Project Artichoke – When the CIA Tried to Create Mind Slaves
I didn't get this from a YouTube video, nor is it a creepypasta. I discovered it one night while searching for information on MK-Ultra… and ended up finding something much worse.
It's called Project ARTICHOKE.
And if you've never heard of it, it's not your fault. The CIA did its best to bury it.
It all started in 1951, during the Cold War.
The paranoia about "communist spies" was so strong that the CIA began researching how to break the human mind. They wanted to know if they could create a programmed assassin, someone who would kill unknowingly, without remembering anything afterward.
Like "The Fear Candidate," but real.
They used hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, mescaline, and scopolamine, combined with deep hypnosis. Sometimes even sleep deprivation, psychological torture, or physical trauma. The sick thing is that they didn't ask permission. Not even from their own agents.
Prisoners, mentally ill people, immigrants… they all served.
They were experimental fodder.
A leaked file said this, verbatim:
“Can we control an individual to the point where they would perform an extreme action against their will, even murder?”
And their answer was:
“Yes.”
There was one case that chilled my blood.
A woman under hypnosis was convinced that her daughter was just a doll.
She was told to destroy it.
She obeyed.
They arrested her before the worst could happen.
But she tried.
Another guy thought he was dead. Not metaphorically, literally dead.
For three days, he didn't speak, he didn't react. When he came back, he didn't know who he was. He just said:
“The door was open. I didn't want to go in.”
They never explained which “door.”
When MK-Ultra broke out in the 1970s, the CIA had already destroyed most of the Artichoke documents. But due to a mistake, some survived.
It's called Project ARTICHOKE.
And if you've never heard of it, it's not your fault. The CIA did its best to bury it.
It all started in 1951, during the Cold War.
The paranoia about "communist spies" was so strong that the CIA began researching how to break the human mind. They wanted to know if they could create a programmed assassin, someone who would kill unknowingly, without remembering anything afterward.
Like "The Fear Candidate," but real.
They used hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, mescaline, and scopolamine, combined with deep hypnosis. Sometimes even sleep deprivation, psychological torture, or physical trauma. The sick thing is that they didn't ask permission. Not even from their own agents.
Prisoners, mentally ill people, immigrants… they all served.
They were experimental fodder.
A leaked file said this, verbatim:
“Can we control an individual to the point where they would perform an extreme action against their will, even murder?”
And their answer was:
“Yes.”
There was one case that chilled my blood.
A woman under hypnosis was convinced that her daughter was just a doll.
She was told to destroy it.
She obeyed.
They arrested her before the worst could happen.
But she tried.
Another guy thought he was dead. Not metaphorically, literally dead.
For three days, he didn't speak, he didn't react. When he came back, he didn't know who he was. He just said:
“The door was open. I didn't want to go in.”
They never explained which “door.”
When MK-Ultra broke out in the 1970s, the CIA had already destroyed most of the Artichoke documents. But due to a mistake, some survived.
