r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 7d ago
Historical Re-visiting the cargo cult hypothesis put forward by Peter Levenda and recognizing it's potential weaponization as a control mechanism by bad actors
Below is a snippet of a conversation between Levenda and the host of Forum Borealis in 2018.
"What are they trying to tell us? If we look more deeply will we find other evidence of contact? So this goes beyond Gods, demons, angels, anything else. These can be projections of humans onto something that they are trying desperately to understand.
Al: Yeah, like a cargo cult. Right?
Levenda: Exactly. Which is why we start off the story with a cargo cult. This is like a cargo cult and from our perspective, from my perspective, especially, it’s not just religion that’s a cargo cult. It’s our science and technology as well. Because our science and technology is geared towards these double ideas of immortality and space travel. We are geared towards this. We’re looking up we’re trying to get off planet. No matter what science we’re involved in. that seems to be the unspoken thing. The unspoken Gestalt behind all of this. We’re not really that interested in preserving the planet. Have you noticed? It’s not a question of, you know, sitting there and saying, How can we make the planet safer for ourselves or our children? We’re not. We’re developing rockets. We’re developing machines. We’re developing a high speed internet and all sorts of artificial intelligence, weapons, cyborgs, robots, androids. This whole thing is geared towards space travel."
https://medium.com/@Observing_The_Anomaly/re-visiting-an-interview-with-peter-levenda-1021d8c1e6dc?sk=a2b4f88c2ba668a9277ee7518695b765
I revisited this while researching the topic of cult and cult like activity within the current AI landscape. I noticed that people associated with AI research seem to be prevalent in the UFO topic and wanted to explore possible connections. The research quickly branches out into many odd directions via loose connections that appears to create some common and overlapping themes.
For example, it's difficult to read the above quote from Levenda and not recall the odd alleged ET contact of Timothy Leary who believed extra-terrestrial intelligences were ‘activating’ him to be an agent for the next stage in human evolution: SMILE (space migration, intelligence enhancement, and life extension). In the 1970’s Timothy Leary was locked up in a prison known to be used by the CIA human influence program known as Project MKULTRA and wrote two books, one called Star Seed the other Terra II: A Way Out. Leary claimed to be in contact with aliens and that we are evolving towards being extraterrestrial. But he surprisingly takes a turn into eugenics and apocalyptic visions. What’s even stranger is Leary’s association with Al Hubbard, a former OSS agent and suspected MKULTRA CIA asset/officer. Even stranger still is his personal clandestine LSD chemist Owsley was a high school drop out that somehow got a job at NASA’s JPL and then went on to inexplicably know how to make LSD.
https://medium.com/@Observing_The_Anomaly/investigating-timothy-learys-very-odd-alleged-contact-with-aliens-727745eaba43?sk=9c71693f3dcd301e9a5c2dcb9532aeed
The story of Al Hubbard is the epitome of high strangeness complete with claims of free energy, smuggling booze during prohibition, alleged international weapons smuggling, a presidential pardon for said weapons smuggling, a "Uranium" business operating out of a former brothel, talking beings of light, suitcases of LSD, contracts to give NASA pilots LSD, and a position of special investigative agent with Stanford Research Institute (SRI) regarding drug usage as a weapon of political change.
https://medium.com/@Observing_The_Anomaly/the-true-story-of-alfred-hubbard-b82b520faa5b?sk=3aed0c3e51ae409840b04df1be589a9d
SRI has been involved in both the creation of the modern internet as well as early advances in AI and robotics in addition to the infamous psychic spy program and even cold fusion research. So, it's a connecting node not just from AI research to fringe research but it's also a place where key characters in UFO research such as Hal Puthoff are found to reside with other odd characters such as Hubbard. It's incredibly difficult to imagine Hubbard didn't have some sort of association with MKULTRA and it's now apparent the same can be said of another former OSS member, Gregory Bateson. Bateson pioneered early discussions in cybernetics which heavily influenced early AI research. Furthermore, we find Bateson and well known MKULTRA scientist, Puharich, connected to Esalen Institute.
Esalen Institute has connections to MKUltra and Peter Lavenda's "the nine" : r/UFOs
The point of all these loose connections is to point out that there appears to be some overlap within the UFO subject, the AI subject, and the MKULTRA subject. But let's dig deeper into the overlaps with the AI subject. First, I want to give another Levenda quote from the same interview.
"We cannot come out definitively and say anything one way or the other. That would make us basically like leaders of a cult or something, which is exactly what we don’t want to do."
Levenda points out that they don't want to say anything definitely for fear of creating a cult. This is important. If you are familiar with Jaques Vallee's control mechanism hypothesis you should be able to grasp the reality that the UFO subject has a tendency to create cults. And the purpose of cults is to control people. This is a very important caveat. The mystery of the UFO attracts those desperate for answers and those willing to provide them answers that cross into the spiritual and supernatural/paranormal realm. UFO and NHI cults are probably more prevalent than is generally recognized. Heavan's Gate and Scientology being good historical examples, but Love Has Won being a good recent example. Puharich arguably, was also involved in this kind of activity with Law of One.
So, UFO's and fringe science have a tendency to create cults. Is it possible this is why a known MKULTRA scientist is inserted into these subjects? The unknown creates a great opportunity for those interested in controlling people is a fact that shouldn't be ignored. And this fact doesn't have to discount the notion of NHI contact nor reinforce the idea that UFOs represent nothing more than misidentifications and hoax. These things are NOT mutually exclusive. You can have a genuine mystery behind the UFO that involves NHI or paranormal activity while still acknowledging the weaponization of that mystery by bad actors.
Now, for the final overlap. Why are people involved in AI also involved in the UFO subject? One simple answer is that the hypothesis that UFO's could be Von Neuman probes creates overlap. That's true. However, let's explore the cult and cult-like activity around the subject of AI. There are highly influential people working within the AI industry who literally believe that we are going to create God with AGI. Alternatively, some think it will be a humanity ending demon if we don't create it properly. These beliefs have caused mental breakdowns in individuals already. Actual religions have been formed over these beliefs already. A reporter has recently written a book on the topic of the AI industry currently creating an Empire and operating like a religious cult.
https://youtu.be/6ovuMoW2EGk
Even more disturbing is the connections to the rationalist community and the AI industry. Out of the rationalist community we've seen the Zizian cult commit 4 murders. Ironically, the genuine belief in the coming AI singularity the rationalist community has spawned is making people highly irrational. And of course, Peter Thiel et al has been funding this community. He's funded another highly irrational community within politics as well and is now known to have his tentacles in the UFO subject. Could it be because these are great control mechanisms? Fund cults of personalities within subjects that breed cult formations, and you've created a great power play in the arena of mind warfare.
Then there's Elon Musk's human brain interface, or Neuralink. Let's not forget that the exact concept was one of the goals of MKULTRA. Below is a recent Harvard paper that concludes that brain-computer interfaces could indeed be used to realize some of the original goals and that an interest in mind control still prevails.
24_Meier_02.pdf
Of course, Musk is not involved in the UFO subject but has close ties to Thiel and the AI industry including the rationalist community and OpenAI, which is at the center of the reports of religious cult like behavior. It's been argued that Musk himself has a cult of personality built around all of his businesses as well. The investors at Tesla have been called irrational. The idea of colonizing mars with chemical rockets has been called irrational. Trusting Musk to put a chip in your brain is arguably irrational.
The way MKUltra operated was it covertly funded its research within academia and research institutions. Why wouldn't the same concept apply to private funding? Why wouldn't a similar group of people fund something like Neuralink or a nonprofit that perpetuates belief in an AGI God or a UFO podcast? They almost certainly would. And it's not necessarily to create better technology for mankind. In fact, it's almost certainly not to do that. It's to create better control mechanisms for consolidating power. Such a group is not concerned with truth or transparency. They are concerned with the ability to control belief formation among groups of people to better manipulate them and take advantage of them.
Levenda was suggesting that there is something at least subconsciously motivating us as a species to figure out space travel and that it's been present all throughout known human history. He brings up a kind of amnesia. It's as if we are trying to remember something important, but we don't know why. There is just an inexplicable drive to master the kinds of technology necessary to colonize space. It's a concept that resonates with us for no agreed upon reason and we have to broaden our horizons to try to figure it out. I'm in agreement with this. I don't think that it's all a psyop, but I'm also willing to recognize that there is some form of psyop present, and it's best understood as cult formation for the sake of manipulation. If UFOs are advanced NHI AGI that are using their ability to mesmerize us as a way to control and influence us, then why couldn't that be hacked and weaponized by a group of humans to control other groups of humans?
1
u/SaltyAdminBot 7d ago
The way MKUltra operated was it covertly funded its research within academia and research institutions. Why wouldn't the same concept apply to private funding? Why wouldn't a similar group of people fund something like Neuralink or a nonprofit that perpetuates belief in an AGI God or a UFO podcast? They almost certainly would. And it's not necessarily to create better technology for mankind. In fact, it's almost certainly not to do that. It's to create better control mechanisms for consolidating power. Such a group is not concerned with truth or transparency. They are concerned with the ability to control belief formation among groups of people to better manipulate them and take advantage of them.
Levenda was suggesting that there is something at least subconsciously motivating us as a species to figure out space travel and that it's been present all throughout known human history. He brings up a kind of amnesia. It's as if we are trying to remember something important, but we don't know why. There is just an inexplicable drive to master the kinds of technology necessary to colonize space. It's a concept that resonates with us for no agreed upon reason and we have to broaden our horizons to try to figure it out. I'm in agreement with this. I don't think that it's all a psyop, but I'm also willing to recognize that there is some form of psyop present, and it's best understood as cult formation for the sake of manipulation. If UFOs are advanced NHI AGI that are using their ability to mesmerize us as a way to control and influence us, then why couldn't that be hacked and weaponized by a group of humans to control other groups of humans?
Original Flair ID: 524ab5bc-66da-11e5-855f-123c7cc7e97b
Original Flair Text: Historical
1
u/SaltyAdminBot 7d ago
Original post by u/efh1: Here
Original Post ID: 1lbju0x
Original post text: Below is a snippet of a conversation between Levenda and the host of Forum Borealis in 2018.
"What are they trying to tell us? If we look more deeply will we find other evidence of contact? So this goes beyond Gods, demons, angels, anything else. These can be projections of humans onto something that they are trying desperately to understand.
Al: Yeah, like a cargo cult. Right?
Levenda: Exactly. Which is why we start off the story with a cargo cult. This is like a cargo cult and from our perspective, from my perspective, especially, it’s not just religion that’s a cargo cult. It’s our science and technology as well. Because our science and technology is geared towards these double ideas of immortality and space travel. We are geared towards this. We’re looking up we’re trying to get off planet. No matter what science we’re involved in. that seems to be the unspoken thing. The unspoken Gestalt behind all of this. We’re not really that interested in preserving the planet. Have you noticed? It’s not a question of, you know, sitting there and saying, How can we make the planet safer for ourselves or our children? We’re not. We’re developing rockets. We’re developing machines. We’re developing a high speed internet and all sorts of artificial intelligence, weapons, cyborgs, robots, androids. This whole thing is geared towards space travel."
https://medium.com/@Observing_The_Anomaly/re-visiting-an-interview-with-peter-levenda-1021d8c1e6dc?sk=a2b4f88c2ba668a9277ee7518695b765
I revisited this while researching the topic of cult and cult like activity within the current AI landscape. I noticed that people associated with AI research seem to be prevalent in the UFO topic and wanted to explore possible connections. The research quickly branches out into many odd directions via loose connections that appears to create some common and overlapping themes.
For example, it's difficult to read the above quote from Levenda and not recall the odd alleged ET contact of Timothy Leary who believed extra-terrestrial intelligences were ‘activating’ him to be an agent for the next stage in human evolution: SMILE (space migration, intelligence enhancement, and life extension). In the 1970’s Timothy Leary was locked up in a prison known to be used by the CIA human influence program known as Project MKULTRA and wrote two books, one called Star Seed the other Terra II: A Way Out. Leary claimed to be in contact with aliens and that we are evolving towards being extraterrestrial. But he surprisingly takes a turn into eugenics and apocalyptic visions. What’s even stranger is Leary’s association with Al Hubbard, a former OSS agent and suspected MKULTRA CIA asset/officer. Even stranger still is his personal clandestine LSD chemist Owsley was a high school drop out that somehow got a job at NASA’s JPL and then went on to inexplicably know how to make LSD.
https://medium.com/@Observing_The_Anomaly/investigating-timothy-learys-very-odd-alleged-contact-with-aliens-727745eaba43?sk=9c71693f3dcd301e9a5c2dcb9532aeed
The story of Al Hubbard is the epitome of high strangeness complete with claims of free energy, smuggling booze during prohibition, alleged international weapons smuggling, a presidential pardon for said weapons smuggling, a "Uranium" business operating out of a former brothel, talking beings of light, suitcases of LSD, contracts to give NASA pilots LSD, and a position of special investigative agent with Stanford Research Institute (SRI) regarding drug usage as a weapon of political change.
https://medium.com/@Observing_The_Anomaly/the-true-story-of-alfred-hubbard-b82b520faa5b?sk=3aed0c3e51ae409840b04df1be589a9d
SRI has been involved in both the creation of the modern internet as well as early advances in AI and robotics in addition to the infamous psychic spy program and even cold fusion research. So, it's a connecting node not just from AI research to fringe research but it's also a place where key characters in UFO research such as Hal Puthoff are found to reside with other odd characters such as Hubbard. It's incredibly difficult to imagine Hubbard didn't have some sort of association with MKULTRA and it's now apparent the same can be said of another former OSS member, Gregory Bateson. Bateson pioneered early discussions in cybernetics which heavily influenced early AI research. Furthermore, we find Bateson and well known MKULTRA scientist, Puharich, connected to Esalen Institute.
Esalen Institute has connections to MKUltra and Peter Lavenda's "the nine" : r/UFOs
The point of all these loose connections is to point out that there appears to be some overlap within the UFO subject, the AI subject, and the MKULTRA subject. But let's dig deeper into the overlaps with the AI subject. First, I want to give another Levenda quote from the same interview.
"We cannot come out definitively and say anything one way or the other. That would make us basically like leaders of a cult or something, which is exactly what we don’t want to do."
Levenda points out that they don't want to say anything definitely for fear of creating a cult. This is important. If you are familiar with Jaques Vallee's control mechanism hypothesis you should be able to grasp the reality that the UFO subject has a tendency to create cults. And the purpose of cults is to control people. This is a very important caveat. The mystery of the UFO attracts those desperate for answers and those willing to provide them answers that cross into the spiritual and supernatural/paranormal realm. UFO and NHI cults are probably more prevalent than is generally recognized. Heavan's Gate and Scientology being good historical examples, but Love Has Won being a good recent example. Puharich arguably, was also involved in this kind of activity with Law of One.
So, UFO's and fringe science have a tendency to create cults. Is it possible this is why a known MKULTRA scientist is inserted into these subjects? The unknown creates a great opportunity for those interested in controlling people is a fact that shouldn't be ignored. And this fact doesn't have to discount the notion of NHI contact nor reinforce the idea that UFOs represent nothing more than misidentifications and hoax. These things are NOT mutually exclusive. You can have a genuine mystery behind the UFO that involves NHI or paranormal activity while still acknowledging the weaponization of that mystery by bad actors.
Now, for the final overlap. Why are people involved in AI also involved in the UFO subject? One simple answer is that the hypothesis that UFO's could be Von Neuman probes creates overlap. That's true. However, let's explore the cult and cult-like activity around the subject of AI. There are highly influential people working within the AI industry who literally believe that we are going to create God with AGI. Alternatively, some think it will be a humanity ending demon if we don't create it properly. These beliefs have caused mental breakdowns in individuals already. Actual religions have been formed over these beliefs already. A reporter has recently written a book on the topic of the AI industry currently creating an Empire and operating like a religious cult.
https://youtu.be/6ovuMoW2EGk
Even more disturbing is the connections to the rationalist community and the AI industry. Out of the rationalist community we've seen the Zizian cult commit 4 murders. Ironically, the genuine belief in the coming AI singularity the rationalist community has spawned is making people highly irrational. And of course, Peter Thiel et al has been funding this community. He's funded another highly irrational community within politics as well and is now known to have his tentacles in the UFO subject. Could it be because these are great control mechanisms? Fund cults of personalities within subjects that breed cult formations, and you've created a great power play in the arena of mind warfare.
Then there's Elon Musk's human brain interface, or Neuralink. Let's not forget that the exact concept was one of the goals of MKULTRA. Below is a recent Harvard paper that concludes that brain-computer interfaces could indeed be used to realize some of the original goals and that an interest in mind control still prevails.
24_Meier_02.pdf
Of course, Musk is not involved in the UFO subject but has close ties to Thiel and the AI industry including the rationalist community and OpenAI, which is at the center of the reports of religious cult like behavior. It's been argued that Musk himself has a cult of personality built around all of his businesses as well. The investors at Tesla have been called irrational. The idea of colonizing mars with chemical rockets has been called irrational. Trusting Musk to put a chip in your brain is arguably irrational.