16-02-2012, 07:24 AM
(This post was last modified: 16-02-2012, 08:03 AM by Adele Edisen.)
Jan, you said in your post #71:
Peter will have to answer for himself, but I don't think I have stated anywhere that I consider your statements or reservations about the Pont-St.-Esprit event, or about Hank Albarelli's works, to be "unscientific." Or, untruthful, if that is what you think I think. So, I really don't understand your question here.
Let me point this out to you, that we all have some reservations about any activity sponsored by any intelligence (CIA or other) or military organization (ours or some foreign nation's) because we do not have a full accounting of that which is SECRET and happened a long time ago. What little we do learn can be shared and understood a bit better, but not totally. We can only discuss from what we know and what we can surmise from that.
On the question of mode of delivery of LSD to that French village, we could consider how LSD could have been delivered by thinking of its characteristic physical and chemical properties. It is odorless, tasteless, colorless, fairly resistant to moderate temperatures (it takes 4 weeks to decompose by 30% at 37 degrees Celsius (human body temperature) and can be kept indefinitely at 25 degrees Celsius - even better at 20 degrees (average room temperature). It easily dissolves in water and other fluids. Non-chlorinated well water, a probable source of drinking water could have been a vehicle for dispersion. Everybody drinks water, even in France.
Fog mists tainted with LSD could have been dispersed at night, and since this occurred in August of 1951, windows would have been open all night for ventilation and cooling during this hot summer month. Residential air conditioning had not yet arrived even in the US in 1951. In New Orleans insecticides were distributed this way at night by trucks to control the mosquito population.
LSD can be absorbed through the skin and the lungs. Certanly by mouth, so water and foods, sprinkled with LSD powder, is a possible route. Perhaps as a cover story the villagers were told that it was the ergotism from infected grain flour used in baking bread, as in the Middle Ages). Or it was a case of mass hysteria? Do we know if the people were told anything? Also, remember that 1951 was only 6 years after WWII ended. Perhaps they were told that the Germans had hidden something, a poison, which caused their illness. Was this village part of Nazi occupied France, or the unoccupied Vichy France?
As for the purpose of the human experimentation, there doesn't seem to be any, other than to see what would happen. Just like the Nazi experiments, such as puttling prisoners in ice cold water to see how long they would survive. Or, our own CIA flying over our cities spraying nonlethal biological organisms to study the distribution patterns. Incidentally, I've read that Dr. Frank Olson had done some some distribution studies within parts of the Pentagon Building by putting in powdered material into air ducts whch circulated air to the offices.
In the Pont-St.-Esprit it had some military purpose for a future war, and to see if it could be done at all.
Deaths from LSD intoxication may not always happen because of ultra-high doses, but from effects on an ill, malnourished, sickly, individual being sensitive to its effects. Or, a person receiving an above threshold dose becoming delusional and flying out of a high window or off a high bridge. This happened years ago to the son of a prominent neurophysiologist. His son, a freshman in college went to a college students' party and drank some punch, which, unbeknownst to the hosts, had been surreptitiously laced with LSD. The young man apparently felt that he could fly and he did fly out of the apartment window to his death.
Quote:Let me be more explicit about the Pont St Esprit incident. I absolutely believe it could have happened as Hank Albarelli describes, but my reservations are at two levels:
i) technical details such as mode of delivery;
ii) purpose of such human experimentation.
Quote:Adele, Peter - you both have scientific training.
Please explain where you consider the reservations about Pont St Esprit that I have articulated in this thread to be unscientific.
Peter will have to answer for himself, but I don't think I have stated anywhere that I consider your statements or reservations about the Pont-St.-Esprit event, or about Hank Albarelli's works, to be "unscientific." Or, untruthful, if that is what you think I think. So, I really don't understand your question here.
Let me point this out to you, that we all have some reservations about any activity sponsored by any intelligence (CIA or other) or military organization (ours or some foreign nation's) because we do not have a full accounting of that which is SECRET and happened a long time ago. What little we do learn can be shared and understood a bit better, but not totally. We can only discuss from what we know and what we can surmise from that.
On the question of mode of delivery of LSD to that French village, we could consider how LSD could have been delivered by thinking of its characteristic physical and chemical properties. It is odorless, tasteless, colorless, fairly resistant to moderate temperatures (it takes 4 weeks to decompose by 30% at 37 degrees Celsius (human body temperature) and can be kept indefinitely at 25 degrees Celsius - even better at 20 degrees (average room temperature). It easily dissolves in water and other fluids. Non-chlorinated well water, a probable source of drinking water could have been a vehicle for dispersion. Everybody drinks water, even in France.
Fog mists tainted with LSD could have been dispersed at night, and since this occurred in August of 1951, windows would have been open all night for ventilation and cooling during this hot summer month. Residential air conditioning had not yet arrived even in the US in 1951. In New Orleans insecticides were distributed this way at night by trucks to control the mosquito population.
LSD can be absorbed through the skin and the lungs. Certanly by mouth, so water and foods, sprinkled with LSD powder, is a possible route. Perhaps as a cover story the villagers were told that it was the ergotism from infected grain flour used in baking bread, as in the Middle Ages). Or it was a case of mass hysteria? Do we know if the people were told anything? Also, remember that 1951 was only 6 years after WWII ended. Perhaps they were told that the Germans had hidden something, a poison, which caused their illness. Was this village part of Nazi occupied France, or the unoccupied Vichy France?
As for the purpose of the human experimentation, there doesn't seem to be any, other than to see what would happen. Just like the Nazi experiments, such as puttling prisoners in ice cold water to see how long they would survive. Or, our own CIA flying over our cities spraying nonlethal biological organisms to study the distribution patterns. Incidentally, I've read that Dr. Frank Olson had done some some distribution studies within parts of the Pentagon Building by putting in powdered material into air ducts whch circulated air to the offices.
In the Pont-St.-Esprit it had some military purpose for a future war, and to see if it could be done at all.
Deaths from LSD intoxication may not always happen because of ultra-high doses, but from effects on an ill, malnourished, sickly, individual being sensitive to its effects. Or, a person receiving an above threshold dose becoming delusional and flying out of a high window or off a high bridge. This happened years ago to the son of a prominent neurophysiologist. His son, a freshman in college went to a college students' party and drank some punch, which, unbeknownst to the hosts, had been surreptitiously laced with LSD. The young man apparently felt that he could fly and he did fly out of the apartment window to his death.