65 YEARS LATER ARTIST PAINTS LIFE WITH ULTRA VICTIM GRANDMOTHER

The fallout of the CIA's ULTRA Project is still being felt. Most of the victims survived, went home to their families, and attempted to regain their lives. But they were not who they once were. Some of them had to relearn how to talk and other basic functions we take for granted. The families are victims themselves. Their mother, wife, grandmother, and/or sister or brother returned from the hospital with the mind of a child and no recollection of who they were.

Sarah Anne Johnson is a Canadian artist who creates works of art based on her experience with her ULTRA victim grandmother.

Here are some excepts from the featured article.

"After reducing them to a childlike state – at times stripping them of basic skills such as how to dress themselves or tie their shoes – Cameron would attempt to reprogram them by bombarding them with recorded messages for up to 16 hours at a time. First came negative messages about their inadequacies, followed by positive ones, in some cases repeated up to half a million times."

“He couldn’t get his patients to listen to them enough so he put speakers in football helmets and locked them on their heads,” said Johnson. “They were going crazy banging their heads into walls, so he then figured he could put them in a drug induced coma and play the tapes as long as he needed.”

"Steel’s mother, Jean, was put into chemically induced sleep, once for 18 days and a second time for 29 days. She was subjected to rounds of electroshocks, injections of experimental drugs and seemingly endless bouts of recorded messages."

“They say it was torture for human beings, human torture,” said Steel, who was four years old when her mother was hospitalized. “What they attempt to do is erase your emotions. They strip you of your soul.”