MEMORY HACKS, MURDER & MKULTRA

We tend to believe that memory is mostly reliable, offering us an accurate and accessible “portrait of the past”. But, as MARK GREENER reveals, our memories are often fragmented, disorted or false – and can be deliberately manipulated by those who wish to

2020-07-01 -

We tend to believe that memory is mostly reliable, offering us an accurate “portrait of the past”. But, as MARK GREENER reveals, our memories are often disorted or false – and can be deliberately manipulated by those who wish to alter them...

Some people recall hearing that Nelson Mandela died in prison. Other recollect seeing sasquatch. Others that they’ve taken a trip with Nordic aliens in a UFO. Most are not lying or hoaxing. And no amount of scepticism or rationalisation can shake their vivid, detailed memories, even those at odds with accepted history (the Mandela – or, for X-philes, Mengele – effect; see pp.32-38). But some of these memories are false.

Indeed, most of us need false memories to get through the day. They help us cope with new experiences, keep us safe and bolster our self-image. Yet they have a dark side. False memories contribute the intense, intrusive, emotional recollections – sometimes with sounds, smells, tastes and sensations – characteristic of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Even

1 flashbulb memories, such as 9-11, can include ‘fabricated’ details that people believe are true. And we have no idea of how many

2 people languish in jail after confessing to a crime they never committed because of a false memory. Worryingly, false recollections are remarkably easy to create, by our own minds or by memory hacks.

PORTRAITS OF OUR PAST

As you go about your daily life, you encounter information and have experiences that may be useful guides to future actions – so, they’re worth keeping. I hope that the important points from this article will become stored – encoded – in your memory. Initially, this information is stored in your short-term memory, which lasts seconds to hours: it’s easy to forget a new phone number. Some short-term memories become medium term, lasting hours to months. I can no longer recollect the molecular pathways I could regurgitate on demand for my finals, but when information or an experience is especially relevant, new data integrates with existing long-term memories. These ‘consolidated’ memories can persist for months, or for the rest of your life. The slow consolidation into long-term memory seems to allow the brain to alter the strength of the recollection depending on the event’s importance.

You might like to think that your memory captures an event with the accuracy of a high-end digital camera. And for decades, researchers believed that once consolidated, long-term memories were “indelible portraits of our past”. In reality, our

4 memories are often fragmented, distorted and even false. (I’ll leave memories recovered by hypnosis or other forms of regression, evoked by past-life therapies or involved in multiple personality disorders for another time.)

Memory remains ‘fragile’ for several hours after the event, which allows other elements to influence consolidation. And when a cue triggers recollection, memories become fragile once more. Doctors hope that this offers an opportunity to interrupt the cycle of involuntary recollection, re-experiencing and reconsolidation of traumatic memories that underlies PTSD and phobias. But it

To a certain extent, our self-identity is built on the lies we tell ourselves

also means that when we remember we may re-write our memory and, sometimes, include false information. Indeed, memory, psychologist Nicholas Spanos noted, is “essentially reconstructive”.

For example, you don’t usually accurately store an entire event. You inevitably forget or miss bits. But a fragmented memory isn’t a good guide to avoiding dangerous, painful and frightening events. So, you reconstruct

7 a ‘smooth’, seemingly complete recollection from the fragments and sometimes include new information or consolidate similar events into one memory. I regularly visited

8 the Spanish City funfair in Whitley Bay when I was a kid. I can remember specific details when something unusual happened, but my memory probably blends several visits. In other words, I’ve constructed a narrative (a schema) for them. This creates a seamless memory that better guides your behaviour.

So, the reconstruction we call memory depends on what we have already stored, our needs, information obtained since the event, attitudes, concerns, beliefs, wishes and emotions. For instance, as memories aim to protect us, we tend to remember experiences that arouse emotion or cause stress. Negative recollections may also be more stable over time than positive memories. During the 1930s, psychologist Sir Frederic Bartlett proposed that memories often conform with our beliefs and expectations rather than being accurate representations. So, you tend to ‘remember’ details that were not present, but that can be inferred (such as that someone drove a car to work when no vehicle was mentioned) or come from general knowledge. One study asked people to look at a scene of a university office. People often recalled expected items that weren’t there (such as books) and didn’t recall unexpected items that were (for example, a picnic basket).9

Memory also lays the foundation of our self-image. Tragically, people who lose memory – such as Alzheimer’s patients – can lose their identity. Conversely, false memories may help preserve our sense of identity. We may, for instance, generate false memories that align our past with our current beliefs and expectations – such as the expectation that we’ve held consistent values and opinions over time.

In one study, researchers asked people whether they’d want life-preserving treatments, such as feeding tubes, if they fell seriously ill. When researchers repeated the survey up to a year later, about a quarter had changed their mind. Up to three-quarters (69% and 75%) of these falsely believed that they gave the same answer each time. In addition, people tend to mistakenly feel that their situation, such as relationships, has improved over time. In other words, we tend to view the past through dark-tinted glasses and so have a falsely positive view of our current selves. It’s a sobering thought that, to a certain extent, our self-identity is built on the lies we tell ourselves.

MEMORIES OF 9-11

These processes mean that many false memories arise spontaneously. For example, researchers interviewed 2,641 people exposed to the 9-11 attack and the destruction of the World Trade Center, and then again a year later. Almost half (45.7%) of those who said that they were not disturbed by a smell at Ground Zero at the first interview ‘remembered’ being disturbed by a smell a year later. Moreover, 20.9% and 15.8% recalled attending a funeral of someone killed in the attack or feeling that their life was in danger at the second interview, but not at the first. Perhaps more surprisingly, one in eight ‘misremembered’ knowing someone who was killed (12.9%) or seeing bodies, body parts or body bags (12.5%).

Another study asked 59 National Guard reservists about 19 traumatic events they might have experienced; firstly, one month after returning from the first Gulf War, and then two years later. Almost nine in 10 (89%) changed at least one response, while three in five (61%) changed at least two items. More than a third (35.6%) changed their response about feeling an extreme threat to their personal safety. A third

(33.9%) changed their response about seeing bizarre disfigurement of bodies and just over a quarter about seeing others killed or wounded (27.1%). About one in 10 changed their response about being in firefights or an ambush (both 10.2%) or seeing a close friend killed (8.5%). About one in 7 (13.6%) changed their response about seeing excessive violence or brutality, such as mistreatment of prisoners or mutilation of bodies. Almost one in 50 (1.7%) changed their mind about whether they’d participated in such events.

Some, I suspect, might have realised in hindsight just how dangerous the deployment really was or questioned the morality of their actions; but most are probably false memories. In addition, we may subconsciously include false elements in our memories to cement relationships, which might include those affected by a ‘shared’ tragedy, such as 9-11 or a war; arguably, the same thing happens in alien abductee support groups.

These are important observations for fortean research. The core event – working at Ground Zero, fighting in the Gulf, alien ‘abduction’ – remains consistent. However, external elements gleaned from the media

or speaking to other people, or even the products of imagination, embroider the story.

That might be why false memories tend to become more and more inconsistent with the original event. Over time, false memories become increasingly detailed and can include thoughts and emotions supposedly experienced during the event. One study asked people about their memory of the OJ Simpson verdict – such as where they were when the jury returned – three days and then up to 32 months later. Almost three in 10 (29%) had a consistent memory. But inconsistencies tended to accumulate over time and by 32 months, two in five (40%) showed major distortions.

Rapid investigation also helps identify potential hoaxes. Visualising an event makes it more likely that the person will come to believe it really happened – so-called imagination inflation. In other words, lies

13 sometimes develop into false memories, and the person can no longer distinguish reality from fiction.

So, if you’re investigating, say, a UFO, a Loch Ness Monster sighting or a shooter on the Grassy Knoll, it’s best to rely on the recollections recorded closest to the event. And if you ever experience a fortean event, write it down or record it as soon as you can.

That’s one reason the Socorro, New Mexico, UFO encounter of 24 April 1964 remains so compelling and so difficult to explain away as an experimental craft, balllightning or a hoax.

Deputy Marshal Lonnie Zamora reported parts of the encounter with a white, eggshaped landed UFO and the “little people” who emerged from it in real time on his radio, calling for assistance from other officers who corroborated parts of his account. The Air Force sent an investigator to collect statements the same day.

Quite what Zamora saw remains unclear.

Even the USAF’s Project Blue Book failed to explain the close encounter. Hector Quintanilla, the project’s last chief officer, commented in the CIA’s journal Studies in Intelligence in 1966: “There is no doubt that Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impression on him. There is also no question about Zamora’s reliability. He is a serious police officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well versed in recognising airborne vehicles in his area. He is puzzled by what he saw, and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic.”

STOP ALL THE CLOCKS

We’re supposed to recall where we were and what we were doing when we heard about 9-11, Princess Diana’s death or, if we’re old enough, JFK’s assassination. These ‘flashbulb memories’ are vivid recollections of a very traumatic or important event. You may not be able to fully assess a danger at the time: you’re too busy surviving. A vivid memory allows you to review the event and helps avoid risky situations.

On 4 October 1992, a cargo plane crashed into an 11-storey block of flats in Amsterdam, killing four crew members and 39 people in the building, and causing a massive fire. No one recorded the crash, although some TV stations used animations to show the flightpath, but not the impact. Yet when researchers interviewed 193 people, 10 months after the tragedy, more than half (55%) said that they’d seen television film of the plane hitting the building. When researchers interviewed 93 law students, 66% said they’d seen the non-existent television film.

False flashbulb memories can coalesce into collective representations. On 2 August 1980, at 10.25 in the morning, a terrorist bomb detonated at Bologna’s main station, killing 85 people and wounding more than

200. The explosion damaged a large clock, which stuck at the time of the bombing. The clock was repaired and worked for 16 years. Then in 1996, the clock was set permanently at 10.25 as a memorial.

When researchers asked 173 people who knew the clock was stopped, 92% said that it had always been broken and 79% said the time had remained at 10.25 ever since the bombing – including all 21 railway employees. The findings, the authors say, “indicate that individual memory distortions shared by a large number of people develop into collective false memories”.

The stopped clock become iconic, widely reproduced in the media and used on posters and banners at the annual commemoration. The clock’s symbolism probably helped obscure the real experience by acting on the more ‘fragile’ memory when recalled or forming part of the schema used to encode memories.

MEMORY HACKS

Whatever our brains can do, scientists can try to do better: numerous studies show that false memories are relatively easy to implant and are largely indistinguishable from genuine ones. Researchers can, for instance, implant false childhood memories in about a third to half of adults, including: nearly drowning and being rescued by a lifeguard; being admitted to a hospital at four years of age with low blood sugar; spilling drink over a bride’s dress; being attacked by a vicious animal; or seeing a ghost. Researchers even implanted impossible childhood memories, such as hugging Bugs Bunny – a Warner Brother’s character – at Disneyland.

Memory hacks are not limited to childhood recollections. Researchers implanted memories convincing people that during the last visit to the laboratory a few days earlier, they had tossed a coin, kissed a plastic frog or rubbed chalk

into their foreheads. In one study of 187 undergraduates, “simple, single page-long” false feedback was used to implant false memories of committing or being the victim of aggression. About one in five (17.9%) falsely remembered having a black eye after being punched, two in five (40.5%) that they had punched someone, causing a black eye, and three in five (58.1%) that they had spread malicious gossip. Men were more likely to recall causing a black eye than were women (60% as opposed to 34.4%) and less likely to falsely remember spreading malicious gossip (28.3% compared to 66.7% of women).

In other words, people were more likely to falsely remember being aggressive than being a victim. The researchers say that false aggressive memories “were all too easy to implant, particularly in the minds of individuals with a proclivity towards aggression.” And that leads to a worrying

18 question: what about people jailed after confessing to a crime they never committed because of a false memory?

I CONFESS

Some memories of a crime – eyewitness testimonies, for example – are notoriously unreliable. One study of people convicted of a crime but exonerated by DNA evidence found that about three-quarters involved eyewitness misidentification. More than a third (38%) involved multiple eyewitnesses misidentifying the same innocent person. On average, the innocent person spent 12 years in prison.

Eyewitnesses may misremember a cleanshaven man with a moustache, straight hair as curly, and even a barn in a picture of a rural scene that did not contain any buildings. Between 1979 and 1981, the Trailside Killer raped and murdered women in parks near San Francisco. The local sheriff collected several eyewitness accounts of the victims being seen with “strange men just before their deaths”, which differed in several details, including the supposed killer’s age and facial features.20

According to pioneering FBI criminal profiler John Douglas, “many sad crazies… inevitably come forward in a high-profile case.” Innocent people voluntarily confess because of, for instance, a pathological need for attention, self-punishment, feelings of guilt, a tangible gain, to protect someone or to escape the anxiety and insecurity caused by the interrogation. But some people – we don’t know exactly how many – make false confessions because they genuinely, and wrongly, believe they’ve committed a crime.

Certainly, people falsely confess to the most heinous crimes. Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr – the 20-month-old son of the famous aviator – was kidnapped on 1 March 1932 from the nursery on the first floor of the family’s New Jersey home. The kidnapper left a ransom note demanding $50,000 on the nursery window sill. On 12 May 1932, the baby’s body was accidentally found, partly buried and badly decomposed, about four and a half miles from the house. The autopsy revealed that a blow to the head had killed Charles about two months

previously. Caught after a nationwide manhunt, Bruno Richard Hauptmann received the death penalty. In the meantime, some 200 people had confessed to the kidnapping.

On 15 January1947, a mother taking her child for a walk in Los Angeles found the naked body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Ann Short, an aspiring actress. According to the FBI, the murderer cut Elizabeth in two “around the waist with a very sharp instrument” and removed a breast. The cut, even through the backbone, was “very cleanly done – none of the internal organs being touched except to sever the intestines”. A letter from the FBI

Los Angeles field office to the forensic laboratory reports that “there is some speculation that the murderer has had some training in dissection of bodies.” More

22 than 50 men and women confessed to the Black Dahlia murder. But, despite intense speculation, the culprit has never been definitely identified.

Torture may also lead to false confessions. Even at the time, Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins was accused of “unlawfull courses of torture” which meant his victims would “say anything for ease and quiet”. Hopkins typically deprived those accused of witchcraft of sleep, made them walk until their feet blistered and “put words in suspects’ mouths”. Sleep deprivation can

23 make people more suggestible to leading questions and helps encode false and distorted memories. Hopkins’s interrogation probably implanted false memories of a nocturnal liaison with the Devil in the minds of some ‘witches’.

Civil authorities have abandoned the thumbscrews. But a police interrogation generally presupposes guilt and the police are authority figures. Suspects are isolated from friends, family and other sources of

“Many sad crazies inevitably come forward in a highprofile case”

social support. Not surprisingly, a police

24 interrogation – even if you are innocent – is usually highly stressful, even terrifying. The pressure may, of course, shake a confession from the guilty. But some innocent people believe that the short-term benefits of confession outweigh the long-term costs,just like their ancestors accused of witchcraft.

Yet, as Stephen Porter and Alysha Baker note: “Most would find it hard to believe that people could misremember committing a serious crime, much less with such conviction that they would confess to it”.

25 But interrogators can use the widespread belief that we often repress trauma against people who claim that they don’t remember committing a crime. The accused may be willing to believe that they repressed their memories of committing aggressive or criminal acts. This, in turn, could forge a false memory, especially if the suspect is highly suggestible. We’ve already seen that false aggressive memories are easy to implant in people “with a proclivity towards aggression”. Aggressive individuals are more likely to be arrested and interrogated and are especially prone to form violent false memories, partly because it fits their selfimage.

False memories of a crime may even be easier to implant than those for non-criminal events. One study used information that researchers claimed came from a family member to try to convince 30 students that they’d committed a crime between the ages of 11 and 14 years that involved the police. After three interviews, 21 (70%) had false memories of committing a crime: eight provided accounts involving assault, seven falsely recalled assaulting someone using a weapon and six recalled stealing. Eleven participants who had false memories of assault with or without a weapon described police contact, such as the officer’s physical

appearance. On average, they recalled about 12 details of the police contact. Two participants with false memories of a theft reported the police encounter, recalling about four specific details. Researchers also tried to implant false memories about noncriminal events in another 30 students. They succeeded in three-quarters (77%), implanting false memories of animal attacks, accidents resulting in an injury, and losing a large amount of money. The recollections were similarly detailed irrespective of whether they were false recollections or true memories.

These examples barely scratch the surface. But memories are clearly a long way from always being reliable “indelible portraits of our past”. False memories have implications for how we view confessions and eyewitness testimony in court, how we evaluate conspiracies or how we investigate fortean phenomena. But even for those of us who had yet to take an interplanetary trip, false memories may profoundly influence our self-image. It seems much that we take for granted stands on rather flimsy foundations.

NOTES

1 C Bourne et al, Psychological Medicine,2013;43:1521-1532; Iyadurai L et al, Clinical Psychology Review, 2019;69:67-82.

2 C Giosan et al, Journal of Anxiety Disorders,2009;23:557-561.

3 JL McGaugh, Science, 2000;287:248-251.

4 M Kindt, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2018;373:20170033.

5 D de Quervain D et al, Psychopharmacology, 2019;236:183-199.

6 N Spanos, Multiple Identities and False Memories: A Sociocognitive Perspective American Psychological Association, 1996.

7 M Greener, Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry, 2016;20:34-35.

8 ML Howe et al, Memory, 2015;23:633-656;

EJ Newman et al, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2009;23:1105-1121.

9 Newman, op. cit.

10 Giosan, op. cit.

11 SM Southwick et al, Am J Psychiatry, 1997;154:173-7.

12 Newman, op. cit.

13 ‘False Memories’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), JD Wright, Ed., 2015, Elsevier, Oxford, pp.709-714.

14 A Druffel, Firestorm: Dr James E McDonalds’s Fight for UFO Science, Wild Flower Press, 2003.

15 CIA Studies in Intelligence 1966;10:95-110. Available at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-forthe-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no4/pdf/ v10i4a07p.pdf

16 HFM Crombag et al, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 1996;10:95-104.

17 SdeVitoetal, Cortex, 2009;45:686-687.

18 C Laney et al, Acta Psychologica, 2013;143:227-234.

19 Howe, op. cit.

20 J Douglas and M Olshaker, ‘False confessions’, in Conviction of the Innocent: Lessons from Psychological Research, 2012, American Psychological Association: Washington, DC, US, pp.53-77.

21 Ibid. See also https://www.fbi.gov/history/ famous-cases/lindbergh-kidnapping

22 https://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Dahlia%20 %28E%20Short%29%20. See also Brian Robinson, “Black Dahlia: The Art of Killing”, FT334:48-54. 23 M Gaskill, Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy, John Murray, 2005. See also the same author’s “Witchfinders”, FT198:30-36.

24 SM Kassin, Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2014;1:112-121.

25 SB Porter et al, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2015;19:716-718.

26 JShawetal, Psychological Science, 2015;26:291-301.

✒ MARK GREENER is a Cambridge-based medical writer and the clinical editor of Pharmacy Magazine. He writes regularly for a number of publications, including Fortean Times.