We
all know the joke “just because he is paranoid doesn't mean that
people are not out to get him” or variations on that theme. In a
similar fashion, just because something is part of a conspiracy
theory by lunatics does not mean that it is impossible for certain
elements of that theory to be true, even if only partially true. Its
a delicate subject, for those of us who believe (or pretend to
believe) that there is a hollow earth wherein live benign superior
races in a utopian society do not want to sneer too loudly at those
fools who believe in other equally ridiculous fantasies. One must
tread lightly when confirming a part of a conspiracy theory that one
does not step on the toes of fellow-travelers by dismissing their
particular craziness. It is also the case that even a clock that
has stopped working is correct twice a day, as some wit once put it.
But
nevertheless, when studying the history of the intelligence
community, there are a number of principles one should keep in mind
and these principles are a large part of the appeal. The first
thing to realize is that contrary to what you are told, the
intelligence community in this country is not evil, but it is very
much a bureaucracy that can occasionally transcend its organizational
limitations and achieve excellence, and when it does, from time to
time, when it is all over, they are happy to talk about it to give
credit to those who have accomplished something so that history can
know about their work and so their work can act as an inspiration for
the future.
It
is also the case that these stories are usually also interesting
because they involve national purpose in a time of crisis or
conflict, and when they are allowed to move forward, also involve
great cleverness and often are provided with excellent resources and
often very specialized technologies that are the best that we can
provide under the circumstances, whatever those may be.
But,
this being the intelligence community, which by definition must keep
secrets to be effective, these stories are not told until long after the
fact, and usually only in part.
For
those of you who know what the “black helicopter” conspiracy meme
is about and how “black” projects work, you may skip to the last
part of this post which describes the entertaining report from the
CIA about a quiet helicopter that they built during the Cold War for
some as-yet-unidentified mission. For those of you who are
blessedly ignorance of the conspiracy theories of the 1990 militia
movement in this country, I will try to be brief.
In
the 1990s, a part of the radical right-wing fringe of this country
formed what has been called the “militia movement” which involved
a bunch of armed lunatics who were convinced that our military was
planning a coup in conjunction with various elements of our
government to end democracy in this country and bring us into a
global government which would be known as the “New World Order”.
I am not too sure about many of the details of this movement or its
personalities and doctrines. I could not tell you for sure whether
this was part of the conspiracies of the Rockefellers, the Illuminati
or the Catholic Church but one of their particular and idiosyncratic
fantasies was the concept of the “black helicopters”. The black
helicopters were unmarked, black of course, completely silent
helicopters that were run by a secret organization which was
planning the aforementioned coup. They would hover above military
bases and spy on the militia movement in an effort to
destroy them.
If
you want to know more, just go to your favorite search engine and
type in “black helicopter” and you will immediately get a bunch
of references to them.
Now to any student of intelligence or the military what is
funny about this is that, in the absence of any hard information, it
is not so improbable that something that one might call a “black
helicopter” might exist in the world.
There
are several reasons for this hypothetical possibility and here are a few of them. First, “black” is a term of
art in the intelligence and military to refer to a project or
technology which is being kept especially secret and not
acknowledged. These technologies are usually a part of projects
which are directed by the security apparatus of this country, such as
the National Security Council. The U2 and the SR-71 are two very
famous “black airplanes” in this category and both were developed
out of a requirement by the President and the NSC to get better
intelligence about the USSR's ability to wage nuclear war. Second,
one could imagine that there might be projects out there that would
require a helicopter that had special capabilities that were held
back, kept secret, to be used only under special circumstances.
Third, anyone who has ever been around a helicopter knows how noisy
they are, but you may not be aware that from the earliest days of
helicopters, people have been doing research into how to make them
quieter, and they have come up with a number of techniques to do so.
Proven techniques. (1) So why dont they use them then, you might
wonder. The answer is always a variation of the old adage that
“nothing in this world is free”. A technology that makes a
helicopter quieter might greatly increase its cost, or limit its
speed and range, or reduce its reliability.
Finally,
we had hard evidence that at least one stealth helicopter had been
built, or two of them, because SEAL Team Six had crashed one of them
on their raid on Bin Laden.
Which
leads us to this interesting report.
Once
upon a time, about 1970, the CIA had the need to be able to sneak
into a foreign country, unnoticed, and either bring in, or bring out,
someone or something. The place it would be going would be suitable
for a helicopter, in other words, it could be an empty parking lot or
someone's back yard. But it had to be totally silent, invisible to
radar, fly in the dark, be able to go a long distance, pick something
up (or drop something off) and then make the return trip.
The
problems they had to solve included increasing the range of the
helicopter, reducing the noise signature of the helicopter so that it
could fly very close to people and not be noticed, and because it
would be flying very close to the ground to avoid radar, it needed
some sort of navigation aid that would let the pilot avoid obstacles
and still not be visible to the naked eye.
In
a remarkably short period of time, and with the help of a variety of
defense contractors and individuals working on their own time, they
were able to do so, and in doing so, they proved a number of
technologies which were of immense value moving forward in the
non-secret world, including a much better version of FLIR (Forward
Looking Infrared).
The
report can be found on the www.cryptome.org
site and can be located here:
So
now, about 40 years later, they tell us about the helicopter. But
they are still not telling us a damn thing about where they used it
and for what purpose. What glorious episode from the Cold War does this conceal? A flight to freedom of one of our agents? We will know one day.
Of course this report will not satisfy those noble seekers-of-truth who are working to prevent the government take over to create the New World Order. But at least it does reveal that some of this technology does exist. We must all be vigilant to see that these proud covert creators of anti-freedom helicopters are not permitted to implement socialized health care.
Its up to us.
Of course this report will not satisfy those noble seekers-of-truth who are working to prevent the government take over to create the New World Order. But at least it does reveal that some of this technology does exist. We must all be vigilant to see that these proud covert creators of anti-freedom helicopters are not permitted to implement socialized health care.
Its up to us.
________________________________________________________
Notes
1.
An example of a “proven technique” to make a helicopter quieter
is simply to move the rotors more slowly as much of the noise that a
helicopter generates in flight comes from the movement of their
rotors in the air. But obviously this technique has an impact on the
performance of the helicopter.
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