Is the mind really the final frontier in warfare? With the Ukraine war leading world news, a video shared on Facebook looks back at the Gulf War and claims mind-control weapons caused the Iraqi army to surrender.
Claims of mind-control weapons have been doing the rounds for years, but experts contacted by AAP FactCheck said this video’s claims remain dubious. In addition, the video shared on Facebook incorrectly identifies the speaker as being a professor at a Texas university.
In the video, shared by an Australian account, a man identified as Robert Duncan discusses mind-control and claims he once worked on a “voice of God weapon”. He goes on to claim: “There are four different techniques and technologies that can pipe voices into an individual’s head. And once you can do that you can control them using neurolinguistic programming techniques. You’re rewiring their thought processes and brains .. they used this, I believe, in the Gulf War, to tell the enemy at that time, ‘lay down your guns, this is Allah.’ And it worked pretty well” (video mark 30sec).
The video identifies Duncan as a “Keynote Speaker – Robert Duncan, Ph.D. Professor of Physics. Department of Epidemiology & Public Health. Texas Tech University.” But this is incorrect. There is a Robert V. Duncan who is the Professor & President’s Distinguished Chair in Physics at Texas Tech University.
In an email, Prof Duncan told AAP FactCheck: “This ‘Dr Robert Duncan’ is definitely not me. I have never been involved in this type of research before, nor would I ever do so.”
While the caption on the video is incorrect, there is no suggestion the man in the video is himself claiming to be Robert Duncan from Texas Tech University. The person in the video appears to be an established figure in conspiracy circles also known as ‘Dr Robert Duncan’ who is claimed to be the recipient of degrees from Harvard and MIT (see video caption).
He appears in multiple videos discussing mind control (here and here ) and on TruTV’s program Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura described as a “CIA mind control expert”. AAP FactCheck could not independently verify if he has ever worked for the CIA or if he has multiple degrees.
The Facebook video appears to have been sourced from a 2015 event by the Bases Project, whose logo can be seen in the video, and who describe themselves as a “home for dissident science”. They believe that humanity is “in extreme danger from a predator species which masks its presence in human form.” Although the video with Duncan has been since deleted from The Bases Project website, references to it can still be seen elsewhere.
Research has been done into how certain radio frequencies can be perceived by human ears, and also into the use of neuroscience and mind-control as weapons, but experts told AAP FactCheck there is little evidence to support Duncan’s claims that “you can control” people or “rewire their thought processes and brains”.
“I don’t think this is something which is theoretically possible,” said Professor Richard B.Jones, a neural engineering expert at the University of Canterbury.
Prof Jones said he had never heard of the post’s claimed “mind-control weapons”.
“As a neuroengineer and neuroscientist, I’m open, albeit critically (and sceptically in this case)” to what theory Duncan is putting forward, he said.
But without evidence such as a peer-reviewed scientific journal publication, Prof Jones said he was “sceptical” about the claims.
“It’s difficult to totally discount ‘mind-control’ and/or ‘mind-reading’ but I am totally unaware of anything in the literature indicating that either of these are even remotely possible, let alone have actually been achieved and demonstrated.”
Experts on the Gulf War also said the video’s claims were unlikely.
Daryl G. Press is an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire who has written about the Gulf War.
“I have never heard this claim before, so while I cannot say with certainty that the US military didn’t try things as you described, I find it highly unlikely,” he told AAP FactCheck via email.
“It’s the sort of extraordinary claim that, in my view, requires very high quality evidence. And I haven’t seen any.”
Dr Lawrence Potter, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, who has written extensively on the Middle East, said: “I am familiar with the events of the Gulf War (1990-91) and never heard of such a thing.
“I am not familiar with all the weapons in the arsenal, but this claim sounds fanciful to me.”
The Verdict
The claim that a “voice of God” mind-control weapon led Iraqi troops to surrender during the Gulf War is false. There is no indication such a weapon exists or is even theoretically possible, experts confirmed to AAP FactCheck.
In addition, the Facebook video’s caption incorrectly labels the speaker as a professor of physics at a Texas university, who confirmed he had nothing to do with the video.
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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