'The New Mental Battlefield: Beam Me Up, Spock' (Military Review, December 1980)
publicationOccult & Esoteric · Defense & Military-Industrial
The article that dates MindWar — and whose evidence MindWar then ignored completely.
Who they are
'The New Mental Battlefield: Beam Me Up, Spock' by Lieutenant Colonel John B. Alexander, published December 1980 on pages 47 to 54 of Military Review, the US Army's own professional journal at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The note printed with it places him at the Inspector General Agency, Department of the Army, in Washington DC.
What they do
An argument that a new dimension of war aimed at the mind was arriving and the US was behind. He defines psychotronics as the interaction of mind and matter and claims there are already weapons that work on mind power alone.
How it works
On radio he writes that certain extremely-low-frequency emissions — waves far below broadcast range — have psychoactive effects and 'can be used to induce depression or irritability in a target population'. His evidence is the two Defense Intelligence Agency reports of 1972 and 1975, plus two pieces in a tiny journal called Specula, one of which cannot be found anywhere else.
Why it matters
'From PSYOP to MindWar' opens by answering this article, which fixes its date: it cannot have been written before December 1980. And when you line the two documents up source by source, the reply uses not one piece of the evidence it is replying to. That is the hard finding — a conversation between two officers who shared a subject and nothing else.
The engine's record — word for word
December 1980 article in Military Review (US Army Command + General Staff College journal, Fort Leavenworth), Vol. LX No. 12, pp. 47-54: 'The New Mental Battlefield: "Beam Me Up, Spock"' by Lt. Col. John B. Alexander (john_alexander). Author note printed with the article places him at the Inspector General Agency, Department of the Army, Washington DC; 1980 graduate of the USACGSC; prior Special Forces service in Thailand + Vietnam; former chief, Human Resources Division, Organizational Effectiveness Staff Office, Fort McPherson.
Opens by defining the field: psychotronics 'may be described as the interaction of mind and matter' (psychotronics_term), also called bioenergetics, and asserts 'weapons systems that operate on the power of the mind and whose lethal capacity has already been demonstrated.' On low-frequency transmission: ELF emissions 'possess psychoactive characteristics', 'can be used to induce depression or irritability in a target population', and large-scale use 'could have horrendous impact' (p.51). On hypnosis at range: agents 'deeply planted with no conscious knowledge of their programing.'
Footing: DIA ST-CS-01-169-72 (1972) + DST-1810S-387-75 (1975); Ostrander + Schroeder 1970; Bearden in Specula, Mar-Jun 1976; Michrowski, 'Covert ELF Warfare', Specula, Jan-Mar 1980, p.27 — the sole citation under the ELF claim, and not found independently (specula_journal).
Engine read: the dating instrument for mindwar. 'From PSYOP to MindWar' opens by answering this article, so cannot have been finished before Dec 1980 — against Paulson's 10 Jan 1979 first publication that is 23 months minimum. Citation diff: the reply shares not one cited source with the article it replies to.
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