Walking into dark places

[khaosworks]

Body 'matches' Iraq expert

Police searching for the weapons expert suggested as the possible source for a BBC story on Iraq say the body they have found matches Dr David Kelly's appearance.

The body was found at 0920 BST by a member of the police team searching for Dr Kelly in a wooded area at Harrowdown Hill, near Faringdon, Oxfordshire.

The government has announced that if the body is formally identified as Dr Kelly, an independent judicial inquiry will be held into the circumstances surrounding his death.

Government adviser Dr Kelly, 59, went missing from his home in Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, at about 1500 BST on Thursday.

The body was found lying on the ground, around five miles from Dr Kelly's home, a police spokeswoman said.

Acting superintendent Dave Purnell confirmed that the body matched Dr Kelly's description in a brief news conference at 1430 BST.

Some of you who are conspiracy buffs or with long memories may recall that this isn't the first time a British weapons scientist associated with American interests has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, and you're right. Between 1982 and 1988, 22 British researchers working with the American Strategic Defence Initiative (Reagan's "Star Wars" project) died in strange and often gruesome circumstances - most of them ruled as suicides.

Conspiracy theories about the deaths revolve around Marconi Industries, the Thatcher government, defence-contract fraud, attempted whistle-blowing, left-wing terrorists trying to sabotage the SDI, a Russian death ray driving the scientists to suicide, and of course the inevitable aliens. There's also a link with "Alternative Three", one of the more elaborate hoaxes - or was it? - of our time. Interested readers are invited to googlize the net for more details.

More recently, 11 leading microbiologists died, also in mysterious circumstances between Novemember 2001 and March 2002. Some of them were leaders in the field of developing bioweapons. Others knowledgeable in stopping them. Others still, who were experts in bioterrorism theory. Aside from the conspiracy sites, this passed without much incident.

Not that it's anything but a remarkable coincidence, but the first SARS cases began a year later, in March 2003. I'm sure someone will make that connection eventually.

Human beings are pattern-seeking creatures. We see patterns in nature, in history, in things where patterns are never intended, where they do not exist. I sometimes think it's due to the same reason why people believe in a God, all evidence to the contrary - something in us wants not to believe in coincidence, in random chance, in meaningless chaos. Something in us wants to believe that there's something behind everything - that it was "meant to be", and that same something also births conspiracy theories.

But sometimes, you have to wonder if we dismiss these feelings at our peril.

After all, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Comments

[littleamerica.livejournal.com]

Twenty-two possible suicides out of fifty thousand employees over the course of six to seven years. What's the suicide rate per thousand for British men in midlife?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

According to this study in 1996, the suicide rate among men aged 24-35 was 25 per 100,000.

But is it as simple as that, though? I'm no statistician, but aren't the odds narrowed somewhat by considering that all of them worked on SDI and on related projects? Not that I take the ideas of conspiracy all that seriously, but one does flinch a bit at the coincidence - even the Americans did, which is why they demanded an investigation by the British authorities which went nowhere.

[littleamerica.livejournal.com]

It isn't that simple; I was just trying to put twenty-two dead bodies in some kind of context. The article you linked didn't really do that; the only number they gave that was at all helpful was the total number of employees of the company. I think what you'd want to do is identify how many Marconi employees work on SDI projects, how many were between the ages of twenty-two and sixty, the range of ages for the dead men whose ages are given, compare their suicide rate to that of a similar group of employees at a similar company or group of companies, and see if the differences are statistically significant.

It's a tough problem, and the answer is unlikely to be satisfying.

[eviltofu.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking "It's a CIA black ops thingy."

[osj.livejournal.com]

Just wanna say that the paragraph about humans wanting to see patterns in things is some of the truest and best-expressed writing I've ever seen from you...and that is going back all the way to when we were teenagers. Very well put, Terence.

(Okay, it also reminded me of Gibson's Idoru and Pattern Recognition - which is also very cool.)