Psychotronic Terrorism

Psychotronic weapons leverage psychology and the subconscious to attack a person’s will, and otherwise suppress and/or temporarily disable or zombify that person. Acoustics, microwaves, and lasers can also surreptitiously enter the brain, affecting psycho-physical condition of man and his decision-making abilities.

• Psychological Warfare
• Fifth-generation warfare
• Information Weapons
• Yuri Bezmenov
• Stage 1: Demoralisation (15–20 yrs)
• Stage 2: Destabilisation (2–5 years)
• Stage 3–4: Crisis & Normalisation (6 weeks)
• Reference / Documents

Psychological Warfare

Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda. Various techniques are used, and are aimed at influencing a target audience's value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior. Target audiences can be governments, organisations, groups, and individuals, and is not just limited to soldiers. Civilians of foreign territories can also be targeted by technology and media so as to cause an effect on the government of their country.

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”.

The British were one of the first major military powers to use psychological warfare in the First and Second World Wars. In the current British Armed Forces, PsyOps are handled by the tri-service 15 Psychological Operations Group. The Group was established immediately after the 1991 Gulf War, has since grown significantly in size to meet operational requirements, and since 2015 has been one of the sub-units of the 77th Brigade, formerly called the Security Assistance Group. In June 2015, NSA files published by Glenn Greenwald revealed details of the JTRIG group at British intelligence agency GCHQ covertly manipulating online communities.

The Brigade uses social media such as Twitter and Facebook as well as psyop techniques to influence populations and behaviour. David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol who studies British government propaganda and public relations, said that it is "involved in manipulation of the media including using fake online profiles". In September 2019, Middle East Eye reported that Gordon MacMillan, a Twitter executive with editorial control over the Middle East and North Africa, is also a reservist officer in the 77th Brigade.

On 22 April 2020, during the UK government's daily coronavirus briefing, General Nick Carter confirmed that 77th Brigade are working with the Home Office Rapid Response Unit "helping to quash rumours from misinformation, but also to counter disinformation". On 7 May 2020, The Economist interviewed Carter on the role of 77th Brigade in fighting COVID-19 pandemic disinformation.

The Defence Cultural Specialist Unit was used to monitor the internet for content on COVID-19 and to look for evidence of disinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines. An army source later told the Mail on Sunday that this involved monitoring of the UK population.

Psychological warfare operations are known to be divided into three categories:

1. White propaganda (Omissions and Emphasis): Truthful and not strongly biased, where the source of information is acknowledged.
2. Grey propaganda (Omissions, Emphasis and Racial/Ethnic/Religious Bias): Largely truthful, containing no information that can be proven wrong; the source is not identified.
3. Black propaganda (Commissions of falsification): Inherently deceitful, information given in the product is attributed to a source that was not responsible for its creation.

This is in line with JTRIG's goal: to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications. In March 2019, it emerged that the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) of the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) is tendering to arms companies and universities for £70M worth of assistance under a project to develop new methods of psychological warfare. The project is known as the human and social sciences research capability (HSSRC).

Fifth-generation warfare

Fifth-generation warfare is warfare that is conducted primarily through non-kinetic military action, such as social engineering, misinformation, cyberattacks, along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and fully autonomous systems. Fifth generation warfare has been described by Daniel Abbot as a war of "information and perception". Alex P. Schmid said that fifth-generation warfare is typified by its "omnipresent battlefield", and the fact that people engaged in it do not necessarily use military force, instead employing a mixture of kinetic and non-kinetic force.

Information Weapons

Russia attempted to get the concept of information weapons introduced into United Nations resolutions, which at the time helped to guarantee Russian information and national security. This occurred in the 1990s when Russia was at its weakest and unable to compete with other nations in information weapons capabilities. At this time, Russia’s information weapons weakness was so pronounced that a prominent Russian scientist stated the following at an international conference in Moscow in 1995:

“In studying the potentially catastrophic consequences from an enemy’s use of strategic information weapons systems on, for example, the economy or government control...we must unequivocally declare that in the case of their use against Russia, we reserve the right to conduct a first strike (nuclear) against the information weapons system and forces which are directing that weapon, and then also against the aggressor-government.”.

According to Russian new-generation warfare expert Vladimir Slipchenko, information weapons have also enabled a shift from a “quantitative-force sphere to a quantitative-intelligent sphere.” He adds that countries are creating “strategic non-nuclear forces, which will find wide use in new-generation wars and subsequently also will take on a deterrence function.” Numerous weapons depend on information technologies. Acoustic, electromagnetic effect, radiation, beam, and heat weaponry are under development as is the “unity of intelligence collection and destruction,” namely the development of reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire complexes.

Detailed descriptions of information weapons and their uses began to develop slowly in the 1990s. One of the first (and still considered outstanding) Russian articles to define and discuss an information weapons is the article by Major S.V. Markov, which was authored and published in 1996 in the journal Bezapasnost (Security). Leading specialists still refer to his many thoughts and definitions. Markov defined an information weapons as:

“A specially selected piece of information capable of causing changes in the information processes of information systems (physical, biological, social, etc.) according to the intent of the entity using the weapon.”.

This understanding of information weapons and its impact on the information-technical and information-psychological activity of Russia produces a much different national will and language of dialogue than that to which the West is accustomed. Markov is convinced that international and state control over the creation and use of information weapons is essential. authors classified information weapons based on several attributes to include single and multi-mission/universal purposes; short and long range operations; individual, group, and mass disruption or destruction capabilities; various types of carriers; and destructive effect. They further classified information weapons as belonging to one of six forms:

1. Means to precisely locate equipment that emits rays in the electromagnetic spectrum and destroy that equipment by conventional fire.
2. Means to affect components of electronic equipment.
3. Means to affect the programming resource control modules.
4. Means to affect the information transfer process.
5. Means to disseminate propaganda and disinformation.
6. Means to use psychotronic weapons.

Propaganda and disinformation, can change the information component of command and control (C2) systems by creating a virtual picture that alters reality, changes the system of human values, and manipulates the moral-psychological life of the enemy population. This type of weapon can create disinformation in secure systems and alter navigation systems, information and meteorological-monitoring systems, precision-time systems, and so on. Psychotronic weapons that leverage psychology and the subconscious to attack a person’s will, and otherwise suppress and/or temporarily disable or zombify that person.

“The data captured by the sensory organs or internally generated stimuli becomes information after it is processed by the cerebrum, or a myriad of lower-level processors that the human body is endowed with. When information is sanitised and divested of 'noise' or unwanted meme, it becomes intelligence. The data, before or after it is processed, can be manipulated or changed just as the data in any hardware system can be altered. Further, 'noise' can be induced with a view to corrupting the mind. This is precisely how the various cults work; This is what PSYOPS is all about.”.

A Russian military article declared that "humanity stands on the brink of a psychotronic war" with the mind and body as the focus. That article discussed Russian and international attempts to control the psycho-physical condition of man and his decisionmaking processes by the use of VHF-generators, "noiseless cassettes," and other technologies. An entirely new arsenal of weapons, based on devices designed to introduce subliminal messages or to alter the body's psychological and data-processing capabilities, might be used to incapacitate individuals. These weapons aim to control or alter the psyche, or to attack the various sensory and data-processing systems of the human organism. In both cases, the goal is to confuse or destroy the signals that normally keep the body in equilibrium.

“We are on the threshold of an era in which these data processors of the human body may be manipulated or debilitated. Examples of unplanned attacks on the body's data-processing capability are well-documented. Strobe lights have been known to cause epileptic seizures. Not long ago in Japan, children watching television cartoons were subjected to pulsating lights that caused seizures in some and made others very sick.”.

One of the principal open source researchers on the relationship of information warfare to the body's data-processing capability is Russian Dr. Victor Solntsev of the Baumann Technical Institute in Moscow. Supported by a network of institutes and academies, Solntsev has produced some interesting concepts. He insists that man must be viewed as an open system instead of simply as an organism or closed system. As an open system, man communicates with his environment through information flows and communications media. One's physical environment, whether through electromagnetic, gravitational, acoustic, or other effects, can cause a change in the psycho-physiological condition of an organism, in Solntsev's opinion.

Change of this sort could directly affect the mental state and consciousness of a computer operator. This would not be electronic war or information warfare in the traditional sense, but rather in a nontraditional and non-US sense. It might encompass, for example, a computer modified to become a weapon by using its energy output to emit acoustics that debilitate the operator. It also might encompass, as indicated below, futuristic weapons aimed against man's "open system.". Solntsev also examined the problem of "information noise," which creates a dense shield between a person and external reality. This noise may manifest itself in the form of signals, messages, images, or other items of information. The main target of this noise would be the consciousness of a person or a group of people.

Behavior modification could be one objective of information noise; another could be to upset an individual's mental capacity to such an extent as to prevent reaction to any stimulus. Solntsev concludes that all levels of a person's psyche (subconscious, conscious, and "superconscious") are potential targets for destabilisation. According to Solntsev, one computer virus capable of affecting a person's psyche is Russian Virus 666. It manifests itself in every 25th frame of a visual display, where it produces a combination of colors that allegedly put computer operators into a trance. The subconscious perception of the new pattern eventually results in arrhythmia of the heart. Other Russian computer specialists, not just Solntsev, talk openly about this "25th frame effect" and its ability to subtly manage a computer user's perceptions. The purpose of this technique is to inject a thought into the viewer's subconscious.

“UVB-76, also known by the nickname "The Buzzer", is a shortwave radio station that broadcasts on the frequency of 4625 kHz. It broadcasts a short, monotonous buzz tone, repeating at a rate of approximately 25 tones per minute, 24 hours per day. Sometimes, the buzzer signal is interrupted and a voice transmission in Russian takes place. It was allegedly reported to have started broadcasting in the late 1970s.”.

The term "psycho-terrorism" was coined by Russian writer N. Anisimov of the Moscow Anti-Psychotronic Center. According to Anisimov, psychotronic weapons are those that act to "take away a part of the information which is stored in a man's brain. It is sent to a computer, which reworks it to the level needed for those who need to control the man, and the modified information is then reinserted into the brain." These weapons are used against the mind to induce hallucinations, sickness, mutations in human cells, "zombification," or even death. Included in the arsenal are:

• A psychotronic generator, which produces a powerful electromagnetic emanation capable of being sent through telephone lines, TV, radio networks, supply pipes, and incandescent lamps.
• An autonomous generator, a device that operates in the 10-150 Hertz band, which at the 10-20 Hertz band forms an infrasonic oscillation that is destructive to all living creatures.
• A nervous system generator, designed to paralyze the central nervous systems of insects, which could have the same applicability to humans.
• Ultrasound emanations, which one institute claims to have developed. Devices using ultrasound emanations are supposedly capable of carrying out bloodless internal operations without leaving a mark on the skin. They can also, according to Chernishev, be used to kill.
• Noiseless cassettes. Chernishev claims that the Japanese have developed the ability to place infra-low frequency voice patterns over music, patterns that are detected by the subconscious. Russians claim to be using similar "bombardments" with computer programming to treat alcoholism or smoking.
• The 25th-frame effect, alluded to above, a technique wherein each 25th frame of a movie reel or film footage contains a message that is picked up by the subconscious. This technique, if it works, could possibly be used to curb smoking and alcoholism, but it has wider, more sinister applications if used on a TV audience or a computer operator.
• Psychotropics, defined as medical preparations used to induce a trance, euphoria, or depression. Referred to as "slow-acting mines," they could be slipped into the food of a politician or into the water supply of an entire city. Symptoms include headaches, noises, voices or commands in the brain, dizziness, pain in the abdominal cavities, cardiac arrhythmia, or even the destruction of the cardiovascular system.

There is confirmation from US researchers that this type of study is going on. Dr. Janet Morris, coauthor of The Warrior's Edge, reportedly went to the Moscow Institute of Psychocorrelations in 1991. There she was shown a technique pioneered by the Russian Department of Psycho-Correction at Moscow Medical Academy in which researchers electronically analyse the human mind in order to influence it. They input subliminal command messages, using key words transmitted in "white noise" or music. Using an infra-sound, very low frequency transmission, the acoustic psycho-correction message is transmitted via bone conduction.

“It is completely clear that the state which is first to create such weapons will achieve incomparable superiority.”.

Solntsev's research, mentioned above, differs slightly from that of Chernishev. For example, Solntsev is more interested in hardware capabilities, specifically the study of the information-energy source associated with the computer-operator interface. He stresses that if these energy sources can be captured and integrated into the modern computer, the result will be a network worth more than "a simple sum of its components." Other researchers are studying high-frequency generators (those designed to stun the psyche with high frequency waves such as electromagnetic, acoustic, and gravitational); the manipulation or reconstruction of someone's thinking through planned measures such as reflexive control processes; the use of psychotronics, parapsychology, bioenergy, bio fields, and psychoenergy; and unspecified "special operations".

The last item is of particular interest. According to a Russian TV broadcast, the strategic rocket forces have begun anti-ESP training to ensure that no outside force can take over command and control functions of the force. That is, they are trying to construct a firewall around the heads of the operators.

Yuri Bezmenov

Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov was a Soviet journalist for Novosti Press Agency (APN) [the author of his biography "Love Letter to America." alleged he lived a life similar to Winston Smith, from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four]. Bezmenov alleged that about three quarters of Novosti's staff were actually KGB officers, with the remainder being "co-opted" or KGB freelance writers and informers like himself. In 1970, as a member of the KGB Soviet mission in New Delhi, India, Bezmenov defected to the West.

“As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralised is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. …he will refuse to believe it… That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralisation.”.

In 1984 Bezmenov exposed four stages identified by Soviet intelligence as the necessary steps to cause the psychological implosion of American society. Bezmenov stated main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. Only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage and such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures… or psychological warfare.

Stage 1: Demoralisation (15–20 yrs)

The aim was to change Americans’ perception of reality so that “no one is able to come to sensible conclusions.”:

“A person who was demoralised is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. … When a military boot crushes his balls, then he will understand. But not before that.”

This loss of reality then weakens the family, community, country — and the self.

Stage 2: Destabilisation (2–5 years)

Once a society is demoralised, its weakness and unwillingness to defend itself is exploited to undermine the military, economy & foreign affairs.

Stage 3–4: Crisis & Normalisation (6 weeks)

A weakened society is easily brought to crisis, causing a “violent change of power, structure, and economy.” A benevolent dictator who makes grandiose promises could then be installed to bring things back to “normal.”.

Bezmenov warned the demoralisation of the US was nearly complete After the final crisis, all those who helped in subversion will have no further use, he adds. “They will be lined up against the wall and shot.”. If Americans fail to grasp the impending danger, he said, “nothing ever can help the United States.” “You may kiss goodbye to your freedom.”. Bezmenov died of a "massive heart attack", on Tuesday, January 5, 1993 in obscurity in Canada, where he lived under the assumed name Tomas Schuman. Bezmenov is most remembered for his anti-Marxist and anti-Atheist lectures and books published in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In an era of daily psychological war, his lessons have more to teach us today than ever.

Since his death, Bezmenov's "Soviet subversion model"[a] has been studied and interpreted by faculty and staff at the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) to analyze historical events, including the decade-long Russian campaign that preceded the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. His work has also been cited by senior director of UPenn's Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Michael R. Carpenter. His lectures have also been used by Yale senior lecturer Asha Rangappa, to illustrate the concept of active measures in the Soviet Union's supposed disinformation campaigns in the United States.

Reference / Documents

Below is a reference list of collected research material used to create this page. These documents are stored online as PDF files, and are downloadable as active links displayed below.

• The Mind Has No Firewall, Timothy L. Thomas, Volume 28, Number 1, Parameters Spring 1998.
• Information Weapons: Russia’s Nonnuclear Strategic Weapons of Choice, Timothy L. Thomas.
• History of the 25th frame - The subliminal message, Maria Florea.
• Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons - Declassified by the US Army in response to a FOIA request.
• Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars - Publication marks the 25th anniversary of the Third World War, called the "Quiet War", being conducted using subjective biological warfare, fought with "silent weapons".

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