The Great Disillusionment: Globalism & Psychological Warfare from Mars

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (1898)

It may be remembered that for Halloween, 2018, I published a summation of the epic-length series, “Mystery Babylon,” discussing ancient Satanism and world totalitarianism. We dipped our toes in the staticky wavelengths of last century’s radio and found William Cooper, bellowing his grim truths from the sullen depths, far beneath the shallow surface. We were given a mere glimpse at the world beyond the veil of secrets; we learned of the evil lurking wherever we go. We got to hear a 20th century radio ghost story. Why should the Halloween of 2019 be any different?

***This presentation, as with last year’s, is intended for entertainment. Thus, I have made no effort to separate the verifiable claims made herein from the non-verifiable ones, as doing so would interrupt the narrative. However, I believe that the subject matter of this Halloween tale is worthy of a more rigorous treatment, and will therefore publish a serious article on it in the future. In the meantime, I have provided some interesting links at the bottom of this page for anyone interested in more information. So for now, take it all with a grain of salt—or perhaps with a candy bar—and enjoy.***

We start on our journey back through the airwaves with the familiar voice of Bill Cooper. In a 1998 “special” broadcast of his radio show, “The Hour of the Time,” he revealed to his listening audience the sordid history of induced mass-panic. The story begins in the mid-1930’s, as the thoughts, words, and deeds of the masses began to be quantified and systematized; when social occurrences were becoming predictable—to the ones who understood the equations, that is.

Such studies into the collective psyche were naturally encouraged by media companies wishing to further captivate their audiences—and by the government. Early on, many who would later become important players in military intelligence and psychological warfare involved themselves in such projects. The merging of military and media began. J.K. Galbraith, an editor of Fortune Magazine, went on to direct the Office of Economic Security Policy after the Second World War. C.D. Jackson, a prominent figure both at Time-Life and Fortune, was a top psychological warfare specialist during the war. Dewitt Poole, a founder of Public Opinion Quarterly, had been a spy since the mid-1910’s, and was connected with government intelligence operations until the end of his life. Frank Stanton of CBS advised multiple military agencies during World War II, and in the 1960’s became chairman of the RAND Corporation. William Paley, perhaps the CBS Corporation’s most influential executive, directed psychological warfare radio operations for the Office of War Information. Elmo Roper, one of the original quantifiers of the public mind back in 1935, was made deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services—the forerunner of the CIA. It’s been said that intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns; I’ll leave that to you, dear reader.

Then there was Hadley Cantril. He certainly wasn’t the most notable of all these men, though he did contribute significantly—and uniquely—to the study and use of propaganda. He had been influenced by Roper, and co-founded the Public Opinion Quarterly with Poole. Most important to our story, he—along with Stanton—oversaw the Radio Research Project at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The “Princeton Radio Project,” as it became known, was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which had in the preceding decades funded other mass projects such as public schooling, medical licensing… and eugenics.

Here we have a group—the Rockefeller Foundation—with a history of shoring up a diverse assortment social control mechanisms, now taking an interest in the new media: radio. Upon entry into this novel world they find the minds of psychologists and spies, and academics more than willing to quantify the effects of radio on the public mind. Just what can be done with this new means of mass-communication?

Cooper told his audience that Cantril, Stanton, and their associates at Princeton, set out “to better understand why people of various backgrounds, interests, loyalties, and information levels held certain opinions, and how to use this information to effectively gear research concerned with psychological and political dynamics of people, and to United States government operation to achieve policy aims. In effect, ladies and gentlemen, how to manipulate people to get them to do what you want them to do.” All this with Rockefeller money, in a climate of budding psychological warriors.

With this background provided by William Cooper, we are now ready to venture back sixty years before his broadcast, to the night before Halloween, when the radio waves chilled the air and the hearts of countless Americans. We go now to October 30, 1938; to CBS Radio’s “Mercury Theater,” where a young Orson Welles readies to report a Martian invasion to a claimed six million listeners.

The show began at 8pm. Tired, trusting listeners were greeted with a monologue by Welles, who read the opening paragraph of H.G. Well’s 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Those who had not yet tuned in or were not paying attention may have missed the introduction to the broadcast, which stated that what followed would be a radio play of that fictional story. They may also have missed the announcement that the tale was set on October 30, 1939—one year in the future. After the monologue, the drama unfolded. To anyone just setting their dials to CBS, the next few minutes might’ve been mistaken for a real sequence of events.

A delightful New York orchestra entertained the audience following a weather report, forecasting gale-force winds throughout the night. The poor musicians were continually interrupted by bulletins of gaseous eruptions on the planet Mars. An interview with a fictional astronomer—said to be at the Princeton Observatory—revealed that the Red Planet was “in opposition” to earth; that is to say, the two planets were in the closest possible proximity. However, as the Observatory’s gigantic clock ominously ticked the seconds away, the professor maintained that the chance of Mars carrying life was slim-to-none. When a telegram came in reporting an explosion just thirty miles away, he reassured the nervous reporter that it was merely coincidental.

Just as the orchestra returned with a soft melody, the listening audience was bombarded with report after report of fiery explosions in the northeastern United States. Particularly, there had been a blast in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey—some five miles from Princeton. Professor Pearson, the astronomer, and the reporter, Carl Philips, were en route.

The gentle music, which had been providing relief from the tense reports, picked up pace. When the station finally cut to Grover’s Mill, a ghastly, howling wind filled the living rooms of millions of Americans. The shaking voice of Carl Philips managed to cut through the wicked sound to report a metal cylinder jutting out of a deep gash in the earth’s crust. As it had descended, it carved a green streak across the sky. Townsfolk had gathered round to witness the mystery—police shouted to keep the overly-curious away from the very unique meteorite. Professor Pearson was less ambitious; lost in thought and mumbling hypotheses.

But then—then, the thing began to hum. The top of the smooth metallic casing slowly broke away, and what appeared to be gigantic snakes began to slither out. Women shrieked and police ordered the men back. Soon it was clear that the snakes were, in fact, tentacles—tentacles belonging to a single, enormous, terrific being. Its eyes shone black. Saliva dripped from its vile mouth. Cut to the New York ballroom.

When the listener was brought back to Grover’s Mill, they we reassured that the police were approaching the situation with good will. They raised a white flag, in hopes that the visitor would understand its meaning, and abide. The flag was brought forward. An instant later, it was ablaze. Fire spewed from the monster’s hiding-place, consuming men and women, automobiles, telephone poles, buildings. The transmission from Grover’s Mill was lost.

Music again filled the airwaves, only to be broken by a telegram from a California astronomer. The explosions on Mars had been nothing but volcanoes, and any cause for alarm was unjustified.

Forty or more bodies lay dead and charred in Grover’s Mill—among them, the distorted remains of Carl Philips. The whole region was placed under martial law, and the CBS station was from that point handed over to the military, in keeping with the belief that “radio has a responsibility to serve in the public interest at all times.” It was then promptly remarked that the situation was under control, just as another creature arose from the hellish crater.

“Official” proclamations from military and government agents made it clear that an invasion from planet Mars was underway. Some 7,000 soldiers were burned alive at Grover’s Mill; towns along the eastern seaboard were in flames; communication wires were down from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean. The Secretary of the Interior came on to put his faith in the military and in a unified America, asking God to preserve human supremacy over the earth.

Anybody still listening would’ve then heard the communications of fighter plane pilots. From their high vantage-points they reported the victory of the Martians wherever they were, employing their deadly “heat rays” while emitting some sort of toxic gas. Metal cylinders rained down from they sky, striking major cities across the nation. A plane goes down in flames. A reconnaissance official suffocates on the air. A shivering soldier stutters hopelessly, “Is there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air?” And then… commercial!

A CBS announcer reminds the audience of millions that they are listening to a dramatized version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which will return after a few short messages. When the show resumed, it was Orson Welles, the narrator from the beginning, wandering New Jersey as a lonely Professor Pearson. There could be no question that the rest of the broadcast was fictional, as the “we interrupt this program” format was over and done with. With the future of humanity looking bleak—doomed to see survivors hiding underground and struggling to survive—Pearson looked for hope. After days on foot, he found it. He found birds and dogs devouring the corpses of the Martians.

The show comes to a close with Pearson back at Princeton, reflecting on the events of that dreadful Halloween Eve. Humans again populate the earth; their cities scrape the sky once more. Some element within the earth’s atmosphere had caused the sudden deaths of the alien force—the only remnants of their invasion to be found in museums. The Halloween play was over, though it would be remembered for decades to come.

Supposedly, the broadcast had caused such a panic that some one million Americans packed their bags and headed for the hills. This uproar, while outraging the affected, was a very convenient break for those interested parties involved in the Princeton Radio Project. Cantril, Stanton (of CBS), and the rest leaped at the opportunity to study how radio could be used to so stir the emotions of the masses. “The War of the Worlds,” forecasting unprecedented global strife in the autumn of 1939, was a perfect practice scenario for the hordes of media-men who would go on to engage in psychological warfare in the Second World War (which began in the autumn of 1939). But let us now return to our guide, Bill Cooper, who saw in this legendary broadcast a very important, foreboding effect.

Orson Welles’ performance planted the seeds of impending alien invasion in the collective mind. It is a plan which, Cooper says, can be traced to 1917, when John Dewey remarked that an otherworldly invasion would unify the global community. Indeed, the sequel to Welles’ show occurred in 1947, when the tale of Roswell made its way into the record. Cooper reports that the UFO crash was staged by the government, and that the “alien bodies” which were recovered were, in fact, shaved and surgically altered monkeys. But the narrative of an extraterrestrial presence had to be implanted in order to usher in the age of global governance.

In the 1950’s, strange lights appeared over Washington D.C., said to be alien craft. Stories of alien invaders clogged the airways and filled the comic books of the early Cold War period. In the 1980’s, Ronald Reagan said before the U.N. that “the best way to unite all the nations on this globe would be an attack from some other planet.”

Today, NASA and even the Vatican have opened themselves up to the possibility of an alien visitation. Major UFO groups such as the Paradigm Research Group and the Disclosure Project have made no secret of taking Rockefeller money. To Bill Cooper, this would all reflect the larger agenda: Staging a world-wide event of an alien invasion, so that the powers that be might capitalize on the fear and panic of the masses to establish a world, totalitarian, socialist government. Sounds crazy? Maybe. Just remember, the prototype of just such an event was already conducted and studied, on October 30, 1938.

Further Research:

• Bill Cooper’s 1998 “War of the Worlds” Broadcast
• The Original 1938 “War of the Worlds” Broadcast
• “How to Fake an Alien Invasion” – The Corbett Report
• “Early ‘Psychological Warfare’ Research and the Rockefeller Foundation” – Global Research
• “Adorno, Lazarsfeld & The Princeton Radio Project” – Susan Cavin
• “Threatened by Radio, Newspapers Exaggerated ‘War of the Worlds’ Panic” – Poynter
• “Poole, DeWitt Clinton Jr. (1885-1952)” – Documents Talk