Military psy ops are n’t limited to leaflet , propaganda programme , andKorean pop music . In the past , the US war machine has played on their opposite superstitions of vampires , ghosts , and astrology . Here are some strange examples .
https://gizmodo.com/south-korea-may-weaponize-girly-k-pop-for-psychological-5562789
In World War II , US forces exploited the Nazi ’s penchant to put stock in superstition and the occult . The Rand Corporation ’s 1950 memorandum “ The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare”details how pseudoscience cognoscente Joseph Goebbels counteracted confederate attempts to scratch fear into the superstitious strata of the German universe :
Another odd incident noted in the Rand document occurs in Italy , where British armed forces created a gargantuan manikin to scare rural residents . A large , scuffle creature was assembled to freak out superstitious locals :
It is worth noting that Jasper Maskelyne did have a penchant forembellishment . The US war machine however pulled a similar tactics in the fifties , when Major General Edward G. Lansdale spearheaded the rumor that an asuwang was sluttish in the Philippines . In Philippine mythology , the asuwang is a winged , vampiric enchantress that has a hankering for unborn foetus . The US military machine was combat Communist Huk rebel and concocted peradventure the only covert military operation in human history to present a vampiric approach . Lansdale remember :
To the superstitious , the Huk battleground was a taken up lieu filled with wraith and eerie creatures . A armed combat psy - war squad was bring in . It planted stories among townsfolk occupier of an Asuang living on the hill where the Huks were based . Two nights later , after giving the stories sentence to make their way up to the hill camp , the psywar squad set up an trap along the trail used by the Huks [ … ] When a Huk patrol come along the trail , the ambushers silently nobble the last homo of the patrol , their move unobserved in the dark Nox .
They puncture his neck with two holes , lamia - fashion , held the body up by the bounder , drained it of ancestry , and put the stiff back on the lead . When the Huks returned to look for the miss man and found their exsanguinous comrade , every member of the patrol believe that the Asuang had got him and that one of them would be next if they remain on that mound . When daylight came , the whole Huk squadron move out of the neighbourhood .
Similarly , the US military machine imitated ghosts when fighting the Vietcong . Operation Wandering Soul was an attack to rattle Vietcong by play taping of “ ghost ” soldiers who had fallen in battle . This propaganda campaign relied on the Vietnamese belief that if a body is n’t lay to rest near its somatic home , the soul will ramble the world . US forces blasted eery recordings of discorporate souls on the priming and line . A February 1970 account in The Tropic Lightning News depict the recording as an effective means to shake up Vietcong forces :
If you were a Wolfhound of the First Battalion , 27th Infantry , 25th Infantry Division , and were at Fire Support Base Chamberlain on the night of February 10 you might have aver the place was being haunt by poltergeists , ghost that is . The moans , groans and weird sounds began at eight that night , a likely clip for the nebular material body to reveal themselves . Of naturally , touch are nonexistent , or are they ? In this case the specter and weird speech sound were furnished by the Sixth PSYOP Team and the S-5 Section of the 1/27th Wolfhounds who were conducting a night mission at Chamberlain . With the help of loud speakers and a tape of ‘ The Wandering Soul , ’ a mythological story of a Viet Cong gone to Buddha , the commission was a success .
The Wandering Soul is a tape about the soul of a dead Viet Cong . It describes the wandering of this mortal about the countryside . The beat VC tells his comrades to look at what has happened to his mortal and that he will never be at residue , always wandering , ’ say Captain William Goodman of Philadelphia , the battalion S-5 . ‘ Buddhists believe very powerfully that if they are n’t by rights buried and by rights mourn , their soul will wander through infinity , ’ added First Lieutenant Peter Boni of Boston , the officer in charge of the Sixth PSYOP Team . ‘ We dally upon the psychological superstitious notion and fears of the opposition . The method acting is very effective , ” Boni said .
Those actually playing the mag tape were less ruddy about its efficacy . In fact , helicopter crews reported receive ponderous fervour when playing the Wandering Soul magnetic tape and would even use it goad Vietcong flat coat military personnel on . One swiftboat reserve police lieutenant even recalls how the Wandering Soul tape measure commence their gravy holder pelted with rockets , so they opted to shoot Tina Turner or else — their gravy boat did n’t take fire when blast The Queen of Rock ‘ n ’ Roll in the middle of the night . For a fascinating account of the Wandering Soul initiative , check out Sergeant Major Herbert A. Friedman ’s article onPsy Warrior .
[ Asuwang anecdoteManiaviaBoing Boing . Top pic from Weird War Tales 12 viaFantasy Ink ; middle exposure viaManananggals . ]
DefensemilitaryPhilippinesPsychologyVietnam
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