Ä Area: Odyssey Fringe Science Research Network ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 163 Date: 09-30-96 07:28 From: John Powell Read: Yes Replied: No To: All Mark: Subj: More on Victorian ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Subscription information is available on the Web at: http://www.forteantimes.com or http://alpha.mic.dundee.ac.uk/ft/ft.cgi?-1,ft _______________________________________________ Fortean Times - FT90 October, 1996 Page 5 - Editorial 'A Legend In His Own Time' In this issue, we present Robert Irving's profile of the complex world of Henry Azadehdel, better known to researchers in the fields of ufology, mind control and crop circle research as 'Dr. Armen Victorian'. This is not an attempt to villify or 'expose' him, for most of the facts are in the public domain and, as Irving himself declares, the man is both likable and deserving of respect for teasing out volumes of ex-secrets via the US's Freedom of Information Act. Our interest in 'Henry X' goes far deeper, as his story takes on the dimensions of a heroic stereotype: the dedicated but solitary investigator who believes he is persecuted by government agents. It is a story that cuts across many areas of current interest and embroils some of their leading specialists. In the end, it is impossible to determine who is manipulating whom. It is a story that anyone interested in the shadowy world of conspiracy, real or imagined will want to read. Bob Rickard & Paul Sieveking ---------------------------- Pages 34-39 The Henry X File Emitter, diplomat, adventurer, orchid-smuggler, crop circle researcher, UFO investigator, man-in-black.... Was this the secret life of a Nottingham shop assistant? Robert Irving presents a study in persecution and panache. Feeling monopolised by the telephone company? Spare a thought for one Nottingham resident. For five years he suffered the clicks and beeps of uninvited listeners. His bills -- averaging 3,000-4,000 pounds annually -- seemed high for a residential line. Outside his house he caught unqualified engineers red-handedly tinkering with his junction box. They drove grey, unmarked vans. Sometimes these men paid visits to his home, attempting entry with a quick flash of bogus ID, or waiting until the house was empty. Eight break-ins were reported in as many months. They stole documents, frightened his kids, inserted tiny listening devices into wall sockets, and repeatedly tampered with the break-line on the family car. Throughout all this, his relationship with British Telecom, America's National Security Agency, CIA, MI5, and the British police, progressively worsened. Matters came to a head in early 1995 at Nottingham's magistrate's court. Across the street, smartly-dressed reporters from the local Evening Post set out to cover their beat, oblivious to the story unfolding before them. A stream of other dark dressers -- magistrates, lawyers, articled clerks -- enter the building. In contrast, Habib Azadehdel arrives wearing a pale reflective raincoat which lights up like a strobe as he makes his dash for the door. At first glance, Azadehdel's file bridges the void between persecution and opportunity: his boyhood flight from then-Soviet Armenian to the apparent sanctuary of Iran; his early twenties, when the Iranian government capitalised on their multilingual asset, recruiting him as a diplomatic 'fixer' to the South Korean embassy in Teheran. In 1979, as the Shah slipped into exile, Habib and his brother Bazil joined an exodus of middle-class non-Shiites to Britain. They became citizens, and while Bazil opened his first grocer's shop in Nottingham, Habib bought a house there, changed his name to Henry, and tried to settle down to the comparative serenity of east-Midlands life, ostensibly selling life insurance. As careers go, the route from international diplomat to insurance salesman to notorious smuggler to renowned UFO investigator seems as implausible as it was precarious. 'Henry' was just the first of several noms de guerre. 'Julian Philips', for instance -- doubtless inspired by the arrival of his first son, Julleane Philippe -- or 'Mr. Scanlon', 'Dr. Alan Jones', and 'Cassava N'Tumba'. When Henry finally settled for the playful 'Dr. Armen Victorian', few of his compatriots seemed to notice. We first catch sight of Henry Azadehdel at the Old Bailey in 1989, where his conviction for orchid-smuggling exposes skills eminently suited to the intrigue of the UFO business. Who can really say at what point a smuggler who does a little abductee research on the side becomes an abductee researcher who does a little smuggling on the side? "Henry had an amazing alacrity in tight situations," an intelligence-gatherer for the Customs and Excise told me as he pulled out a copy of Henry's little black book, with its names and addresses of known orchid dealers. Underneath each name was a date and a list of exotic plant names. Beside each entry, a figure -- say, 3,000 -- with a dollar sign preceding it, followed by the letters 'DLVD'. To his investigators, this was clearly short for 'DELIVERED'. To Henry, it was an acronym for the instruction 'Diluted Lime Various Doses'; the dollar sign merely a coded reminder to apply it. Most of the people listed in the book, mainly buyers from the US, were interviewed by Customs officials in a year-long investigation; nevertheless, no one, not even the experts consulted, was ever able to throw any light upon Azadehdel's lime remedy. In what must be the boldest plea of mitigation by extenuating circumstances ever uttered at the Old Bailey, Azadehdel told the court: "I have been ship-wrecked, subjected to disease, chased by drug traffickers, and fed by the chief of a clan of head-hunters. I've been to places where no white man had ever been. I'm proud to have extended the boundaries of science." While Henry portrayed himself as an audacious adventurer; to others he was the ubiquitous Man-In-Black. Stories circulated of his appearances; strolling through a Tokyo hotel lobby, for instance, just as he was spotted -- like Oswald -- leaving an embassy in Mexico. Rumours associated Henry with the deadly trade in Red Mercury, or the 'missing' Alternative 3 tapes, or parrots. He was twice reported seen in the back of a Soviet embassy limousine in Ottawa. As far as the three appeal court judges were concerned, however, Azadehdel all the while sold cans of pop behind the counter of his brother's suburban mini-mart. If they considered any of these stories a shade bogus, it was bogusity shaded with bold panache. While most of the media attention around Azadehdel's trial in 1989 centred on his activities with rare orchids, it was naturally left to The Sun to uncover the unique angle to the story: the secret behind Henry's secret life. Tipped off by rival researchers, who generously donated their pieces of silver to a well-known environmental group, the newspaper revealed how Azadehdel had negotiated the sale of stolen classified documents with a young South African Air Force Intelligence officer. Signs of anxiety among the journalists were understandable as Henry announced that the documents were said to include details of the shoot-down and retrieval of an extraterrestrial flying disc in the Kalahari desert: "This is the most important revelation in Britain for the last 40 years," he told them. Others were less convinced. Among the least likely of Henry's enemies' were Timothy Good, author of Beyond Top Secret, and Graham Birdsall, editor of UFO magazine. While both may have been inclined to accept the saucer story, they were rightly sceptical of the intelligence officer's credentials, particularly after discovering he was barely out of his teens and had recently left a trail of debts while foraging through American UFO bookshops. Henry's influence regarding the so-called 'Kalahari incident' remains embedded in UFO folklore. With the circulation of bogus alien photographs, a lively trade in anonymous letters, spurious allegations and threat-laden telephone messages, the chapter serves as a warning to those looking for answer in the latest Roswell debacle. Around that time, Tony Dodd -- a former police sergeant, now Director of Investigations with Quest, a Leeds-based UFO group -- reported being tailed around his home town of Grassington and across Europe as he travelled the lecture circuit. At one of his conferences, Dodd met an "intelligence source -- American ufologist Wendelle Stevens -- and became convinced that the Paris branch of the South African Security Service had been contracted to liquidate the former policeman and his Armenian co-investigator. Generally speaking, rule one for some ufologists is 'a little persecution lends much cachet to one's work'. As they voiced the concerns of an increasingly sceptical UFO community, Good and Birdsall began to receive a stream of angry correspondence, not all anonymous but mostly litigious in tone. One, signed simply 'J. Brown', warned Good of his imminent exposure as a CIA informant with alleged connection to a shadowy group known as the Aviary. Others were more explicit, offering to curb legal action in return for Good's public apology: "I have seeked the protection of the law where these type of faul language and insults are involved," wrote Azadehdel greyly. "I have employed both firms (of solicitors) to do their best," concluded the letter. "Since finance is absolutely no objection on my part, to see this case through as professionally as possible." Tim Good had reasons to be concerned. For one, most newspapers had reported money from his smuggling activities, a fraction of which he was fined -- so he could well have had cash to burn in the all-consuming fire of legal action. These were particularly litigious times for ufologists -- Jenny Randles having just paid out her life-savings in a similarly promiscuous action. In the end, however, Tim Good rightly ignored the letters, and no writ was forthcoming. Perhaps reluctant to reject a flavoursome spy theme, Graham Birdsall wondered whether Henry's approach was actually subtler than was immediately apparent from his letters. He wrote to Good in 1991 that he believed Henry was capable of behaviour that FT's lawyers have advised me not to repeat in public. Birdsall also wrote that Henry "appears a master at 'turning' others. The art of the intelligence officer...retired or still serving?" A year later -- at the 1992 UFO Conference in Leeds -- Birdsall had, curiously, changed his tune. "In my 25 years of investigation," began his lengthy introduction, "I have never known so much good information come from one individual." Had he himself been 'turned'? Introduced as Armen Victorian, Azadehdel stepped up to the lectern, providing those present with their first glimpse of this most untypical of ufologists. Not for him the rites of chilly hilltop sky-watches -- no significant epiphany, or gleaming descriptions of personal sightings -- for, while those visionaries look for answers in the heavens, Henry was glancing suspiciously sideways. The message was dark and delivered with the cool, didactic authority of an ex-diplomat. That very morning, The Guardian had described the day's agenda. "Calling Penguin, Falcon and the Owl; stand by to be reassigned to other duties...You are about to be unmasked in front of 400 ufologists...The audience will hear taped conversations of the gang of international debunkers, a group code-named 'The Aviary' -- revealing the role they have played in giving ufology, etc., a bad name..."They have helped brand us a load of idiots," complained Tony Dodd, the conference organiser. The tapes were gathered by Armen Victorian, a Nottingham-based former diplomat, whom the Aviary allegedly tried in vain to recruit." As Armen Victorian -- Henry -- alleged it, the Aviary comprised select, eschatologically-minded Intelligence officers, retired US Army colonels, wealthy philanthropists, government scientists, writers like Tim Good, and others 'in the audience' (including a priest) -- all united by a belief that the world had become terminally burdened by an over-dependence upon technology. Space aliens, amassed somewhere deep in the New Mexico desert, were unhappy; their 40-year-old 'earthling-tissue for technology' pact was under threat; its secret about to be uncovered by rogue investigators like Dodd, Birdsall, and... The Aviary's plan was twofold: by amplifying the public's misconception of the paranormal, attention could be diverted from ultra-secret weapons testing and other sensitive projects, like the CIA's increasing proficiency in remote-viewing, the Space Defence Initiative and its annual manifestations in the wheatfields of southern England. This would dis-credit the New Age movement by promoting stories certain to attract public ridicule. The most effective method, of course, was in manipulating the media. During periods with a high incidence of UFOs, for example, they would subdue potential panic with headlines like 'I WAS RAPED BY ALIENS' -- stories no one in their right mind would believe. More astute researchers risked corruption by equally insidious tactics; crop circle and UFO hoaxing, spurious films and photos. There was only one way to defeat this, implied Henry...and only one man. Azadehdel's approach, like the Aviary's, was multifaceted. He explained to those listening that the techniques he used were those 'usually deployed' by the intelligence services. Using a host of assumed identities. Henry plagued the Armed and Intelligence Services, and assorted scientists with telephone calls, his tape recorder running and well stocked, and flooded the US government with requests for sensitive records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Sometimes professional information gathers were approached to make requests on his behalf. Henry showed one BBC producer a selection of passports to impress his role as researcher, consultant, or 'eminent' physicist, or as an agent of our own Secret Services. This was social engineering at its finest. "Henry definitely had an Intelligence background," remembers Birdsall, "because there were certain numbers and certain places and certain people that he could get in touch with that...ordinary folks just couldn't. It was unbelievable." Henry and Birdsall had arranged to meet one afternoon at a motorway service cafe near Nottingham. As Birdsall tells it, when Azadehdel opened his briefcase, beneath the passports -- "Well, one was British, and one looked like it might be Iranian...I didn't look too closely, and I didn't ask, but he made sure I saw them" -- were "several hundreds of documents, not just those released under the FOIA," Birdsall told me later. "Not copies, but originals...from the USA and all over the place. It was just incredible." Information from Henry's documents would eventually turn up in the undertow of paranoia-based subcultural magazines -- such as Lobster, Third Eyes Only, Nexus, and Conspiracy. His taped telephone conversations were compiled for sale through a mail order directory run by Birdsall's Quest International. If the contents were particularly controversial -- and they usually were -- a 'special edition' would be advertised: for example 'MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION, The Tape Which Proves That an Intelligence Organisation Exists to Provide Disinformation About Crop Circles...Armen Victorian Interviews a Member of That Security Service (UFO Audio Tape #15).' The first tape played at the 1992 Leeds conference featured the voice of a young American sociology student, based at Lincoln College, Oxford -- that traditional aegis of spies -- whom Azadehdel believed to be operating undercover for the CIA. As The Guardian rightly predicted, it featured the getting-to-know-you banter of recruitment. Student: "NATO? Well, Germany is involved, and this country, and the US...also the Vatican." Henry: "I see, I see...are we talking about..." Student: "We're talking about a supra-national organisation with ties to these countries." Henry: "Oh, good God! Are we talking Trilateral Commission, that sort of thing?" Student: "It's just very dangerous to talk about, and I hope you will...you know." Student: "Are you a Christian?" Henry: "I am a Catholic." Student: "Yes, good...so am I." Gasps were heard from the audience as Azadehdel revealed that the student/agent lived within a short distance of the Oxford headquarters of the right-wing Jesuit order Opus Dei. The next tape was of a bewildered but service-polite officer at the US Space Command's Space Surveillance Centre, buried deep inside Colorado's Cheyenne mountain. A craft of some kind had crashed into the Rockies and the surrounding area sealed off and Henry was ferreting details about an alleged film of the wreckage. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, sir," replies the officer. "Ah, I see, I see...," hisses Henry -- an ingratiating Mr. Moto -- "yes, I understand," he says, "not on the telephone." And what about the colour? "Sorry?" The colour of the craft? "Er, it was grey, sir." And the occupants? "Pardon me, sir?" Like the officer, 400 people in the hall strain to hear the words -- but there's too much background noise -- screaming and squawking like children playing nearby, or a cage full of endangered birds. "The occupants?," repeats Azadehdel, competing with the din. "They were grey, sir," reports the officer. "Aliens?" shouts the caller, barely able to contain himself. "Yes sir... it was alien." Henry sits amid stunned bedlam. Tension builds with the noise. The audience leans further forward, straining to hear what comes next. Then the officer's voice rises above it all. 'Er...you have me on a speaker phone don't you, sir?" It's just that I'm getting so much feedback." Silence for a moment, then: "No, no," answers Henry, "you see...it's because my phone is connected to my fax...If I tape something, I always ask permission beforehand." ----- Closer to home, Henry applied pressure on Lloyd Turner, then-deputy editor of 'Today' newspaper. Alternatively posing as 'Dr. Alan Jones (media consultant)', and 'Dr. Armen Victorian (eminent physicist)', he bombarded Turner and his staff with questions concerning the 'Copyright MBF Services' notice appended to the paper's exposure of Doug and Dave, the sexagenarian crop circle makers. While Turner maintained the squib was devised to discourage other papers from picking up the story prematurely, to Henry and the remains of a dwindling fraternity of cerealogists, it was further evidence of a concerted disinformation campaign to discredit the circles -- the unsuspecting slip they'd been hoping for. Eventually the dispute reached the Press Complaints Commission. Azadehdel, now describing himself as a 'prominent researcher into corn circles', accused the newspaper -- specifically Turner, editor Martin Dunn, and Graham Brough, who had written the story -- of 'tricking people and seriously undermining research into the phenomenon'. Henry remained confident that judgment would be favourable. "I am 80 per cent sure we will win," he told Dr. Terence Meaden, a former physics professor and editor of the Journal of Meteorology. With Meaden also recording the call, Azadehdel clarified his true intention in bringing the action. "An when we do win," he said, "I will sue Today for damages." Exactly what would have constituted damages in a case such as this was never established; in any case, the judgement went in favour of the paper. Meanwhile, Cerealogist editor George Wingfield -- whose codename for Henry was 'Snowdrop' -- and other crop-commandos continued to investigate the mysterious 'MBF Services', dividing their attention between a tiny defence industry contractor in a sleepy Somerset village where windowless stables looked a lot like laboratories, someone noted, and a Scottish rubber stamp manufacturer of the same name. Henry's come-uppence began when he obtained and widely published the classified personnel records of Dr. John B. Alexander, a former US Army colonel and Director of the Non-lethal Weapons Division of Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico. Azadehdel's FOIA request for Alexander's military records was initially turned down by the Los Alamos Public Office but his follow-up for more details hit paydirt; the office mistakenly returned the unadulterated file. Azadehdel's subsequent article -- 'Non-Lethality: John B. Alexander, The Pentagon's Penguin', published in Lobster (June, 1993) and republished in Nexus (October/November, 1993) as 'Psychic Warfare and Non-Lethal Weapons' under Henry's 'hobby' name of Armen Victorian -- focused upon Alexander's supposed leadership of a top secret DIA-sponsored 'UFO Working Group', said to have held monthly meetings deep in the lead-lined bowels of Defence Department headquarters. How much, asked Henry, of Alexander's input as head of the Army's Advanced Concept Division -- his PhD in Thanatology (the study of near-death experience); his involvement in the military's ESP experiments with dolphins; his interest in pre-cataclysmic civilisations (once diving in the waters off the Bimini Islands in search of the lost city of Atlantis); and his active interest in UFOs -- was actually integrated into official defence policy? Alexander's attempts to thwart Henry's probing brought only defiance. Henry circulated a letter on the internet, stressing: "My true identity is and has always been A. Victorian," and hinting at his preparations for more legal shenanigans. "I await with great anticipation Mr. Alexander's legal ac ion in this regard." But it never came. Nevertheless, Alexander had done his homework, posting a selection of the juicier details from Henry's past. These included The Sun's lurid 'Sex Secret of Orchid Smuggler' which reads in part: "We had some particularly nice epithytics hanging from our bedroom ceiling," blushed [Mrs. Alexander]. Even more mind-boggling were the news reports of Henry's 4 million pound appeal for 'aid' to Kurdish refugees, organised in 1991 with the assistance of the British and Iranian governments. Later, in an impatient moment, Henry suggested to me that its real purpose was reparation for Iran's costly war effort against Iraq. More darkly still, Alexander hinted at changes to Azadehdel's immediate future: "Previously, I have discussed these matters with members of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. I considered going to the State Department and having them ask the British Government to intervene. While [Azadehdel's] requests may be within legal bounds, he has asserted he wants access to information he believes to be classified. I have learned that the CIA has asked both British Intelligence and the police to assist in resolving problems with Azadehdel." Soon afterwards, the burglaries began and British Telecom, along with the mysterious engineers with their ominous grey vans and bogus ID cards, moved in. A few months later, on 14 July, 1994, Henry and his wife were arrested and charged by Nottingham's finest. The scene in the courtroom is a study in body language. Sandwiched between an incident of head-butting, the alleged theft of six pairs of underpants and a further count of Actual Bodily Harm -- the flotsam of a Nottingham weekend -- stands Henry proudly with his wife and co-defendant...the magistrate raising her eyebrows as she reviews the charges. Henry, shifting his weight from foot to foot, resolutely shakes his head as each is read out: "That on the 14th of July, 1994 you obtained the provision of a telephone line by deception", an unpaid bill of 3,762 pounds, "...and 18p," adds the clerk. As we watch, three similar charges are put to the pair regarding unpaid phone accounts over four years, each obtained under a different name -- 'Senkowski', 'Zakar', 'Smith' -- and at two separate addresses, totaling almost 10,000 pounds. The prosecution alleging that collection notices were returned marked 'Not at This Address' or 'Gone Away'. Henry shakes his head once more: "Not guilty." Later, outside, Azadehdel pulls a notebook and a pen from his raincoat pocket -- it's a British Telecom pen and he clicks it at us. "I'm a journalist too" he winks. It's good to talk. "You don't believe all that do you?" he asks, to an uncomfortable silence as we walk towards the exit. Even his solicitor looks slightly squeamish. It is none of our business that Henry had written 'cleaner' as an occupation on his -!- -!- FMail/386 1.02 ! Origin: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence BBS (1:261/1201)) Ä Area: Odyssey Fringe Science Research Network ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 164 Date: 09-30-96 07:28 From: John Powell Read: Yes Replied: No To: All Mark: Subj: 2 More on Victorian ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ arrest report. We huddle in the foyer, as Henry's wife leaves for work. "It's a set up," whispers the accused, his solicitor nodding. So who's setting you up? "You tell me?" M15? I guess, wildly. "Of course," replies Henry, "...and Six!" And the CIA? I ask, having just received the response to my own FOIA request for the Agency's information on 'Armen Victorian', 'Alan Jones', Cassava N'Tumba' and others. The CIA reply simply referred me to one man "a person identified as Henry Azadehdel". And the Aviary? The brief looked bemused. "Hah! The Aviary," sneered his client -- a reaction I took as confirmation that this most intriguing of UFO conspiracy stories was, yes, strictly for the birds. When I raised the curious matter of N'Tumba and the London MP [see 'panel' - below], Henry shrugged hi shoulders in denial, but sprang to life at the theme: "I am being persecuted...persecuted," he said, sounding much like N'Tumba himself. He went on to describe an intricate relationship between the Security Services -- who, he was convinced, had engineered his troubles -- and British Telecom. Surely BT can't be involved, I asked, perhaps naively. "They are being manipulated," answered Henry, "either wittingly or unwittingly, who knows?" Slowly I realised that the sheer un-liklihood of Azadehdel's story formed the essence of its brilliance as a defence. I tried to imagine what a jury might make of it. I remembered the letter seized as evidence at the time of Henry's arrest, which advised him to 'leave a false paper trail' - thereby confusing the police -- and to join the Labour Party. Lobster editor Robin Ramsey, who wrote the letter, told journalists that Azadehdel had been "set up and harassed in a very obvious and crude way. He's done remarkable things using the FOIA, and it's not surprising that they want to shut him down." ----- In January, 1995, Henry's plight was taken up by his local MP. Labour's media aficionado Graham Allen, and Maurice Frankel, Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, who both carried it as far as the Security Services Tribunal. Allen wrote to the Tribunal Secretary complaining of 'mail tampering and phone tapping', while Frankel told the Observer he was worried about the implications of British Intelligence and police involvement. Having convinced so many people, Henry was now on a roll. "Think about it," he pleaded, referring to the break-ins: "Why didn't they touch my TV and video, or my Hi-Fi, and why was there no sign of entry?" I thought about it but had to ask, if only for the record: What sort of documents were they? "My computer files," he answered, "and all my research and financial records." I found myself liking him, like so many others touched by his persuasiveness, and enjoying the test of my credulity. I felt no malice. Even his widely-circulated story of my allegiance to the imaginary 'Second Church of Satan' and his warning to all that I 'carry on a long knife with me at all times', just seems amusing now, no matter how many times it's repeated on the internet. Henry's further claim that my friend Jim Schnabel -- the American student at Lincoln College, Oxford -- is a fanatical Jesuit, shackled by spiked leg-irons to the CIA, was even more hilarious. Surely this unlikely portrait of a duo of supranational G-men was meant to be taken that way? Now I understood the full meaning of 'alacrity', for I could hear the not-too-distant sound of Customs men laughing. I began not to mind that this anarchic, green-fingered, devilishly photogenic ex-diplomat -- a true Rennaisance man -- might simply be having a joke on us all. To my final question -- whether he'd like to join us for a cup of tea at a nearby cafe -- Henry disappointedly offered no wild stories of excuse. He simply smiled and waved goodbye, vanishing into the Nottingham trade. It was one of those Condor moments. I decided not to bug him anymore. Postscript * Orchid smuggling: Charged under the name Azadehdel, Henry pleaded guilty and received a one year sentence and a hefty fine. After six weeks in Pentonville, Henry successfully appealed at the Old Bailey; his fine was reduced and his sentence reduced to time served. * Telephone account deception: Henry was charged under the name Armen Victorian. After a series of commital hearings, the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued their action against him. His wife, who admitted the charges at the time of her arrest, was committed to Nottingham Crown Court where she pleaded guilty to three counts of deception. She received two concurrent conditional discharges of 12 months. * Complaint to the Security Services Tribunal: It was recently reported that, since its inception, all complaints put before the Tribunal have been overruled. [Centre Box - page 39] A Bug In Your Brain The subject of mind-control also held a special interest for Henry Azadehdel. Writing as Armen Victorian in the now-defunct Undercover magazine, he detailed MKULTRA-MKDELTA: a mind-control project by security services which included brain-implanted, micro-miniaturised, radio-controlled, electronic devices (or 'stimoceivers', invented by Dr. Jose M. Delgado) -- inside the brains of unsuspecting recipients. "In the course of my research," wrote Dr. Victorian. "I have met people with similar electronic implants in their heads." It is likely he was referring to Cassava N'Tumba, a Kenyan journalist and sometime Plumstead resident who, one day in 1992, walked into the Woolwich surgery of Labour MP John Austin-Walker complaining of severe headaches, aggravated by harassment, abduction, and cruel medical experimentation by Britain's Security Services. Austin-Walker's secretary, Angie Hill, remembers him well. "His file is very thick," she told me. N'Tumba -- or someone posing as N'Tumba, perhaps -- told Austin-Walker that during one visit to hospital he'd been unwittingly anaesthetised and fitted with two electronic devices -- one up his left nostril, and an 'electrode of radio-transmitting crystal' at the base of his skull. And what's more, N'Tumba claimed he could supply the X-rays to prove it. The X-rays convinced Lennart Lindquist, at least, whose International Network Against Mind Control operated from a postbox in Stockholm. In his accompanying letter to Lindquist, N'Tumba said that since the operation, everyone around him, especially M15, had been able to share all his "visions, thoughts, images, hearing, and memory". It was, he said, "a large scale propaganda drive to smear my character, background, behaviour, emotions and motives." He added indignantly: "I am not a spy. I am not a criminal. I am not a terrorist. [I'm] an innocent victim of M15." Austin-Walker dutifully forwarded his constituent's complaint of harassment to Prime Minister John Major. According to a Downing Street spokesman, the letter was passed to the Home Office. The reply, when it eventually came, was characteristically ambiguous: "The British Intelligence Services can neither confirm nor deny any allegations made against the British Intelligence Services." A second letter to the Prime Minister representing N'Tumba's case soon followed, this time from Lennart Lindquist. Simultaneously faxed to news agencies world-wide, it went into great detail about the apparently growing problem of mass cranial implantation. After declaring that such activities contravened Article 5 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Lindquist moved swiftly on to the sensitive issue of remuneration. "We urgently press you for all possible assistance which you can give to Mr. N'Tumba," he told the Prime Minister. This all happened soon after payments of over a million dollars were made to the CIA and the Canadian government to victims of the MKULTRA program after a long and acrimonious dispute. I believe that at some point Henry added 'Cassava N'Tumba' to his list of pseudonyms. However, despite a host of circumstantial evidence -- for example. Henry played tapes of 'N'Tumba's' phone conversations at the UFO Leeds Conference; and both Henry and 'N'Tumba' shared a claustrophobic circle of overlapping colleagues and interests -- he resisted my suspicions. Once 'N'Tumba' rang me about an article on crop circles I co-wrote for the Independent magazine. In Henry's familiar voice he announced himself as "Er... N'Tumba, Cassava N'Tumba. I am from Kenya. I'm a journalist." Ah! You're Henry Azadehdel, I said. 'No, I'm not!" Dr. Victorian? "No, I'm not." You sound incredibly like him...is N'Tumba your real name? "Yes it is...and I have records to that effect." I wouldn't expect any less, Henry. ----- EOF ______________________________________________ Errol Bruce-Knapp (ebk@yesic.com) UFO UpDates - Toronto - 416-932-0031 -!- -!- FMail/386 1.02 ! Origin: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence BBS (1:261/1201))