Spy Satellites
And then there were the illuminating, albeit cryptic remarks of U.S. Senators Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden in December 2004. During a somewhat heated debate on the issue of the 2005 Intelligence Authorization Bill, they commented on their knowledge of the United States’s covert space operations; a classified program that Rockefeller described as being massively costly. He also noted, intriguingly, that attempts to kill the project (at least twice by the Senate) were always officially overruled. Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, suggested that the senators were talking, in couched terms, about a highly secret spy-satellite project.
The Men Who Stare at the Moon
We now come to the fascinating and undeniably unique saga of a man named Ingo Swann, who, in the 1970s, worked on the U.S. government’s remote viewing program, which addressed the possibility of harnessing psychic powers and extrasensory perception (ESP) to spy on the former Soviet Union. Swann proved to be a highly skilled remote viewer, and his talents were employed on a number of espionage operations focusing on overseas targets that might have proven hostile to the United States. As a result, Swann came into contact with a variety of shadowy figures in the world of intelligence-gathering, including a truly Machiavellian character known, very mysteriously, only by the name of Mr. Axelrod.
It was in February 1975 that Swann was contacted out of the blue by a man he described as a highly placed figure in Washington, D.C., who guardedly advised Swann that he, Swann, would soon be receiving a telephone call from Mr. Axelrod. Swann’s source quietly advised him that although he could not offer much of a meaningful explanation at that time, Swann should be keenly aware that the call would concern a matter of great urgency and importance. A somewhat concerned Swann waited. And waited…and waited.
Finally, around four weeks later, a call arrived, and Swann was asked to make a cloak-and-dagger rendezvous, mere hours later, at the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian (a location we have seen linked with the mystery and controversy surrounding the reputed remains of Noah’s Ark). Swann unhesitatingly agreed, and quickly — albeit with a degree of concern and trepidation — made his careful way to the meeting place, where he was greeted by a man whom Swann said looked like a Marine.
Basic formalities were exchanged, but Swann was hardly clear on what was afoot. He was driven by car to a second location, where a helicopter was waiting to take him to a destination unknown. Such was the security and secrecy surrounding the journey that Swann was blindfolded for the approximately 30-minute flight. On landing, Swann was taken to an elevator that descended for a significant period of time — perhaps into the bowels of some secret, underground installation, Swann thought. When the blindfold was finally removed, Swann was introduced to the enigmatic Mr. Axelrod, who admitted that it was not his real name, but one that served the particular purposes of their meeting.
Axelrod got straight to the point, asking Swann a great deal of questions about the nature of remote viewing. He also made it clear that he wished to make use of Swann’s skills — on what was clearly a secret operation — for a significant sum of money. It truly was one of those offers that one cannot refuse. And Swann, most assuredly, did not refuse it.
Axelrod asked Swann, pointedly, what he knew about our Moon. Now, finally, the purpose of the strange meeting was becoming much clearer: Someone within officialdom was secretly looking to have the Moon remote-viewed. This is precisely what Swann went ahead and did. By his own admission, he was utterly floored by what he found: During an initial targeting, his mind focused in on sensational imagery that looked to be a huge tower, similar in size to the Secretariat Building at the United Nations, but one that soared upwards from the Moon’s surface. This was no human-made structure, Swann was told; it was the work of nothing less than mysterious extraterrestrials.
In follow-up remote-viewing sessions, Swann was able to perceive on the surface of the Moon a wealth of domed structures, advanced machinery, additional tall towers, large cross-like structures, curious tubular constructions across the landscape, and even evidence of what looked like extensive mining operations. Someone, or something, had secretly constructed a fully functioning Moon-base.
Swann was also able to focus his mind on what appeared to be a group of people — who appeared very human — housed in some sort of enclosure on the Moon, who were busily burrowing into the side of a cliff. The odd thing was that they were all completely naked. At that point Axelrod very quickly terminated the experiment, amid disturbing allusions to the possibility that the Moon-based entities were possibly aware that they were being spied upon via astral travel. It was even implied that Swann’s actions might place him in grave danger, if the beings decided to turn the tables and pay him a deadly visit. (Fortunately for Swann, they did not.)
Axelrod also inquired of Swann whether he knew of a man named George Leonard. Swann replied that he was not familiar with the name. So who was George Leonard? During the same time frame that the shadowy Mr. Axelrod was employing Swann to seek out the mysteries of the Moon, Leonard, an author, was hard at work on a manuscript titled Somebody Else is on the Moon. Leonard’s manuscript was published in 1977, and focused on the very matter about which Axelrod was so deeply troubled: unusual, intelligently designed structures, or installations, on the Moon. The odd meetings between Swann and Axelrod — on the nature of what was afoot on the Moon — continued until 1977, after which they came to an abrupt end, with Swann left scratching his head.
Had Swann really psychically accessed a fantastically advanced base on the Moon that had been constructed by space-faring extraterrestrials? Or does the fact that Swann saw beings that looked like people — albeit naked ones! — working at the base mean that this secret installation had very terrestrial origins, which Axelrod was trying to learn more about because he was left out of the highly classified loop? If the former scenario is correct, then Swann’s discoveries are profound in the extreme. If the latter theory has merit, however, it might very well be argued that the U.S. Army’s secret 1960s operation to build a base on the Moon (under the auspices of Project Horizon) was not quite as cancelled as the military wished us to believe.
C-12
Anthrax, Aliens, and Assassination
Porton Down is one of the most secretive of all government installations in the United Kingdom. It can be found in the green and pleasant county of Wiltshire, and its classified work focuses on exotic viruses and biological-warfare. Although the secret work at Porton Down originally began at the height of the tumultuous First World War, it was not until the dawning of the 1940s that the installation became the central hub for British interest in the expanding realms of chemical and biological warfare. From 1946 onward, one year after the successful defeat of Nazi Germany, Porton Down’s work began to focus more on the defensive — rather than chiefly offensive — uses of such warfare, and in 1957 the installation was duly christened the Microbiological Research Establishment.
By the late 1970s, a decision was made to place the MRE under the control of a civil body. As a result, there was a significant reorganization, and on April 1, 1979, the Microbiological Research Establishment became the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research. Then, in 1995, it was absorbed into the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). Six years later, there was yet another change: DERA split into two organizations, a private body called QinetiQ, and the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, an arm of the Ministry of Defense steeped in official secrecy. Today, the facility is known as DSTL, Porton Down.