The Washington Post
Navigation Bar
Navigation Bar

Partners:
Related Items
In the Vault
  • Previous columns

    On Our Site

  • Arkin's Fog of War and Desert Fox Iraq analysis

    On the Web

  • Resources from Arkin's "The U.S. Military Online"
  •   When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing

        Bill Arkin

    By William M. Arkin
    Special to washingtonpost.com
    Monday, Feb. 1, 1999

    "Gentlemen! We have called you together to inform you that we are going to overthrow the United States government." So begins a statement being delivered by Gen. Carl W. Steiner, former Commander-in-chief, U.S. Special Operations Command.

    At least the voice sounds amazingly like him.

    But it is not Steiner. It is the result of voice "morphing" technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

    By taking just a 10-minute digital recording of Steiner's voice, scientist George Papcun is able, in near real time, to clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile. Steiner was so impressed, he asked for a copy of the tape.

    Steiner was hardly the first or last victim to be spoofed by Papcun's team members. To refine their method, they took various high quality recordings of generals and experimented with creating fake statements. One of the most memorable is Colin Powell stating "I am being treated well by my captors."

    "They chose to have him say something he would never otherwise have said," chuckled one of Papcun's colleagues.

    A Box of Chocolates is Like War


    Most Americans were introduced to the tricks of the digital age in the movie Forrest Gump, when the character played by Tom Hanks appeared to shake hands with President Kennedy.

    For Hollywood, it is special effects. For covert operators in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, it is a weapon of the future.

    "Once you can take any kind of information and reduce it into ones and zeros, you can do some pretty interesting things," says Daniel T. Kuehl, chairman of the Information Operations department of the National Defense University in Washington, the military's school for information warfare.


    PSYOPS seeks to exploit human vulnerabilities in enemy governments, militaries and populations.

    Digital morphing — voice, video, and photo — has come of age, available for use in psychological operations. PSYOPS, as the military calls it, seek to exploit human vulnerabilities in enemy governments, militaries and populations to pursue national and battlefield objectives.

    To some, PSYOPS is a backwater military discipline of leaflet dropping and radio propaganda. To a growing group of information war technologists, it is the nexus of fantasy and reality. Being able to manufacture convincing audio or video, they say, might be the difference in a successful military operation or coup.

    Allah on the Holodeck


    Pentagon planners started to discuss digital morphing after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Covert operators kicked around the idea of creating a computer-faked videotape of Saddam Hussein crying or showing other such manly weaknesses, or in some sexually compromising situation. The nascent plan was for the tapes to be flooded into Iraq and the Arab world.

    The tape war never proceeded, killed, participants say, by bureaucratic fights over jurisdiction, skepticism over the technology, and concerns raised by Arab coalition partners.


    What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad?

    But the "strategic" PSYOPS scheming didn't die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?

    According to a military physicist given the task of looking into the hologram idea, the feasibility had been established of projecting large, three-dimensional objects that appeared to float in the air.

    But doing so over the skies of Iraq? To project such a hologram over Baghdad on the order of several hundred feet, they calculated, would take a mirror more than a mile square in space, as well as huge projectors and power sources.

    And besides, investigators came back, what does Allah look like?

    The Gulf War hologram story might be dismissed were it not the case that washingtonpost.com has learned that a super secret program was established in 1994 to pursue the very technology for PSYOPS application. The "Holographic Projector" is described in a classified Air Force document as a system to "project information power from space ... for special operations deception missions."

    War is Like a Box of Chocolates


    Voice-morphing? Fake video? Holographic projection? They sound more like Mission Impossible and Star Trek gimmicks than weapons. Yet for each, there are corresponding and growing research efforts as the technologies improve and offensive information warfare expands.

    Whereas early voice morphing required cutting and pasting speech to put letters or words together to make a composite, Papcun's software developed at Los Alamos can far more accurately replicate the way one actually speaks. Eliminated are the robotic intonations.

    The irony is that after Papcun finished his speech cloning research, there were no takers in the military. Luckily for him, Hollywood is interested: The promise of creating a virtual Clark Gable is mightier than the sword.

    Video and photo manipulation has already raised profound questions of authenticity for the journalistic world. With audio joining the mix, it is not only journalists but also privacy advocates and the conspiracy-minded who will no doubt ponder the worrisome mischief that lurks in the not too distant future.

    "We already know that seeing isn't necessarily believing," says Dan Kuehl, "now I guess hearing isn't either."


    William M. Arkin, author of "The U.S. Military Online," is a leading expert on national security and the Internet. He lectures and writes on nuclear weapons, military matters and information warfare. An Army intelligence analyst from 1974-1978, Arkin currently consults for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, MSNBC and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    Arkin can be reached for comment at william_arkin@washingtonpost.com.

    © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

    Back to the top

    Navigation Bar
    Navigation Bar
     


    See also:
    Did NORAD Send The "Suicide" Jets? Part 1:  Inside Job
    by Carol A. Valentine, February 12, 2002
    NORAD, charged with keeping American skies safe, didn't show up on September 11, leaving the remote controlled jets to do their work.  Coincidentally, NORAD is one of the world's experts on remote controlled aircraft.  NORAD had the means, and provided the opportunity, for making 9-11 happen. Discussion of radar anomalies. 
    Did NORAD Send The "Suicide" Jets?  Part 2: The Dumb Blondes
    by Carol A. Valentine, February 25, 2002
    NORAD claims it sent defensive jets aloft on 9-11, but America's top generals give contradictory accounts before the Senate.  They act like dumb blondes — they can scarcely remember which plane hit which target. NORAD blames the FAA for the catastrophe, but the Senate doesn't bother calling the FAA.  More radar anomalies. 
    When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing
    by William M. Arkin, in a guest appearance, February 1, 1999
    But what about the cell phone calls to relatives from passengers on the doomed planes?  The Special Operations Command gives us the answer to that question — but it's not the same answer you heard on network news. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm
    Flight Of The Bumble Planes
    by Snake Plissken, as told to Carol A. Valentine, March 10, 2002
    Snake Plissken tells us how remote controlled planes and radar trickery were used to pull off Operation 9-11. "Magic is the pretended performance of those things which cannot be done."  By George, I think he's got it! 
    Pentagon RESCUE?  Parts I through IV: Open, Bloody Questions . . .
    by Carol A. Valentine, June 23, 2002
    On 9-11, the most important mission was to extinguish the fire and rescue the victims.  So why did they spray water on an aviation fuel fire?  Instead of lifting the debris off the victims, why did they use a wrecking ball to collapse the ruins on top of them?  Your journey begins here . . .
    Pentagon RESCUE?  Part V: The Seven Minute Fire
    by Carol A. Valentine, August 18, 2002
    After the publication of "Pentagon RESCUE?  Part IV: Open, Bloody Questions," the Ministry of Truth publicized a little-known article claiming foam was used on 9-11, and that the "bulk" of the fire was extinguished in seven minutes!  Then what did we all watch on TV, burning for days after? 
    Taliban Home Video
        by Carol A. Valentine, October 15, 2001
    If the US and its pals could fake such a video — and they're easy to fake, either with morphing or stand-in impersonators — why wouldn't they?  And they did. 
    9/11 Terror: Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics!
    by J. McMichael, October 23, 2001
    Using jet fuel to melt steel is an amazing discovery, really.  It is also amazing that until now, no one had been able to get it to work, and that proves the terrorists were not stupid people. 
    Press Uses Actors in War On Islam
    by Carol a. Valentine, November 11, 2001
    The Washington Times has faked two photos in its coverage of the War On Islam. One actor was used twice: first cast as an enemy of America, then nine days later, as a friend of America. 
    Tooth Fairies and Suicide Bombers
    by Carol A. Valentine, May 9, 2002
    Why would vengeful Palestinians blow themselves up?  Why not just leave the package, walk away, and strike again next week?  Funny how the Israelis identify the bombers immediately, and distribute nice color portrait shots of the culprits immediately.  Funny, the IRA didn't use suicide bombers.  Other funny things. 
    Merry Christmas, and OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!
    by Carol A. Valentine, May 15, 2002
    What does the establishment of a world-wide Jewish theocracy have to do with the events of 9-11?  Everything.  If the Jews who rule America have their way, freedom of religion will soon be a thing of the past, and rabbinical courts will rule the world. 
    911 Lawsuit Is A Booby Trap
    by Carol A. Valentine, March 3, 2004
    Mrs. Ellen Mariani, a 911 widow, has filed a RICO suit against George W. Bush et al. to discover the truth about 911.  But her lawyer, Philip J. Berg, has written a complaint that protects the real culprits.  It is littered with gross errors and malpractice.  Berg is a suicide bus driver taking Ellen Mariani's quest for truth on a one-way trip to oblivion.
    See other 9-11 articles by Carol A. Valentine at http://www.holocausts.org