The real curiosity inside this dry, deadpan interview with former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov at mosnews.com (just dig that full-on Soviet propaganda style masthead) has less to do with the subject matter—the famed intelligence agency’s knowledge and research into UFO’s, yeti, and a variety of other supernatural phenomena. Nor with the ex-KGB goon’s flat denial of any conclusive or substantive evidence that would once and for all confirm our suspicions that things are frankly and frighteningly quite weird. Such realpolitik is status quo:

“Sometimes an ignorant observer would interpret an unfamiliar phenomenon in a mystical way, sometimes a perfectly ordinary event would be called supernatural to make news. Often the people would add the KGB knew about the supernatural phenomenon, but wanted to keep it secret…”

“I finally came to the conclusion that, for better or for worse, there is nothing supernatural on the Earth.”

No. There real strangeness for me is that despite the obvious inherent differences between our cultures, a basic, almost surprising familiarity is there. Homogeneity even. A collective transcultural curiosity about the bizarre—and the respected, secretive authority figure’s flat denial of the claims. The goon spells it out: okay people, the sheep are sometimes a little stupid, but that there’s no reason that they should should not stay placid… nothing really weird is going on.

It was the needle brain story, however, that broke my trance. Familiarity fell flat for me there. I mean there was a time in the US when lobotomies were popular, but damn. Check out that needle brain.

Curiously, the work of the famed, pseudonymous science fiction author Cordwainer Smith, also a CIA agent, were littered with poetic “red” technology developed by the Soviets that would wash brains, read minds, move objects, and basically accomplish hosts of other “post-ordinary” consciousness technology feats that are usually relegated to the back of comic books or to purple fuzzy crystal laden new age shops. He also, “coincidentally” authored the often studied, all time classic text, Psychological Warfare (buy it from Biblio for $250!), written in 1948.

Photo credit: www.kp.ru