Truth or Fiction: A Rhetorical Examination of Cathy O’ Brien’s Claims of Government Sanctioned Trauma Based Mind Control

Cathy O’ Brien is one of a handful of people who came forward in the late eighties and early nineties claiming to have been victims of a mind control program run by the U.S. government. The program is commonly referred to as MK ULTRA, or Project Monarch, the latter being a subsection of the former. The victims claim that the program was started as a continuation of Nazi experiments to study the effects of trauma on the human mind. The studies apparently showed that repeated extreme, methodical trauma inflicted at a very young age causes victims to develop what was once referred to as “multiple personality disorder,” but is now called “dissociative identity disorder”. The idea is that the victim’s personality splits into multiple sections, or “alters,” that can be switched back and forth by using “trigger” words or phrases. The alters would not be able to recall any information collected by another alter, and therefor would make victims ideal for keeping government secrets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tglph9BFnJg).

The alleged victims, including Cathy O’ Brien, Brice Taylor, and Arizona Wilder, all tell outlandish stories of ritual abuse perpetrated by high level government officials (including former presidents), military officers, and celebrities. Though some details change from victim to victim, the methods of abuse, and the alleged abusers, are strikingly similar in all accounts. George Bush Senior, Gerald Ford, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney, and Ronald Reagan are accused of physical and sexual abuse of minors by all of the alleged victims (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIYc_ToZ8g, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tglph9BFnJg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5hSE_IOVTQ). The lack of hard evidence (common in sexual abuse cases), the high social stature of the accused, and the more outrageous claims made by some of the victims (Wilder says that Bush Senior and other politicians are actually shape-shifting reptilians), make it easy to discount the accusations as the disturbed constructions of overactive imaginations. However, many people believe that the victims are telling the truth, and that there is a vast conspiracy within the U.S. government involving child abuse, mind control, and deliberate disinformation given to the public.This article will focus on some of the reasons people might believe Cathy O’ Brien’s claims of ritualistic abuse at the hands of the U.S. government.

One of the major factors contributing to the perceived credibility of all the victims is that MK ULTRA is a documented mind control project that was administered by the CIA and military from the early 1950s until 1973. In 1973, CIA director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of most of the MK ULTRA files, which severely hampered subsequent investigations (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no4/html/v44i4a07p_0021.htm). However, the surviving documents showed evidence of illegal use of mind altering drugs, torture, and electroshock on unwitting participants, as well as studies into the mental effects of sexual abuse on victims (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/13inmate_ProjectMKULTRA.pdf). The fact that the information found is so damning makes it a fairly logical assumption that the destroyed files may have contained evidence of even more horrific abuses.

Another important aspect of O’ Brien’s story is that she offers plausible explanations for some of the more outrageous claims made by other alleged victims of MK ULTRA. While Arizona Wilder alleges that her abusers (including Bush Sr.) were shape-shifting reptilian aliens intent on ruling the earth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIYc_ToZ8g), O’ Brien explains that the abusers gave their adolescent victims hallucinogenic drugs, showed them classified military air-crafts, and used sophisticated projectors to make them believe that the abusers were aliens. O’ Brien also states that the “satanic ritual abuse” inflicted on the victims was simply a way to further traumatize the children. According to O’ Brien, this served two purposes: First, it made the children feel terrified and helpless, and increased the chances of them developing dissociative identities. Second, it ensured that people would be extremely skeptical of their claims if they ever came forward with the information (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tglph9BFnJg). This makes O’ Brien’s claims a bit more believable than stories of shape-shifting alien overlords.

O’ Brien’s credibility is also helped by the fact that she does not seem to have any obvious right or left wing political agenda. The people she names as abusers are both democrats and republicans. She also mentions well known celebrities, like Kris Kristofferson, and lesser known entertainers, such as Nashville ventriloquist Alex Huston, as abusers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tglph9BFnJg). There is no obvious agenda driven pattern to the people she names, but she gives anatomical descriptions and event dates that could be easily verified or discredited by any adequate legal investigation. This means that she could easily be charged with libel or perjury, and face serious legal repercussions if her allegations are false. It is hard to believe that someone would continue to put themselves at risk for so many years for a made up story.

Critics may say that O’ Brien’s motives are financial, or attention driven. There does not seem to be much to support this criticism, as her books are self-published, and are available for free on the internet. There is a video on Youtube showing her driving an old beat up sedan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugx64jiqkaE), so it doesn’t appear that she is making any serious financial gain from her stories. Also, when compared to other conspiracy videos, her’s do not garner a great deal of attention. The most popular of her videos has a view count of a little over 500,000 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvEBmEo4IA0), while most have only a few thousand views. This may seem like a lot, but when considering that other conspiracy theorists, such as Alex Jones, have videos with over four million views (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU), her audience is rather small in comparison. O’ Brien has also never been interviewed on any mainstream news channel, and most of her coverage comes from web-based alternative news channels, which limits her audience significantly. If O’ Brien’s story is untrue, the risks seem to outweigh any rewards she appears to have gained.

So, if she is not gaining riches and fame from her allegations, and she has no overarching political motivations, then it is reasonable to conclude that either she is telling the truth, or she is completely insane, and she thinks she is telling the truth. However, her body language, speech patterns, and the level of detail in her descriptions of events do not come across as someone who is mentally unstable, or even dishonest.

When she speaks of her abuse, her eyes frequently look up and to the right, or down and to the right (from the viewer’s perspective). This supposedly indicates that she is accessing visual or auditory memory, as opposed to mentally constructing the information (https://youtu.be/2hF5Vh3gvpU). If Cathy O’ Brien is a liar, then she is a very convincing one. Despite the terrifying extremity, and outlandish nature of her allegations, she seems poised and rational while presenting them. A problem with O’ Brien’s story is that unless there is a serious legal investigation, the only evidence is victim testimony, which can be disputed and twisted to support or dismiss the allegations, producing believable arguments for both sides.

Allegations of sexual abuse by famous and powerful individuals being ignored by police and mainstream media are not unprecedented. Jimmy Savile was a popular entertainer and philanthropist in England from 1975 until his death in 2011. After his death, a large number of victims came forward with allegations of being sexually abused by Saville. The story became publicly known, and police admitted that they had received numerous allegations of Savile’s sexual misconduct, including molestation and rape of minors, throughout his long career. These allegations were ignored by police, and never investigated until after his death. Now, it is widely believed that Savile abused up to 300 victims during his lifetime, and a court ruled that his estate would have to financially “compensate” the victims (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27236420).

This article has outlined some of the reasons people choose to believe Cathy O’ Brien’s allegations. The next will likely dive deeper into some of the criticisms of her story. Whether you believe Cathy O’ Brien’s allegations or not, the case of Jimmy Savile shows that they should certainly not be ignored. A thorough legal investigation into her accusations should be undertaken. Hopefully, this would clear up the matter once and for all. O’ Brien may be a skilled con-woman, or she may be a victim of atrocious government sanctioned abuse, but either way, justice can not be served if the courts continue to simply ignore her allegations.