Original subtitles

There's so many things in the sky right now.

Let's face it, we live in a time when fear and distrust

are at an all-time high.

There are so many government conspiracies,

it can be hard to tell what's real and what's not.

The drones off of New Jersey.

Are they Chinese? Are they Russian?

Weather control.

The death of Jeffrey Epstein.

The list just goes on and on and nobody knows

how to make sense out of what's real...

and what's fake.

My name is Andrew Bustamante and I am a former covert

CIA intelligence officer,

and I'm here to help you separate fact from fiction.

Since leaving CIA,

I've made it my mission to shed light

on the lies, cover-ups,

conspiracies, and tactics used to conceal them.

Now I'm going to pressure-test the most sensational,

ripped-from-the-headlines conspiracy theories out there,

and track down key experts,

eyewitnesses, and whistleblowers.

I'll analyze never-before-seen footage,

conduct eye-opening experiments...

He's right here.

See the drone right there overhead?

You see it?

...and demonstrations.

Sleeping all the way down deeper and deeper.

It's just so fast. It's just incredible.

Nobody thinks of hypnotism as a weapon.

My mission is simple...

Is there a tunnel that connects us

to Cheyenne Mountain?

...to find the truth...

Epstein was reported to have actually hung himself

from this side of the bed, which is right here.

...and arm you with the tools you need to determine

for yourself what is real

and what are you being manipulated

to believe is real.

Three-twenty.

Three-hundred-forty feet.

Three-hundred-sixty feet.

Four hundred.

And 420, which is about 140 yards.

All right, go ahead and just stop there

and stand still for me.

That's what a person looks like 140 yards away.

When Thomas Crooks planned his shot

on then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump,

he was looking at that in the distance on a stage.

The would-be assassin was killed at the scene,

leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions.

Who was he? What drove him?

And was this 20-year-old acting alone?

It wasn't long before conspiracy theories

started to swirl,

and one of them caught my attention.

So you are alleging that Thomas Crooks was groomed

by some type of dark intel program,

MKUltra or otherwise?

I-- I think so. I've said that all along.

He was programmed.

Programmed.

This mind-control theory took off online.

Maybe Thomas Crooks wasn't just some angry young shooter.

Maybe he was part of something more sinister.

A pawn under the control of the deep state.

But is that even possible?

Is it possible to get someone to take action

against their will?

My own agency, the CIA, spent years trying

to crack that code. That isn't speculation.

That's history.

I'm not here to unpack

the Trump assassination attempt.

I'm here to ask a much bigger question.

Is it possible to actually create

a mind-controlled assassin?

And what I discover is shocking.

In my seven years at CIA, I spent much of it

operating overseas, undercover, in hostile territory.

One of my primary missions was to recruit human assets--

to identify people with access,

understand their vulnerabilities,

and convince them to switch sides.

When I hear mind-controlled assassin,

I immediately think of a real program

that CIA ran not that very long ago.

It all started during the Cold War.

In Korea, American prisoners of war

who seemed brainwashed and were paraded on TV.

The die was cast.

If America's enemies could bend a soldier's will,

the US had to learn how to do it too.

And fast.

So in 1953, CIA greenlit a secret program to find out,

can you break a mind and rebuild it?

The program was called MKUltra.

The man in charge?

Sidney Gottlieb, a chemist with a PhD

and an obsession with a new drug called LSD.

Experimental drugs, including LSD,

were administered to human guinea pigs,

beginning with American soldiers.

This was a totally different era at CIA than mine.

There was no oversight, and people like Sidney Gottlieb

were released on the American public with blank checks

to fund crazy experiments.

At Stanford University, they were handing LSD out

to students like it was candy.

An undergrad named Ken Kesey loved the experience so much

that he stole LSD from the lab

and started handing it out in San Francisco.

Everybody must get stoned!

So yes, stolen CIA acid kicked off a psychedelic revolution.

But meanwhile, MKUltra-funded experiments

were turning darker.

The initial goal was to find the perfect truth serum.

But soon, the mission expanded.

Erase memories.

Rewire behavior.

The room became very distorted.

It was like some kind of funny hell I'd fallen into

and I couldn't get out.

I just wanted to scream that I wanted to get out of there.

I was completely...

Like they had complete control over me.

The CIA's ultimate dream?

Create a Manchurian candidate.

Now we have come almost to the end.

One last step.

A phrase coined after the 1959 novel

about a US soldier in the Korean War

brainwashed to become a sleeper assassin.

MKUltra was officially disbanded in the late 1960s,

but the public didn't find out about it until the 1970s

when journalists dug in.

Congress held hearings and survivors sued.

I believe that every citizen of this nation

has the right to know just what is fact and what is fiction.

Today, MKUltra is more than a code word.

It's a meme, a myth, a shorthand

for government mind control.

It's a conspiracy theory that wasn't just a theory.

And the idea of mind control lives on in pop culture...

in characters like Jason Bourne,

and Eleven from "Stranger Things."

But I've always wondered,

what is the real story behind MKUltra?

And what did it achieve, if anything?

So I started digging.

At CIA, you're trained to look where others don't.

And the more I dug, the more I realized

everyone was too focused on the drugs.

And that's when something else in the files caught my eye.

Hypnosis.

Controlling someone through the power of suggestion

and subconscious control mechanisms.

I found that lesser-known MKUltra experiments

studied hypnosis.

There really isn't much of a difference between

hypnosis and spying.

It's all about influence, control.

You will leave your present body.

The brain has an incredible ability to frame its reality

around its perception.

I want to know, can somebody actually take control

of another person's perception, their behavior, using hypnosis?

To determine if there might be a programmed assassin

connection between MKUltra and hypnosis, I tracked down

Mike Evans from the National Security Archive,

one of the leading researchers on the program.

Are there any conclusions we can draw

about MKUltra's focus on hypnosis?

There were something like 10 or 12 MKUltra programs

that focused on hypnosis one way or the other.

But a lot of the excitement about that was kind of

overtaken by the discovery of LSD and the possibilities.

And what happened was during the investigations in the '70s,

Gottlieb and his boss ordered the destruction

of basically all the files related to MKUltra

behind all the behavior control research.

And with that void of information, many people think

that the American government may have created

something else, correct? - Right.

In the American imagination, the CIA was turning people

into sort of Manchurian candidate killers.

And it's important to ask whether they succeeded

in doing that, whether they're still trying to do that.

So there is no remaining evidence that MKUltra

successfully created a programmed assassin.

If you were going to destroy documents, wouldn't these be

some of the first that you would want to destroy?

So my next question is,

is it even possible to create a mind-controlled killer?

Is hypnosis the key to turning someone like Thomas Crooks

into a real-life Manchurian candidate?

That's a question nobody has tried to answer until now.

I think I found the perfect person to help me answer

that question with an experiment to figure out the truth.

Max?

Hello, Andrew.

Can I get a latte and a glass of water?

Yeah.

We've invited our subject to come here tonight.

They believe they're gonna have some one-on-one time

with me to kind of explore their mind.

But what they don't know is during that time,

I'm gonna be reprogramming them to actually poison your drink.

Wow!

2 Max?

Hello, Andrew.

And you can just sleep deep all the way down.

Max Major is one of the country's

leading hypnotists.

And you can no longer remember your own name.

It's just been wiped from your mind.

Sleep deep, all the way down deeper.

Also a trained hypnotherapist, Max is known for quickly

putting people into a hypnotic state using his mastery

of focus, authority, and emotion.

- What? - Sleep deep, all the way down.

That's why I think he's going to be my perfect partner

on this mission.

I've been a hypnotist since I was 18 years old,

so for more than 20 years now.

So I've always been fascinated with the mind

and obviously MKUltra is a wealth of information

about how people can be controlled.

Without a doubt, one of the least discussed,

least referenced points of MKUltra was really

the hypnosis program.

They talk about how they identified their victims

out of insane asylums or psychiatric wards.

It just seems like a ripe foundation for hypnosis.

Yeah, and the other thing about it is like, most of what

we know about MKUltra is based off of witness testimony.

But the thing about hypnosis is, I could actually

hypnotize you to forget that we ever even had a conversation.

So if I wipe your memory of everything that occurred under

hypnosis, you wouldn't be able to testify because you wouldn't

even know anything ever happened.

So it's almost like we know that experiments were done

with hypnotism, but we really don't know what exactly they did

and what the results were.

You know what's really interesting about this is that

in my experience at CIA, 80% of what we do well,

nobody ever finds out about. - Insane.

So here's what I'm thinking.

- I want you to start crafting an experiment... - OK.

...where we can prove this hypothesis true.

Can we create an experiment that proves that hypnosis

could have been a successful tool

used in the MKUltra program?

Can we find people? Can we put them under hypnosis?

Can we get them to take actions that they know they shouldn't

take and then have them forget about the actions at the end?

I've never actually performed in a situation

where in the back of my head I have this, like, secret ulterior motive.

I only know secret ulterior motives.

But what I love about this is that we could validate that

it's very likely it's already been operationally deployed.

It's been active in our world for decades.

- Absolutely. - And we might be the first ones

to show that it's possible at all.

In my experience, gaining control

of a human subject takes weeks. It takes months sometimes.

So the idea that he's going to be able to hypnotize

and identify someone who could become

a mind-controlled assassin in a matter of minutes

is just amazing to me.

- Hey, hey! - What's up, dude?

What is this place, man?

This place is pretty cool.

- Yeah. - This is called Cosmo's Magic Theater.

People think that they're coming to see me do a show,

but the real goal tonight is to

essentially identify the most susceptible person

to hypnosis in the crowd.

- So this is the actual theater. - Wow, look at this.

So, I mean, they're coming to a real show.

We've got cameras you'll see at the back of the room here.

- Oh, yeah. - We've got a camera up here.

- OK. - And all of these are wired to a room I have set up

for you where you can actually observe the audience

throughout the show.

50 random strangers were invited.

They are not actors, they are not being paid,

and they don't know that we are actually running

a covert experiment to determine,

can you create a mind-controlled assassin

and make them forget what they did?

All right, I should get backstage.

Max Major.

Here's how this works.

Hypnosis isn't anything strange or woo-woo.

It's literally just, I'm your guide,

and you're following along with the instructions

that I'm giving you.

People are skeptical about hypnosis.

Trust me, I was too, until I learned the science behind it.

And here's how it works.

Let's try a really simple exercise.

First, a hypnotist narrows your attention to one thing.

It might be a voice, a task, or your own breathing.

Put both your hands out in front of you, palm-up.

Turn your right hand palm-down.

The body relaxes, and the part of the brain that

evaluates and edits information quiets down.

Keep your eyes closed and listen to my voice.

Next, the hypnotist guides the brain

into a more flexible state.

And take a deep breath in through your nose.

Let it out through your mouth.

Your critical filters soften just enough to explore

new emotions and perspectives.

Then comes the suggestive phase.

Through calm, repetitive language,

the hypnotist introduces specific suggestions

and reinforces them.

I want you to look at the back of your palm-down hand

and imagine tied to that wrist

were hundreds of helium balloons.

And imagine in your palm-up hand

was a bowling ball, dragging that hand down.

And as I snap my fingers, one hand gets heavier,

the other hand gets lighter, higher and higher,

heavier and heavier.

Now you can open your eyes and look at your hands.

But here's the catch. Not everyone can be hypnotized.

Some people struggle to focus

and resist letting go of control.

But Max isn't trying to hypnotize everyone.

He's looking for the few,

the few who can give up that control.

Anybody else, when they open their eyes,

they look at their hands, their hands were very far apart?

Could you stand up and go to the stairs?

- Just let go and stop... - Give me the name tag

on the person with the goatee right now.

Noah. Thank you.

Delaney, could you come down to the front?

You can have a seat for now.

Dylan, could you join us down here on stage?

Give them a round of applause. They're doing great, by the way.

Could you join me? Noah, have a seat there.

Look beneath this eye as I shake your hand.

Sleep deep, all the way down. Deeper and deeper.

Sleep deep, all the way down.

Max is shaping this entire crowd.

It's really quite incredible to see.

In a moment, Noah, you're gonna open your eyes,

and when you open your eyes, time will not have passed.

You'll remember coming into the show, but most importantly,

you've never been hypnotized.

One, two, wide awake, all of you.

Open your eyes, feeling great-- good.

Can you stand up?

This is super important, because if Noah doesn't

remember being hypnotized, we can erase his memories.

Cool, if you could just get back in your seat,

because we were in the middle of something. - Thank you.

- Sorry about that, yeah. - Oh-- thank you.

How did you end up at the show tonight?

Like, why did you come?

Have you seen someone hypnotized before,

or you wanted to be hypnotized, or you're curious about it?

- Just curious? - I was curious about it.

I've always wondered what it felt like.

Right-- so you haven't been hypnotized yourself?

I-- I don't think so.

Maybe you were hypnotized and you, like, at a show

or something and they made you forget or some--

I don't know if that's possible, but that would be...

- I don't think that's possible. - Oh, yeah.

He shows all the psychological and physical characteristics

that we're looking for to be suggestible

under Max's control.

OK, all right. Hi, nice to meet you.

Chris, Max, hello. Yeah, relax your hand.

Good, give it to me-- good. Push down.

Look at the back of this finger.

Good, look right here at this finger.

Look up at me. Can I hypnotize you?

- I don't think so. - OK.

- Well, do you want to be hypnotized? - I do.

OK, go back to your seat,

just for now, just for now-- I'll explain...

As predicted, not everyone is susceptible to hypnosis,

so Max continues working through the audience,

trying to find the most suggestible,

the most programmable potential subjects.

Sleep deep, all the way down, deeper.

Clyde, the next time that you hear this-- [pen clicks]--

clicking sound, you will stand up,

you will walk over to the bookshelf,

you'll place your phone on the bookshelf,

and you'll come back to your seat,

and you'll close your eyes.

This is exactly what we would have to do

with a mind-controlled assassin.

Give them multiple tasks in a specific order

of operations that they have to execute.

And Clyde...

is following orders right now.

At just the click of a pen,

he did exactly what he was supposed to do.

One, two, wide awake, open your eyes.

I am watching in real time something that I thought

couldn't be done, like... - Where's your phone?

It's in my pocket.

Max is manipulating, shaping...

...growing trust, build--

he's influencing these people in minutes.

Thank you for trusting me

with your time and your attention.

My name is Max Major. You guys have been great.

Thank you so much.

If you had a person like this in the field,

you'd be able to execute a wide range of operational objectives.

I mean, this is incredibly valuable.

- What the-- holy smokes. - Yeah, we have some--

That was incredible, man.

- I know exactly who I want. - And I know who it is, too.

- Show me. - Here.

You made people forget their name tonight.

You made people forget that they were hypnotized tonight.

If MKUltra had a fragment then of what you have now,

they would have been doing terrible things.

I'm feeling uncomfortable already,

just with you saying that. - I'm feeling uncomfortable

because if you could do this... - Yeah.

...in 30 minutes... - Right.

...what did the MKUltra program-- - In 15 years.

2 Max's group session took place in a controlled environment

with willing volunteers.

But would-be assassin, Thomas Crooks,

wasn't in a theater.

He was in the real world.

Did Crooks show any signs of influence?

What was his mental state leading up to the rally?

Various reports reveal that in the year prior,

friends and his own family reported him becoming

more distant and detached,

likely signs of an undiagnosed mental illness.

But do you know what else can create symptoms of delusion

and radical personality change?

Hypnosis.

As my hand closes, your eyes will close

and sleep deep, all the way down, deeper.

This was reinforced when I saw this interview

with New York Post's Miranda Devine

about Crooks' unusual behavior.

He became increasingly violent and sort of radicalized

against Democrats. He was pro-Trump.

But then something happened to make him become

rabidly anti-Trump.

And then suddenly something happened in August of 2020,

and he just disappeared online.

So Thomas Crooks goes from intensely pro-Trump online

to insanely anti-Trump, and then disappears.

Changes like that don't happen in a vacuum.

Something must have shaped his shift.

If we're going to ask the question whether a person

can be programmed to kill, we have to go back to the case

that made that question famous, Sirhan Sirhan.

In 1968, JFK's charismatic younger brother Bobby

was running for president, promising to end

the Vietnam War.

We are a great country, and a selfish country,

and a compassionate country.

And I intend to make that my basis

for running and over the period of the next few months.

But on the night he won the California primary...

...he was gunned down in a hotel kitchen.

And the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan,

was captured on the spot.

But here's where things really get strange.

To this day, Sirhan Sirhan claims that he has no memory

of the shooting itself or of the moments surrounding it.

Well what do you remember about

the shooting, if you're willing to talk about that?

I was, obviously, I was there, but I don't remember

the exact moment.

I don't remember pulling my gun out of my body

or wherever it was located, and I don't remember aiming

at any human being.

Everything was always hazy in my head about that.

That claim, repeated for decades,

has fueled speculation

that he was under some kind of hypnotic control.

It raises a disturbing question, because how can someone commit

an act like that and have no memory of it afterwards?

Tonight's experiment aims to answer exactly that question.

Our mission is to get somebody from Max's show to commit

an assassination and then forget they ever did it,

which was the ultimate goal of MKUltra.

I love the setting that you picked.

Yeah, I think a coffee shop is the perfect place.

It's also how something like this might play out

in the real world, right? - Yeah.

So here's the setup.

We've secured a popular cafe in town and filled it with people

who know they're part of a controlled experiment.

We've got cameras covering everywhere.

In the back room, I built a monitoring station where

I'll start observing the initial phase of the experiment.

The subject has been told they've been selected

to take part in a second round of hypnosis with Max.

But what he doesn't know is we're running an experiment

and everyone is in on it except him.

What they're about to experience may be intense,

but Max is operating under strict moral boundaries.

No coercion, no harm.

And if this works, the implications go

far beyond this room.

In many ways, this is your first covert operation.

So I'll tell you the same thing they told me.

Don't blink.

You only get one chance to do something covert

for the first time. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And it's gonna be over so fast. - It's gone.

We will find out tonight whether or not

the goal of MKUltra was met or not met.

And it's just two dudes in a bar figuring it out.

There he is.

That's the man who's going to kill me.

- Hey. - What's up, man? How are you?

- Good. How are you? - Good to see you.

Thanks for coming.

This subject was such a surprise

at the Magic Theater. Absolutely suggestive.

Grab a seat. I'll explain what we're doing.

The goal today is to kind of teach you how to be able

to turn that dial inside of you to become

the best version of yourself. - OK.

- You know what I mean? - Yeah.

All right.

So we're gonna start with a little exercise in focus.

- Can I hypnotize you? - Sure.

OK. So if you could take

your left hand, kind of put your elbow on the table...

One theory suggests Sirhan Sirhan

wasn't acting alone,

that a handler was present, triggering his hypnotic state

and inciting him to shoot RFK.

In this experiment, the handler is Max.

Here's Max focusing Clyde's attention.

Sleep deep, all the way down, deeper and deeper.

And anything you hear outside of my voice is just a reminder

to come back to me, knowing that everything that's

happening here this evening is meant to serve you.

And so if you're given a task,

you'll complete it without question.

And you'll devote yourself fully to these exercises.

Almost like a soldier. So I say, one, two, wide awake,

open your eyes-- good.

I want you to put both your hands down here.

And I want you to imagine that in this palm is the strongest

magnet in the world, and that magnet is drawn

to a steel plate in this table.

And as I snap my fingers, that magnet becomes activated.

And the harder you try to pick up that hand,

the more impossible it is-- just like life.

The more you struggle, the more you fight,

the more effort you put in, the harder things get.

Let that relaxation spread down through your arm.

And then notice if you don't try so hard

how easy it is to lift up your hand.

You'll just feel it come right up now.

- Wow. - All right.

These are like, thinking tasks.

And essentially you're trying to decode, you know,

how these shapes relate to these letters.

I don't know if that's actually a letter.

This brain teaser exercise is like an anchor point,

what the subject will be asked to work on before and after

delivering the poison.

Dash, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash.

He's really just completely consumed in this process

of identifying and decoding dashes and dots.

Dash, dot, dot, dot. And that starts with

a dash, dot, dot. Oh, it could be a Y.

And as this hand starts to come in, you'll notice

your eyes change focus, and when you notice your eyes,

you can just sleep deep, all the way down,

deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.

You're gonna sit up right here with your eyes closed.

Just relax for me for just a moment.

And I'm going to place in your hand this little glass bottle.

You can feel it there. You can hold it.

Still in that relaxed state.

You can place that glass bottle into your pocket now,

just somewhere you'll be able to get it later.

The next time you hear this sound,

you'll stop what you're doing on the iPad,

you'll get up from your seat, you'll walk over to the table

in front of you, you'll take the glass bottle

out of your pocket, you'll open it up,

and you'll dump its contents into the glass of water

on that table.

And you just come back to your seat,

put the bottle back in your pocket.

And when you open your eyes now, you'll get back to work.

One, two, wide awake, open your eyes.

That's my signal. Let's go die.

Hey, brother.

Could I get a decaf latte with oat milk?

And then a glass of water.

Perfect.

- Thank you so much, sir. - Absolutely.

I got a latte up.

Do you have a sugar packet?

Slash, box, slash.

Now, for a little drama where we really test

the limits of this experiment.

Will he have any recollection of his actions?

Oh my God!

call 911!

2

Call 911!

Wait, wait, wait, uh, what did-- what did, um...

What was the drink that you just gave him?

I gave him a latte.

I'm so-- if you don't mind,

if you could just put this on hold for one second,

if you could just stand over here.

Did you see what happened? I know you were doing the...

Uh, I just heard him collapse. That was it.

- [bleep] - Maybe we just sleep deep, all the way down, deeper and deeper,

deeper and deeper, all the way down deeper and deeper.

And the deeper you go, the better it feels.

Everything is fine. Completely safe.

Everybody's OK.

OK. We're good.

In a moment, you're gonna wake up.

And when you open your eyes,

everything will be completely normal to you.

If anybody were to ask you what happened,

you would just remember working on the iPad.

As I say, one, two, wide awake.

Open your eyes. Good, feeling great.

Clyde, I need you to get up for me, brother.

- You feeling OK? - Yeah, I'm good.

Did you see that guy come in?

No, I was doing work on the iPad over here.

I don't remember much of anything.

- Can you come with me? - Yeah.

I want to show you what's on the other side of the skirt.

Hey, welcome backstage. I'm Andy.

How you doing? I'm Clyde.

- Clyde, nice to meet you. - Pleasure.

Do you know this guy?

- No. - We've obviously been filming all of this.

I mean, you are aware that we have been doing experiments

in hypnosis, but there might have been some other things

that happened tonight, um...

that you weren't aware of. Can you have a seat right here?

- Sure. - Come on, man.

So what we have here is a replay of what was happening

just a few minutes ago. - OK.

I got a latte up.

Thank you.

- Do you have a sugar packet? - The f...?

- Why did I do that? - What did you put in my drink?

I-- I don't know.

Do you remember putting that in my drink?

No, I see that I did.

I don't know what it was or why I even got up.

I...

I don't know.

Let's just watch this part.

Call 911!

Did somebody call?

- Oh, my God. - So this just happened to you?

I-- I don't know what went into the cup.

Andrew.

I didn't even know I had anything...

- Do you recall this event? - No.

I-- I was sitting down at the table working on my iPad.

You have no memory of this?

You're talking to Max right now.

I want you to sleep, all the way down, deeper and deeper, deeper.

I mean, I can't argue with what I'm seeing...

In a moment, you're gonna wake up.

...but I don't remember it.

How does it feel right now where you have one memory,

but you're watching completely different evidence?

It's scary.

It's almost like two different truths.

Where is the glass vial that you used on my drink?

- I don't know. - Can you check your pockets?

Oh, [bleep].

OK. I guess that's it right there.

But I don't remember it.

Imagine, in the moment of all that chaos,

if a police officer came in the room

and that police officer said,

"Did anybody see what happened?"

And someone showed that video

to the police officer.

What do you think the next thing they're gonna do is?

I'm done.

What do you think anyone would think if they heard you say

something to the tune of, "I don't remember,

I didn't have any control, maybe I was hypnotized"?

What would someone's reaction be to a statement like that?

They're gonna think I'm lying.

Right. For the record, he's perfectly safe.

And you didn't harm me in any way.

- In any way. - OK, thank God.

And there is a point to all of this,

and you did a phenomenal job.

Maybe it's time to tell Clyde who you are.

So my name is Andrew Bustamante.

- OK. - I'm a former CIA intelligence officer.

And we are here doing an experiment...

- OK. - ...to test whether or not part of the MKUltra experiments

were ever successful. Are you familiar with MKUltra?

They used drugs--

- Drugs, frequency, I think acid, different kind of experiments. - Yes.

To try to take control of a person's mind.

- Right. - They also tested hypnosis.

Wow.

But one of the hardest things to find is any evidence

or declassified documents related

to their hypnosis experiments.

So we know they used it, but we don't actually know

what they did with it or if it was successful.

And you just participated in an experiment that shows

how possible it is that this technique is still being used

in government operations. - That's wild.

Thank you for your service.

- You did great. - Thank you.

You did great, man. I appreciate you.

- I appreciate you very much. - Thank you.

I promised you I would spend some time with you,

and if you'd like, I can do that with you right now.

No strings, no hidden agenda.

I'd love to go inside with you and just make

a few more changes. - Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, OK. Let's do it.

One of Max's strengths is showing people the power

of hypnosis to work through personal struggles,

so he's giving Clyde a personal hypnotherapy session.

What is the one belief that you hold

that is holding you back

from being the best version of yourself?

See yourself holding on to a heavy bag, and in that bag

is both this belief that you need to let go of,

"I'm not good enough," and also anything else that you need

to load into it. Any regret, any fear,

you load it up in that bag and it's heavy.

Hypnosis is powerful.

But if you can be strong now in this moment,

you're only gonna have to carry it one last time,

and then you'll be free of it forever.

It can create an assassin,

but it can also do things as simple as fixing bad habits.

Three, feel the energy of this universe filling you up.

Four, five, open your eyes. Wide awake, feeling great.

And as complex as healing past traumas.

- This was a crazy experience. - Yeah.

I don't even know.

This is like once in a lifetime.

Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.

Max has shown hypnosis requires

a few key ingredients--

attention, authority, and emotional framing.

And in the wake of our experiment, when I think of

mind control in our world today, I realize

those same ingredients exist somewhere else,

in something we all use every day.

2 What has this experience taught you about the MKUltra program?

I mean, if there was ever a question of whether you could

get someone to do something, that's against their morals

or their own personal boundaries,

I think unequivocally the answer is there's no limit.

So if we were able to do this with 48 hours of planning,

imagine what the government could do...

weeks or months with a subject.

If you would have had a week instead of 30 minutes,

would the outcome have been

greater, more complex, more impactful?

If I had more time with a subject,

I would be comfortable...

setting the task in motion and leaving the room or maybe

never being in the building in the first place.

I have no doubt that during the MKUltra program they found

the same thing that we found and that's the reason

you've never heard about it.

Do you believe that there might be hypnotized assassins

floating around in the world right now?

A hundred percent.

And once they are caught, as soon as they start telling

people that they were hypnotized or they don't

remember what they were doing, what's the first thing

everyone thinks? - You're crazy.

You're crazy.

They don't remember anyone they met.

They don't remember even what they did.

They don't even remember their own actions.

Who are they gonna blame?

That is the ultimate disposable asset.

So much of this reminds me of Sirhan Sirhan

and the assassination of RFK Sr., because even to this day,

Sirhan Sirhan says he just doesn't remember.

He doesn't claim any emotional connection at all.

He doesn't say he's angry about it.

He doesn't say he's sad about it.

He just says there was this block of time

that he doesn't remember.

It perfectly aligns with what we just observed.

I don't remember aiming at any human being.

I don't remember any of that. I'm sorry.

And I've said that from the get-go.

The experiment with Max proves that not only is it possible

that mind control could have been used by MKUltra,

but that the likelihood of it being deployed in some capacity

today would not be a stretch of the imagination.

Which brings us back to Thomas Crooks.

Was he a mind-controlled killer?

There's no hard evidence he was programmed.

And unlike Sirhan Sirhan, Thomas Crooks isn't here

to speak for himself.

But we do know this, his behavior changed.

And it changed in an environment

designed to do exactly that.

I'm not into conspiracy.

Hundreds of spectators in on this plot.

He's a maniac. He's a maniac.

Thomas Crooks fits a profile intelligence agencies

have flagged for years.

A young man, isolated, disaffected,

and chronically online.

Could internet radicalization be the modern-day version

of mind control?

How else would you explain

the radical change in Crooks' political views?

Something happened to make him become rabidly anti-Trump.

Radicalization rarely feels dramatic from the inside.

It's incremental.

One video, one thread, one comment at a time.

Until the belief that you held most strongly is replaced.

And it feels like it was your idea all along.

If the essential ingredients for mind control are

attention, authority, and emotional framing,

modern-day algorithms check every box.

They decide what we see, what we hear,

what we're told matters.

So even if Thomas Crooks wasn't programmed,

he was very likely primed.

Because mind control didn't disappear.

It just evolved...

into this.