its maximum effect as I
entered the claustrophobic room. A female lab assistant's voice came
over the loudspeaker, “Sergeant Smith, for the first round you'll
be the receiver. The test will begin in 60 seconds.” I howled with
raucous laughter because she sounded like Minnie Mouse after
breathing helium.
The first musical tone
prompted me to draw a picture of a vampire bat with huge fangs, then
a cockroach 30 seconds later. My hilarious mood abruptly degraded to
vague paranoia. The next sketch was of a bleeding Christ on the
Cross. The badly-drawn Jesus suddenly became animated, lifting his
thorn-crowned head and telling me, “Believe in me and thus the
force of thy will shall be as great as mine own.”
Becoming
agitated, I shouted at whoever could hear me, “You guys are just
fucking with my head, now
- Jesus
never
spoke English!”
Then Dr Bender's
soothing voice came over the intercom. “Sergeant Smith, are you
all right? Are you able to continue?”
I replied, “Yeah, tell
Jesus I'm fine and dandy.”
“Just breathe deeply
for a moment and relax. Close your eyes and rest. Hang in there,
Sergeant, we'll be done in less than an hour.”
I followed the doctor's
instructions and did begin to feel calmer. Just as the next tone
sounded, an image of an extra-terrestrial being popped into my head.
The slender, gray ET had a bulbous skull and enormous almond-shaped
eyes, looking like the dead aliens I had seen in photos within secret
Air Force Intelligence reports. A few seconds after beginning to
draw it on paper, I threw the pencil down in horror and yelled, “Hey,
fuck this! You people don't really give a shit about ESP - this is
all about trying to pick my brain to find out what I know!
That's none of the CIA's goddam business!” I bolted out of my chair
so fast I almost fell on my face. I tried opening the door but it
was locked, setting-off a panic attack. “Lemme outta here, you
brainwashing bastards!” I rattled the doorknob and pounded on the
thin metal wall . “Unlock this fucking door!” As it turned out,
I had merely locked the door from the inside without realizing it.
So ended the tests while zonked on LSD - a little prematurely.
After getting nine hours
of sleep that night, I felt fairly normal again, and the tests
performed next day under the influence of THC went more smoothly,
although it was very difficult to stay awake after consuming the
equivalent of about five grams of potent pot within a short time
span. Later that night, during the hour-long drive back to Nellis
Air Force Base, I swore to myself, “I'm never gonna volunteer for
anything again - for no amount of fuckin' money!”
Flash
forward to the summer of '87:
Not many days after
being contacted by Augustus, I was browsing through a used-book store
in downtown Seattle. I came across an old paperback which I had seen
in libraries and bookstores on occasion but had never even bothered
to open. It was titled Psychic Discoveries of the Soviet Union,
published way back in 1970. Now I seized it off the shelf and stood
there reading it in fascination for nearly an hour. The hair on the
back of my neck bristled as I learned that over 20 years ago, the
Russians had been conducting the same psychic experiments I had
undergone in Mercury, Nevada in 1980. However, the Russian
experiments went one step further: test subjects were put in
isolation, where they attempted to identify and observe pre-selected
objects or people or even sounds such as conversations, at a remote
location - even from miles away. The purpose of that, as one might
guess, was to develop the capability of psychic spying.
I then wondered, Is
THAT the real reason why the government is so eager to hire me?
Copyright 2015 by K.D. Bishop
