Obama Visits Fort Campbell

In his first Presidential visit to Kentucky, President Obama addressed a cheering crowd at Ft. Campbell today for a short (16 minutes) but rousing speech. Acknowledging that more soldiers have been deployed - and killed - from Ft. Campbell than anyplace else in America in the war in Afghanistan, he praised Kentucky's Special Operations forces who were part on last Sunday's raid in Pakistan. He also awarded the commando units the "Presidential Unit Citation", the highest honor a President can give to a military unit.

The identities of those Ft. Campbell soldiers specifically involved are being kept secret to protect from potential terrorist reprisals, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.


Not everyone is so enthralled with Obama's handling of the situation. Discrepancies abound in the many conflictions versions being told by officials regarding the circumstances of Bin Laden's death. Some are feeling deja vu of Bush's claim that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" that turned out not to be true, as it sinks in now that Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan because that's where Bin Laden supposedly was - and now we're being told "oops, he was in Pakistan all along, sorry." And adminstration officials have stated that Bin Laden's death will have no impact whatsoever on the timetable for withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan.

The President also made no mention of the top-secret experimental stealth super-copter that crashed during the raid. The official explanation being given is that it got "caught in an air vortex" due to temperatures higher than expected. That doesn't exactly sound like much of a super-copter, if you ask me; but they didn't ask me.


Then too, there's the whole can of worms about all the reports that Osama Bin Laden has actually already been dead for years now. FOX News and the Pakistan Observer reported in 2001 that Bin Laden died from a lung complication. There was even an article about Bin Laden's 2001 funeral in an Egyptian newspaper. And in 2002, the FBI's counter-terrorism chief Dale Watson said he believed Bin Laden was probably dead.

Whatever the real truths are behind world events that have caused President Obama's hair to start greying prematurely, I just hope and pray he knows what he's doing. Even though he's keeping the identities of the soldiers a secret, I'm not sure even admitting that Kentucky was involved in the Bin Laden raid is a good idea. Feel me?

Wave of Military Murder

The national newsmedia has been abuzz about the bizarre incident at Fort Hood, Texas, in which a Muslim psychiatrist went on a shooting spree. Although early reports stated that there were definitely two shooters - possibly three - that datum seems to have vanished and they've now changed their story and are insisting that Nidal Malik Hasan was a lone gunman.

Then, in Oak Grove, KY, a Fort Campbell military husband and wife were found dead in a murder-suicide. Police said the man had apparently shot his wife, then shot himself with a handgun.

The Oak Grove incident isn't an isolated one. We've reported here previously about the ongoing wave of suicide at Fort Campbell, of which this tragedy is just a part. According to news sources, Fort Campbell averaged one confirmed suicide per week last winter. Maybe even more deaths are actually unconfirmed suicides, because there are a considerable number of deaths that are now being reinvestigated.


Earlier this year, Fort Campbell soldier Steven Green was sentenced to serve five consecutive life sentences. Green raped a 14-year-old girl, then killed her and her entire family, then set fire to their house, then tried to blame it on Sunni Islam terrorists. Fortunately, he was far too stupid to be able to properly keep his story straight.

And then there's Billi Jo Smallwood, who has been charged with setting fire to her home on the Fort Campbell post in hopes of killing her husband and making it look like an accident. He survived, but two of their children died in the fire.

And how about Pvt. Nicholas Mikel who opened fire on a group of his fellow soldiers training at Fort Campbell? In April 2006 he was convicted of attempted premeditated murder and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.


Or Hasan Akbar (given name Mark Kools), a 32-year-old Muslim soldier who was stationed at Fort Campbell and was made miserable by a nonstop barrage of anti-Muslim sentiment around the base. By the time he shipped out to Iraq, he had become driven so insane by the verbal abuse that he finally snapped one night while entrusted to guard a Humvee filled with ammo. He stole a carton of hand grenades, activated each of them and lobbed them into the tents where his officers were sleeping. Some who escaped the blasts were fired upon by Akbar with his standard issue AK-47.

Akbar was sent back to Kentucky to be court-martialed, and imprisoned in the brig at Fort Knox. He was subsequently sentenced to death by lethal injection.



And don't forget Fort Campbell's 21-year-old PFC Barry Winchell, who was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat because he admitted to being gay. Pvt. Calvin Glover was convicted by a military court and sentenced to life in prison for beating Winchell to death with a baseball bat last year. Winchell’s roommate, Spc. Justin R. Fisher, was sentenced to 12½ years in prison for his role in the killing.

Michelle Benecke, the co-director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said that Fort Campbell soldiers she spoke to all admitted that "anti-gay harassment and threats are as common as the uniform", but anyone who complains then becomes harassed themselves. Some have hinted that there have been other murders like Winchell's, but that they've been swept under the rug, covered up and made to look like accidents or "friendly fire".


Fort Campbell, home to the Black Helicopters of the 160th Spec-Ops "Night Stalkers", clearly seems to be stressing its inhabitants to the snapping point. But the Fort Hood incident shows that the problem is nationwide. In Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the whole first third of the film is devoted to how the psychological cruelty and abuse of the drill instructor (R. Lee Ermey) in basic training leads to one of his soldiers finally going berserk and shooting him, then taking his own life. Life imitates art?


Meanwhile, court testimony was recently given regarding an earlier shooting in North Carolina wherein a soldier opened fire on two Special Forces commandos. His defense was that he thought they were "roleplaying".

BGAD in LA Times

The Los Angeles Times has a new and extensive article on the rapidly corroding nerve gas cannisters at Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond. In addition to the chemical dump, the BGAD is also home to alleged UFO technology, spooky Raytheon projects, and the occasional black helicopter. Choice excerpts:

Behind armed guards in bulletproof booths deep in the Kentucky woods, workers have begun pouring the foundations for a $3-billion complex designed to destroy America's last stockpile of deadly chemical weapons.

The Obama administration has pushed to speed up the disposal operation after decades of delay, skyrocketing costs and daunting technical problems. The arms must be destroyed by April 2012 under international treaty and by December 2017 under federal law. But the Pentagon notified Congress in May that, even under what it called an accelerated schedule, it would not finish the job until 2021...

"We do experience leakers from time to time at very, very low levels," said Lt. Col. David Musgrave, commander of the Blue Grass Chemical Activity, as the storage site is called. He said no toxic plumes have escaped the igloos or threatened the surrounding community...

Concerns about safety at Blue Grass were highlighted last month when lawyers for Donald Van Winkle, a former chemical weapons monitor who claims he was forced out of his job at the facility after he uncovered unsafe conditions, obtained an Army investigative report through the Freedom of Information Act...

Another self-described whistle-blower, Kim Schafermeyer, 59, alleged he was fired as a chemist in 2006 in retaliation for citing safety and pollution problems at Blue Grass. A judge dismissed his lawsuit last year on a technicality.

Schafermeyer contends that the aging munitions are decomposing faster than officials admit. "They are highly unstable," he said. "These things should be destroyed next week."

Read the article in full here.

By the way, in the above photo, note that the BGAD igloo workers have gas masks strapped to their faces but their rest of the flesh on their heads remains exposed to the open air. But nerve gas is readily absorbed through the skin with even the slightest contact, so, uh, WTF?

Jimi Hendrix and Fort Campbell

There's a conspiracy-oriented book in progress by Dave McGowan that can be read online, called Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation. According to McGowan's worldview, some sort of ill-defined CIA/Pentagon/mob conspiracy is behind the scenes of the careers of Laurel Canyon-based musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Canned Heat, Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Mamas & The Papas, The Turtles, Jan & Dean, The Byrds, Janis Joplin, and even The Monkees. It sounds ludicrous on the face of it, but it's actually fairly gripping reading. There's a lot of smoke there, but there's some fire.

In particular, I was stunned to learn that Jimi Hendrix served in the military and was stationed in Kentucky's super-spooky Fort Campbell. From McGowan's book:

Though he rarely spoke of it, Jimi had served a stint in the U.S. Army with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. His official records indicate that he was forced into the service by the courts and then released after just one year when he purportedly proved to be a poor soldier. One wonders, though, why he was assigned to such an elite division if he was indeed such a failure. One also wonders why he wasn’t subjected to disciplinary measures rather than being handed a free pass out of his ostensibly court-ordered service. In any event, Jimi himself once told reporters that he was given a medical discharge after breaking an ankle during a parachute jump.

These are indeed interesting questions, and it's also interesting to note, in this vaguely ominous context of nebulous conspiracy theory, that Fort Campbell is also home to the Black Helicopters of the 160th Spec-Ops "Night Stalkers".


I had never heard anything about Hendrix having been in the military, let alone in Kentucky of all places, but sure enough, the story checks out. Hendrix was arrested on stolen-car charges, and was indeed given the choice between prison and the Army by a judge. During his 13 months at Fort Campbell, he met bass player Billy Cox, and together they formed a band called The King Kasuals. They played mostly roadhouse saloons along the Kentucky-Tennessee border during this time, then became the backup band for an R&B singer named Johnny Jones. With Jones, they played prestigious gigs in Nashville, including appearances with Little Richard on the Night Train TV show. Surviving 1965 Night Train footage is currently the oldest video known of Hendrix performing, backing a R&B duo called Buddy & Stacey.


The Smoking Gun website has copies of documents pertaining to Jimi Hendrix's military period, which you can view here.

The borderline-kooky idea that Hendrix was murdered by the CIA has been floating around for years now - supposedly the high concept is that U.S. Government secret agents were fighting a "covert war against rock", trying to get rid of the counter-culture's heroes and destabilize the hippie movement. While I find that idea to be pure baloney (the hippie movement was already pretty much deflated by the time Jimi died in September 1970), I find it slightly less baloney-istic to consider the remote possibility that there's some sort of connection between MK-ULTRA, Hendrix's time spent at Fort Campbell, and Hendrix's death.


And that's where Hendrix's manager, one Michael Jeffery, comes in. Jeffery, believed to have been connected to both the British and the U.S. intelligence communities, has long been a source of suspicion and speculation. Just three weeks ago, the London Telegraph reported that Hendrix's ER doctor believes it is plausible that foul play may have been involved. And Tappy Wright, in his new book Rock Roadie, states that Michael Jeffery drunkenly confessed to killing Jimi Hendrix by force-feeding him pills and wine. Jeffery stood to collect millions of dollars on the star's life insurance policy, says Wright.

Dave McGowan again:

On March 5, 1973, a shadowy character named Michael Jeffery, who had managed both Hendrix and [Eric] Burden, was killed in a mid-air plane collision. Jeffery was known to openly boast of having organized crime connections and of working for the CIA. After Jimi’s death, it was discovered that Jeffery had been funneling most of Hendrix’s gross earnings into offshore accounts in the Bahamas linked to international drug trafficking.

I dunno. After awhile, this kind of stuff turns my mind to mush and I have to go lay down. Next thing you know, someone'll be saying that the CIA brought down Buddy Holly's plane. (Oh wait, someone already has.)

Black Helicopter Sighting

UnK reader Melissa Porter mailed us this missive...

"11 May 2009: At approximately 1825, I was north-bound on Preston Highway and spotted, face-on, two black helicopters. They were too small to be Cobras, so I thought, 'Apaches,' but saw no gun-mounts on the bottom. They banked slightly, heading SE, so that I had both good light and line of sight on their profiles. Although I could see extensive transmission/reception booms bottom-mounted and projecting from their fronts, I could discern not even subdued insignia. They, therefore, appeared entirely unmarked.

--A fair witness in the field, "Melissa Porter"

BGAD's Spaced-out Insignia

Here's a good shot of the Blue Grass Army Depot's logo, as it actually appears at their front gates. Click to enlarge.

In the foreground we have a depiction of what would appear to be Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone, of course, is a symbol of the pioneer. And what is the literal definition of being a pioneer? Leading the way in exploring unknown territory. Behind Boone's image we have a backdrop depicting a rocketship in space! The implications of this juxtaposition seem clearly to point to space exploration.

Coincidence? Possibly. But consider that much of the Depot houses private research facilities for the major NASA contractor Raytheon, as well as entities called Serv-Air and E-Systems, which are both also tentacles of Raytheon under different names.

The corporate watchdog group CorpWatch had this to say about E-Systems:

One of Raytheon's more secretive subsidiaries is E-Systems, whose major clients have historically been the CIA and other spy agencies like the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. An unnamed Congressional aide told the Washington Post once that the company was ''virtually indistinguishable'' from the agencies it serves. ''Congress will ask for a briefing from E- Systems and the (CIA) program manager shows up,'' the aide is quoted as saying. ''Sometimes he gives the briefing. They're interchangeable.''

E-Systems is also the creator of the "Doomsday Plane", which would be the U.S. President's escape vehicle in the event of a nuclear attack, and double as a temporary airborne command post for the Pentagon and the White House.

It's also rather odd that there's a very prominent star on the image of Kentucky. Now, you'd think the purpose of said star would be to denote the location of the Depot... but the star's location isn't even close. Maybe the insignia designer took a drastic liberty with it, since Daniel Boone's figure is obscuring the actual location of the Depot? Why not just design it another way then?? The star seems to be on Lee County (which, according to rumor, was the location of a 1980's CIA psych-op installation - which may or may not still exist).

If anyone is able to recognize what, if any, specific star background area is shown in the logo, please let us know. (I wouldn't think that any specific constellations or actual star patterns would be depicted, but then again, I once read some conspiracy article that found some sort of arcane significance in the stars on NASA's insignia. I forget what now, though.)


Oh, and hey, did you know that Raytheon means ""light from the gods"?

The Blue Grass Army Depot

The Blue Grass Army Depot is located in Madison County, KY and is well known for being a storage facility for nerve gas. Each year they release free calendars to local citizens, as part of a public relations drive to show everyone "We're really just a simple ammo dump, and there's nothing to fear. Just ignore the Black Helicopters and UFOs. Really. Trust us."

Back in the early 90s, when I ran an antiques business from Richmond and Berea, I had a series of conversations with an eccentric old fellow (who will go unnamed here), who used to tell me a great deal of tall tales and unsubstantiated rumors about what was going on in the Depot. How he could possibly know this information, he refused to say. I do know he served in Vietnam, but that's the only military connection I ever gleaned for certain about him.

Among his grandiose claims were:

1. Alien technology recovered from a crashed alien spacecraft was being reverse-engineered and used in experimental aircraft being tested at the Depot.

2. He said he had it on authority from people he trusted, that the alien spacecraft was stored, at least at some point in time, underground at the Depot. Why Kentucky?, I asked. "They wouldn't keep it where everyone expects it", he said.

3.All manner of cutting-edge secret aircraft are tested at the Depot, including the Stealth Bomber, and many others that no one's ever heard of. He mentioned one such secret plane in particular, one that was completely invisible because its hull acted as both a camera and a monitor, projecting what was on one side of the plane to the other side, no matter what angle you were facing the plane from.

4.He said that the Depot was the military's main headquarters for Chemical Warfare, and that the first Gulf War was practically run from within the Depot.

He made a great many other wild claims, but these are the ones that are most relevant to our field of study here. At the time, I didn't take anything this person said too seriously. He didn't look or act like the type of guy you'd expect to have security clearance anyplace. He was pretty much drunk a large percentage of the time, too. But I often thought back to the bizarre "truths" he'd confided to me, especially when seeing UFOs in the area and hearing other talk about the UFOs they'd seen.

But gradually, I began to find out that at least some of what I had been told was true. The Blue Grass Army Depot is the main source for the Department of Defense's chemical weapons, according to information found right on their own web sites.

I considered his "invisible plane" story to be the most outlandish detail of all, even more so than the alien story. Then I found out years later that such an aircraft does exist, with a technology called "Electrochromatic Panels", which have been researched extensively by respected journalist Norio Hayakawa.

The more we learn about the Blue Grass Depot, the more questions arise. One thing is for certain, and that is they are not just a simple army ammo dump.


Were one to compile an exhaustive list of all UFO sightings in the Kentucky area (and more specifically, the Depot area), it would be massive enough for a site all its own. But UFOs do not get reported around here much anymore, even though they're seen on an almost nightly basis. It's something the locals have grown accustomed to, much like people near Area 51. One gentleman who resides within sight of the depot made that connection himself, saying "I guess you could say this is like the Area 51 of the South."

The types of UFO reported run the gamut of all the traditional variants: saucer-shaped, cigar-shaped, triangular, mystery lights, etc. Unmarked Black Helicopters are also a recurring sight, almost daily, in the area. They are frequently seen coming in and out of the depot, even in broad daylight. Some seem to be coming or going in the general direction of Fort Campbell, or sometimes the nearby Madison County Airport. Some are very advanced and of unknown make, others appear to be Blackhawks or "Little Birds".

There have also been numerous reports of the Stealth Bomber being seen in Kentucky, especially around the northern border near Cincinnati.


Above photo: note the charming bomb motif at the Depot's Operation Golden Cargo checkpoint.

Black Helicopters in Kentucky

You may not be aware that the "black helicopters" of X-Files lore are indeed real, and that they're based in Kentucky, of all places.

You can spot all the black unmarked copters you want at the 160th Spec-Ops Aviation Regiment (SOAR) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Their craft, known as "Little Birds" (but they look more like Little Bugs to me) use a specially-formulated CARC paint which protects from chemical attacks but is also non-radar reflective to help them do whatever it is they're doing out there.

(Wait a minute - did I say "protects from chemical attacks"? What kind of chemical attacks are they expecting, anyway? What the heck are they doing out there?)

The copters are used for all manner of covert purposes related to Special Operations, which can cover quite a lot - and most of it we're not supposed to know about.


The motto of the 160th is "Death waits in the Dark", and their insignia is the grim reaper riding a pale horse with wings.

You can see some interesting video footage of these "Little Birds" at the Don F. Pratt Memorial Museum, and there's even a real one - a CARC-painted McDonnell-Douglas AH-6 Cayuse, to be exact - on display, hanging from the ceiling. There's also a huge exhibit devoted to Ft.Campbell's important role in Operation Iraqi Freedom, some captured Nazi souvenirs from World War II, and a rare (one of only four left in the world) CG-4 Waco Cargo Glider, which visitors can actually climb into.

Even if you couldn't care less about seeing the Cigarette-Smoking Man's unmarked helicopters, visiting the Pratt Museum is highly recommended. Enter the Fort through Gate 4 and have your ID ready. Closed Sundays.

Meanwhile, black helicopters can also be seen buzzing across the state, and especially in and out of the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County, often to a helipad very close to the road. The photo above is a black helicopter zipping across the sky above Brodhead, KY.