Swarm
Page 36
2001
Work begins on the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Jointly funded by the US Air Force, US Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), HAARP is an ionospheric research project based near Gakona, Alaska, that uses a high-energy beam to temporarily excite a portion of the uppermost layer of the atmosphere.
2006
The Media Freedom Foundation of Sonoma State University publishes a paper on US electromagnetic weapons and human rights. The authors warn about efforts by US-funded scientists to search for better means of controlling human behavior through “the use of wireless directed electromagnetic energy under the headings of Information Warfare and Non-Lethal Weapons.” The foundation also says that the US military and intelligence agencies have at their disposal weapons that have likely already been covertly used and/or tested on humans, both here and abroad, and which could be directed at the public in the event of mass protests or disobedience.
2007
HAARP is completed and deployed. Its official purpose is to gather data on how the earth’s atmosphere reacts to solar radiation and other cosmic phenomenon. According to DARPA, HAARP is also capable of generating ELF frequencies by heating portions of the auroral electrojet, an electrical current that travels around the earth’s ionosphere. The main concern expressed by HAARP’s detractors is its ability to bounce focused ELF beams off the upper atmosphere to almost any place on Earth, potentially making it the largest and most powerful electromagnetic weapon ever built.
2009
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Company announces plans to develop an amusement park game that induces people to dance by wearing headphones connected to a galvanic vestibular stimulator (GVS), which transmits signals into the inner ear and brain. NTT scientists are considering mixing GVS signals into music in dance clubs to keep people dancing while another person remotely controls their movements with a wireless joystick. In the United States, patents are filed for devices that would use ELF and other radio waves to induce a receptive state in subjects and then expose them to images, words, and sounds that would transfer subconscious messages and emotions directly to the brain.
2013
Amol Sarva, an entrepreneur and cofounder of Virgin Mobile USA, announces his newest venture: a bio-tech start-up called Halo Neuroscience. The company plans to build and market a commercially available headset that uses electromagnetic waves, which he calls neurostimulation, to enhance human brain performance. Sarva claims that early testing has shown that neurostimulation can accelerate and improve a wide range of cognitive functions, from learning and creativity to memory and video game playing.
2013–2014
President Barack Obama seeks private and public partners for a one-hundred-million-dollar initiative to understand and map the inner workings of the human brain. Government agencies involved in the project include the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, and the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. A DARPA spokesperson says one of the agency’s priorities will be to address the needs of combat veterans who suffer from mental and physical conditions, including PTSD. Listed among the initiative’s key goals on the www.whitehouse.gov/share/brain-initiative website: “Understand how brain activity leads to perception, decision making, and ultimately action.”
2015
After raising thirteen million dollars in funding for its brain-stimulating electrode headset and mobile phone app, Thync, a Boston-based start-up, continues testing a consumer mood-altering device that uses electromagnetic signals to make the wearer feel more focused, relaxed, or energetic. Thync uses neurosignaling via electronic or ultrasonic waveforms to activate and manipulate existing neural pathways in the human mind. The company’s motto: “Shift your state of mind. Conquer more.”
2016
A company called Nervana announces plans to market mood-enhancing headphones that generate electrical signals in tandem with music to trigger feelings of happiness and euphoria in the wearer. The headphones’ music-enhanced signal stimulates the vagus nerve, which runs from the brainstem to the abdomen and triggers the release of dopamine, a chemical tied to the brain’s pleasure centers and activities, including playing games, eating, and sex.
Chicago-based start-up Brain.fm releases beta of a product that uses 3-D audio technology and brain wave frequency protocols powered by a complex “Music-AI” engine to enhance beta waves in the brain and help the listener focus, relax, meditate, or sleep.
DARPA announces a new sixty-million-dollar initiative to develop an implantable neural interface the size of a small coin to allow unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth for improved communication between the human brain and digital devices, including computers, robots, and prosthetics. Among the goals of the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program is digitally accessing up to one million neurons in a human brain and feeding auditory and visual information into the minds of US military personnel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Guy Garcia is an award-winning author, digital media entrepreneur, and expert on evolutionary social trends. His books include The New Mainstream, The Decline of Men, Skin Deep, and Self Made (with Nely Galan). A contributor to The New York Times, Time, The Huffington Post, and CNN, he is president of New Mainstream Initiatives for EthniFacts Inc. and a co-founder of the pioneering urban web site Total New York, where he lives.
Experience Swarm at ownyourmind.org