THE ZERO FILES Shadowy realms of mind control and paranoia, all in the hands of the FBI
- Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, November 30, 2003 What I am about to write will sound like a total paranoid fantasy, I had even come to believe that myself and was about to take steps to get an evaluation for myself as I was frightened I was going mad. ... I ask you to help in any way you can. -- From the FBI's Zero Files, 11/19/96-- -- --. They are, in a way, the real-world equivalent of television's "X-Files," the fictional secret collection of FBI cases involving alien abductions and grand conspiracies that kept legions of fans entertained for nearly a decade. But while Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have long since retired to the compost bin of syndication, the FBI's Zero Files thrive in obscurity -- remaining, in their own way, very real. They exist on nondescript shelves deep in the archives of FBI offices in San Francisco and across the nation, within thick file folders tucked anonymously among thousands of manila clones. And until now, when The Chronicle received permission to examine the folders, the Zero Files had never been opened to public review. Most of the folders in the FBI archives contain the details of closed homicide cases and long-solved bank robberies, rarely seen as they await judgment day or the office shredder. But the Zero Files, each marked with a case number containing the digit "0" in its heart, are different -- very different. They are letters, faxes, e-mails and photographs, diagrams and maps, legal papers and photocopies. Some are a single scrap of scribbled paper, others reams of carefully typed explanation, replete with references and footnotes. Some were forwarded to the FBI by courts, police officers or businesses; most were submitted to the bureau by the authors themselves. Each describes a unique delusion, a single person's fantasy committed to paper and recorded for posterity. Conspiracy theories. Claims of paranormal abilities. Celebrity fantasies. To flip through the Zero Files is to peer into a palimpsest of lunacy, a travelogue of realms where the residents wish very much to leave.-- -- -- I had a visit yesterday from two gentlemen who said they were from the SECRET SERVICE! They were looking for the HAMBURGLAR who said the PRESIDENT might choke on a CHEESEBURGER on AIR FORCE ONE! No wonder they can't balance a TRILLION DOLLAR BUDGET in DC, they have to check out all the MCDONALDS in AMERICA for the DEADLY CHEESEBURGER that might KILL the PRESIDENT! This is not a JOKE! -- From the Zero Files, 8/15/1995-- -- -- Almost anything can be a Zero File -- the phrase simply refers to items received by the FBI that are "non-actionable," and can include anything from cases handed off to local police to "attaboys" from other agencies. But when agents refer to the Zero Files amongst themselves, and joke about whose turn it is to feed the captive alien, they are almost always referring to a special category of report -- one that almost defies further description.-- -- -- Recently, before these terrorist acts, I made a usual request that you investigate the Necronomicon. I do not know if you took me seriously, as I realize you are still enslaved by the physical realm and refuse to open your mind to this spiritual war that is clearly discussed in Revelations, but in case you did, I wanted to add a little information. -- From the Zero Files, 10/22/2001-- -- -- Nobody within the bureau has an exact count of how many Zero Files the FBI has stashed away across the nation, but the agency's San Francisco office, a midsize bureau, has a database listing 17,000 items stretching back to the 1970s. And the files demand far more from the FBI than mere shelf space. Each Zero File item landed there only after passing across the desk of at least one agent who spent time making sure it did not relate to any active investigation, represent a threat or offer any avenues for future investigation. "A piece of paper was generated for each one of these, and somebody had to review it," said FBI special agent Pete LeFranchise. Most agents come to know repeat writers -- "frequent fliers" -- after a few shifts on the duty desk. A glance through the files shows that some agents found themselves acting as counselors of last resort. "It's almost like being a social worker when you're on the desk," LeFranchise said. "There's probably been at least three or four times . . . where I've just had to say, 'Look, sir, you need to seek clinical or psychiatric help.' "-- -- -- Jensen called resident agency with nonspecific complaints about surveillance and mind control. . . . Someone was communicating with him via subliminal messages over the company public address system, attempting to control his thoughts. . . . Jensen denied being under doctor's care and it was suggested he should be. -- From the Zero Files, undated-- -- -- Some files, however, are eerie in their seeming prescience or certainty: the poem from a young man that seems to hint at the massacre at Columbine High School, the anonymous caller offering impossible theories of a conspiracy involving the CIA who leaves a return phone number that connects to an internal CIA office number. This, the FBI says, is the reason the Zero Files stay out of the circular file, why they are searchable and cross-referenced. The Zero Files are kept, agents say, because you just never know.-- -- -- Subject: Increased security at airports due to Islamic terrorist activity due anytime. . . . It is my personal opinion that if Hamas and Hezbollah are planning a 'joint venture' the most logical day may very well be this week. . . . I feel Islam declared WWIII on America with the World Trade Center bombing and we just haven't awakened. -- From the Zero Files, 8/14/1995-- -- -- To those who study the vagaries of the human mind, the Zero Files are a kind of disorganized textbook, orderless definitions for a dictionary whose entries include terms like "systematized delusions," "delusional disorder" and that old chestnut, "paranoid schizophrenia." Experts who reviewed excerpts of the files said that despite the grand variety of language, content and topic, many of the authors shared certain characteristics common to delusional disorders. Leading those, they say, is the view that the world is a hostile place, filled with persecutors and conspirators, a world where the writer holds a special place as victim, savior, or both. In such a world, the experts said, everything has personal significance, everything is a hint to the grand plan, from the type of lettering used on a can of instant coffee at the grocery store to the nightly adventures on television sitcoms.-- -- -- People such as Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Harry Anderson, Richard Starkey, Rod Stewart, Rachel Hunter, Tom Petty, George Lucas, Jack Nicholson, Natalie Merchant, Sting, Sheryl Crow, Michael Eisner, Amy Grant, Will Clark, Troy Aikman, Zack, Patrick Swayze and wife, Bob Dylan, Woody Harrelson, Al Franken, Rosie O'Donnell, Ivana Trump, some members of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd . . . have watched me in the privacy of my own home off and on for several years. -- From the Zero Files, 12/2/1996-- -- -- "They tend to interpret it from their assumption," said Lisa Butler, a senior research scholar with the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. "Their assumptions are wrong, but the way they take in the world actually makes more sense if you understand the assumptions.'' In a world where everyday experiences are part of a secretive criminal conspiracy, the experts said, little wonder that the FBI -- a secretive organization that specializes in uncovering such conspiracies -- would attract attention, either as enemy or friend. Imagine, one expert said, what the CIA has in its version of the Zero Files. Another unifying thread in the files, the experts said, is the number of writers who seem to know that they are suffering from a mental illness -- or at least that others think they are. But when you see the world through a lens where Steven Spielberg can be plotting against you, the experts said, so can the doctor who is trying to help. No matter how it looks to outsiders, living in that world is very real -- and very frightening. Which might explain why so many people want out.-- -- -- My mind is being toyed with. I started hearing all these people talking up through me. My mind is being talked to a little as I write this letter now. . . . I need a little help with this could you please help. -- From theZero Files, 3/13/1996-- -- -- To Todd Gitlin, a media sociologist at Columbia University, that thread of hope for help is the most remarkable thing about the Zero Files. "What's poignant about these excerpts is that all these people think there's an agency capable of addressing their various paranoias," Gitlin wrote in an e-mail. "For all that we're supposed to be living in a period of antiauthoritarian skepticism, these people have a touching faith in authority. "They not only think the world makes sense (the hyper-rational faith of all paranoids), they think the FBI will recognize their hyper-rational deductions and act on them. "As I say -- in a way, it's touching." Or is it?-- -- -- I am literally on the run, sleeping under trees, and enduring unremittant surveillance. The authorities grow more desperate to discredit me with each passing day now that they know my intent of taking this story public. . . . As one person said, "It sounds like a delusional disorder.'' That is exactly what the FBI would like you to believe. -- From the Zero Files, 7/10/1997 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ZERO FILES THE ZERO FILES The Zero Files are documented evidence kept deep in the archives of FBI field offices nationwide that records delusional fantasies, conspiracy theories, paranormal claims and other potential threats to society that were written down and sent to the federal investigative unit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Again I am reporting on a rogue group so bent on harassment of me that it is going to end up with them running down a group of kids in their frenzied attempts ... And don't be so naive as to think there is this whole platoon of thugs in their fancy cars just for me. (9/5/1995) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a very important issue in my life related to black magic ... a group ofblack magicians have wrecked ... me for 6 1/2 years ... these black magiciansoperate on the subconscious minds of people without their knowledge ... Ineed a very big help. (9/4/1996) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why do they want to destroy me? It is because I am a Romanov. I am the first born daughter and sole heir to a Romanov king and the missing Russian princess, and it is this position that Nathalie Allen and the others want. (8/26/1996) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It turns out every one of the products on the market take part in this so called government training. The Folgers jar classic roast is capital F for Federal means gov't, FO LGE RE is broke into 3 sections FO is ENEMY RS is ours and and LGE backwards is EGL sounds out EAGLE says gov't our enemy. (9/14/01) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, $200,000 (cocaine tainted, cashed at Sunnyvale branch of Wells Fargo Bank) cash was somehow paid by Bill Clinton to a female KGB agent. ... She left the cash in the vehicle and got out of her vehicle with a briefcase with a machine gun in it and she allegedly shot at 200 5-6 year old boys ... who were rushed to Stanford Hospital. (4/5/2001) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well it's me again I would like to know what the hell you are trying to proveby using a microwave transmitter on me night and day 7 days a week for going on 14 months now. (12/20/2000) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm going to rob somebody at a ATM I'm going to need the money when I quit my ... job. ... I'm not being nice anymore. ... KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL ... (1/28/1997) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am literally on the run, sleeping under trees, and enduring unremittant surveillance. The authorities grow more desperate to discredit me with each passing day now that they know my intent of taking this story public. ... You see, the man I reported as a possible suspect in the Green River Serial Murders had the highest national security clearence possible. He had been in charge of nuclear weapon deployment in Germany in the late 1970s. As one person said, "It sounds like a delusional disorder.'' That is exactly what the FBI would like you to believe. ... Approximately one year ago they managed to implant a microscopic camera and brainwave-sensing device into a lens placed into my eye during routine cataract surgery. (7/10/1997) E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Page A - 25 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/30/BAGTO3D4VH1.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/30/BAGTO3D4VH1.DTL&type=printable ~~~ more fbi pages: http://p076.ezboard.com/fcrtfcrtfmainforum.showMessage?topicID=2628.topic The photos by Brian Pain: http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/report/columbinereport/pages/para_shots_pics.htm http://p076.ezboard.com/The-photos-by-Brian-Pain/fcrtfcrtfmainforum.showMessage?topicID=2577.topic narrative TIME line OF events http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/report/columbinereport/pages/narrative_time_line2.htm
