Richmond: Space Acts and Space Weapons

Part the First:

On October 2, 2001, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced HR 2977, a bill “to preserve the cooperative peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing of weapons in space by the United States, and to require the President to take action to adopt and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons.” The short title was “The Space Preservation Act.”

As is usual in the American legislative system, the bill was referred to House of Representatives committees under whose purview it seemed to fall – in this case, the Committee on Science and the Committee on Armed Services and International Relations. The bill had no co-sponsors – in other words, none of Kucinich’s colleagues had officially signaled their support for HR 2977 by listing their name alongside his on the bill. Not unusual, but a bill typically has to have co-sponsors to have a chance at passage.

The verbiage of the bill began by establishing the legitimacy of its mission by quoting the 1958 Act that created NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: “It is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.” The ban specified by the bill required the removal of all US space-based weapons and termination of all research and development of space-based weapons. Further, it required that the President of the United States work toward implementation of a “world agreement” banning space-based weapons. Every three months, the President would be required to submit a report to Congress on progress being made along these lines.

However, the bill also specified it was not about the US pulling out of space altogether. Space exploration and research, development and deployment of civil, commercial or defense technologies could continue, as long as it wasn’t related to space-based weapons or systems.

What is a space-based weapon? According to HR 2977, the term encompasses a variety of mythical technologies taken straight from the land of late-night talk radio: electronic and directed energy weapons, ELF and ULF (extremely- and ultra-low frequency) beams and various psychotronic technologies aimed at “individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations.” The list of “exotic” weapons systems also includes “information weapons; chemtrails; high-altitude, ultra-low frequency weapons systems; plasma, electromagnetic, sonic or ultrasonic weapons; laser weapons systems; strategic, theater, tactical, or extraterrestrial weapons; and chemical, biological, environmental, climate or tectonic weapons.”

Conspicuously absent from this list, of course, was the mention of any possibility that a small group of people armed with box cutters and basic flight training could deliberately fly a fully fueled-up jetliner into a skyscraper. Introduced shortly after the 9/11 attacks that stunned the nation, it was not surprising that HR 2977 got no traction on the legislative agenda. What was surprising was that it got introduced in the first place. The exotic space weapons listed in the bill were familiar territory to people familiar with fringe UFO and conspiracy subcultures, but very much newcomers to the national policy conversation around space, war and weapons.

Chemtrail activist Lorie Kramer deemed the inclusion of chemtrails in HR 2977 to be a huge step forward for her cause. Circa 2002 she wrote, “By its conspicuous appearance in 2977, the term ‘chemtrails’ received a form of credibility with the official government process never seen before . . . the simple fact of their inclusion in Kucinich’s 2977 list of weapons systems was deemed a major breakthrough by tens of thousands of citizens and researchers across the country.”

HR 2977 was re-introduced in the next legislative session as HR 3616, also called the Space Preservation Act. It won nine co-sponsors, possibly because all references to “exotic” weaponry had been excised. Kramer wondered why HR 3616 was so different: “So, what happened here? Did someone have a ‘friendly chat’ with Rep. Kucinich? Did the Congressman inhale a bit too much aluminum during his morning job [sic]? . . . It remains a mystery as to how the word ‘chemtrails’ appeared in HR 2977 to begin with . . . Who actually is authoring these bills? Why such an emphasis on ‘exotic weapons’ in HR 2977 but then nothing mentioned about them in HR 3616?”

The concise answer, given by Metabunk.org admin Mick West here, is that HR 2977 was “written by UFO enthusiasts Alfred Webre and Carol Rosin, who were trying to:

1.       Nullify a vast conspiracy by the ‘military-industrial complex’

2.       Allow the use of suppressed alien technology for free energy

3.       Avoid accidentally shooting down (or scaring away) visiting aliens.”

In the same piece West goes on to ask, “So what’s Kucinich’s involvement in this? It’s difficult to say. Kucinich is an anti-war, so perhaps that’s his motivation. He does have lot of new-age, UFO-believing friends, but he’s also running for president. When he was made aware of the nature of the ‘exotic weapons’ language in the bill, it was re-written, and when questioned about it, he said, “I’m not into that. Understand me. When I found out that was in there, I said, ‘Look, I’m not interested in going there.’”

Those who follow the history of UFO discourse will recognize Webre under the sobriquet of “father of exopolitics” and one of the first champions of “disclosure”. Exopolitics (our relations with aliens from outer space) and disclosure (the government finally revealing the truth about aliens from outer space and the technology they have brought to earth) are both sacred touchstones in UFO discourse. In 2001 Webre, along with UFO activist Carol Rosin, founded something called the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) in 2001. Its mission was “to educate decision-makers and the grassroots about why it is important to ban space weapons.” [rationalwiki]

If Webre and Rosin meant HR 2977 to demand some form of government disclosure of UFO and alien activity and technology, they didn’t seem very serious about it. As soon as the successor bill HR 3616 was introduced, co-author Rosin claimed that chemtrails, psychotronic and other “exotic” weaponry had only been mentioned in the first bill as an example of what MIGHT happen if the bill isn’t passed. By 2011, Webre had left ICIS to advocate full-time against HAARP, which he held to be a form of exotic weaponry and later hooked his wagon to time-traveling Canadian lawyer Andrew Basiago’s star.

Neither version of the Space Preservation Act figure in any of the periodic campaigns for disclosure that are mounted by the UFO community. If disclosure advocates were unmoved by Kucinich’s legislative efforts, chemtrailers found in them renewed hope. Chemtrail activist Lorie Kramer wrote online, “By its conspicuous appearance in 2977, the term ‘chemtrails’ received a form of credibility within the official government process never seen before.” Fellow believer Bea Bernhausen added, “Bill HR2977 brought chemtrails and mind control to the attention of thousands of people who had never heard of them before, as well as revitalizing a sagging chemtrail community.” [Italics added]

Berkeley

In September of 2002, Kucinich was set to visit Berkeley, California in order to speak against what the Berkeley Daily Planet described as “Star Wars, a proposal to put weapons in space.” City Council member Dona Spring put forward a resolution to support Kucinich’s Space Preservation Act, which passed. The Planet reported, “the city’s resolution to side with Kucinich’s cause is the first formal support the Congressman has received.”

Actually, after HR 3616 in 2002 with its nine co-sponsors, there was HR 3657 in 2003 with four co-sponsors and HR 2420 in 2005 which won 35 cosponsors. Kucinich clearly continued to work the bill in the normal legislative fashion and had been successful in getting support, at least among Democrats. In contrast, the Berkeley City Council’s resolution in support of a bill that had never actually passed into law was largely a symbolic measure.

The Daily Planet article quotes Spring as saying that the resolution was a model for the country because weapons in space are a bad idea, escalate the arms race and makes the nation less secure. Also, they pollute. The article goes on to quote Rosin, the original bill’s co-author, who warns that without such legislation “Every weapon you know about will be up there . . . along with many you can’t even imagine.”

In 2008, an article about gang stalking and targeted individuals was published in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times. Terms like gang stalking, mind control and targeted individuals will be somewhat familiar to most consumers of fringe discourse. They all connote an intense paranoia in which everyone in a person’s world is actively colluding in trying to control and/or harm that person. The terms emerge from fringe discourses and often invoke imaginary technologies held to be real by such discourses. Sharing Their Demons on the Web described online communities of targeted individuals – victims of gang stalking and mind control – and talked to psychiatrists about what it all meant.

Targeted individual Derrick Robinson is quoted as saying, “It was a big relief to find the community.” One online victim community had started IRL meetings; in Missouri, a state representative had agreed to call for an investigation into mind control torture. As far back as 2008, then, we see that activists around mind control issues are concerned about getting their issue onto a legislative agenda.

On the other hand, Yale psychiatry professor Ralph Hoffman warned, “The views of these belief systems are like a shark that has to be constantly fed. If you don’t feed the delusion, sooner or later it will die out or diminish on its own accord. The key thing is that it needs to be repetitively reinforced.” Assuming that targeted individuals are almost certainly people with untreated mental illness, which is my belief, enabling rather than addressing the illness can have serious consequences.