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Trevor Paglan Speaks on the ‘Black World.”

by Frederic Richter

Tuesday December 30, 2008

Charles Zerner, Professor of Environmental studies, introduced the first of the “Dominance by Design” lecture series (5 lectures total) sponsored by the Marilyn Bishop Trust. Trevor Paglan had a unique background in numerous fields; trained in art, he received an MFA at the University of Chicago and recently received a PhD in geography from UC Berkley. His work has been featured in several gallery shows and is author of the books: I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems From The Pentagon’s Black World and Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights. Paglan heavily utilized the projection system in the room, and his first photo was a shot of the building at UC Berkley where he worked, John MaCone Hall, named after the former CIA director. He described a conversation he had with a gentleman in the hall, who had been an F-15 pilot. The discussion soon moved to the “red flag war game” in Nevada, and what’s called the “Nellis Range,” inside of which was “the box.” Even the military could not go anywhere near it. The man called this box part of the “Black World”. Paglan showed the Defense Department Budget, which is actually published, in accordance with the constitution and the requirement that all recipts be published. As a result, the budget is actually a public document, and to illustrate this Paglan shows us the recipts for toilets and other overt items. There is however a huge additional part of the budget, for research, development and other “gray areas.” It is when you start to examine these that one hits “weird” codenames, such as “Chalk Coral” or “Retract Elm”, at around $300 million each. The budgets climbed and one encountered blank space, with no particulars identified, some had “Classified” or even “no budget”. For the National Security Agency (NSA), an organization which some call jokingly “No Such Agency” the budget was $391 Million for one item, and the rest blank. Paglan has spent years collecting code-names, many quite witty and whacky, and now possesses 2,000, which he projected on the screen. Each one of these code-names represents millions of dollars. Paglan explained that something one with too much time on their hands can do is to add up all these items and compare it to the published total. Paglan determined that there is a discrepancy of approximately $30 Billion, which is the “Black Budget”. Paglan stated that with this secret budget, one could purchase 5 copies of the CA prison system, or save it for two years and buy a copy of the Chinese military. This, Paglan elaborated, is where his “day job” as a geographer comes in handy, as money doesn’t simply disappear, it, “congeals, shapes and sculpts the surface.” This gargantuan amount of money takes up space. There are two categories, “Black Bases” and “Gray” bases. Paglan asserted “Huge” amounts money congeal in the southwest, which economic geographers call, “The gun belt.” The southwest, Paglan asserted, has a long history as a “blank spot on the map,” which during the 19th century resembled the “Belgian Congo”. It is out of this history that much of the Black World emerged. It was cemented during WW2 and the extensive use of the area as a test ground for secret weapons. While the “BIG” project was the Atomic Bomb at Los Almos, there were many others. It was at this time that “laid the ground work for what became the black world,” which “didn’t go away at the end of the Second World War.” During the cold-war, the black-world existed as a subset of the military industrial complex, but not “super significant,” as it became during the Reagan Administration. Paglan postulated that at this time there was an emphasis on “the silver bullet,” and “during the 1980s,” the phrase “black world” creak into the vernacular. The infrastructure in the world aircraft development is unbelievable; Israel tried copy it but “barely escaped” with their economy. The fact that all these massive projects are developed and maintained secret is a feat of social engineering. The “fundamental contradiction,” with the black world is that it is made of the same materials as everything else. He used as an example flight tracking. If one wants to do something clandestinely, they establish a “front company.” Interestingly Paglan argued that by using civilian front companies, you could take advantage of international civilian laws, which are actually less strict than international military laws. If one wants to travel with impunity, Paglan said, it is best to be as a civilian. The issue is exposed when fake companies have to file the same paperwork as regular ones, such as the Civil Aircraft Landing Permit and other forms. He showed a list of companies with access to land at military and restricted bases, some actual companies, such as DHL, FedEx, etc. Yet companies began to appear on the list like “Richmor Aviation, Steven’s Express Leading, Rapid Air Trans,” etc, all with world wide, unrestricted clearance. This was the Rosetta stone, which Paglan used to track and reveal these companies. Paglan, a journalist and human rights groups tracked the registration numbers of these companies and planes, some had landed at, amongst other locations, Guantonomo Bay. When Paglan visited their purported HQ, he found a small building in suburban Boston and was quite evident it was a front. He didn’t “hear a story” but simply was thrown out when confronted. All the people employed at these companies were quite apparently aliases, given that their 1950’s birthdates but recent social-security numbers and no credit history. Despite the large differences amongst them, they all shared the same address, a PO box in suburban Virginia. These people were all “ghosts”. These were the individuals who conducted “renditions.” Paglan took all the aircraft routes and assembled them in a geographical pattern. Another big contradiction, which exposes this world, is that it is comprised of people. “Consider working in this world. You can’t tell your family where or what you do,” as he noted that “working in this world means you lie to your mom.” A large amount of camaraderie developed in this world, and they have established alumni associations, held reunions and conferences. Paglan himself had even become a member of many, and he attested to the awkwardness of attending a convention where there is such camaraderie but almost nothing can be discussed. One example was an award given for “significant achievement at a remote location.” Most of these secret units even had their own football teams, in a secret “black world football league.” Paglan visually demonstrated the fact that insignia, and its symbiology is a “huge part of this culture.” The numbers of different patches for “black projects” was quite literally dizzying and each one had its own nearly lyrical, covert meaning. For example the “Special Projects Flight Test Squad” had no number, but 5 stars and one on its own, indicating 51, ie “Area 51.” A lightening bolt represents electronic warfare, and a number of sword hilts doubled for the shape of aircraft. Some of the patches even mock the purported suggestions for Area 51’s involvement with aliens, some written in Klingon. One read, “tastes like chicken,” with an alien’s head, others included, “don’t ask,” “let them hate…so long as they fear.” One of the best was “Doing God’s Work with Other People’s Money,” and a patch for the National Reconaissance Office, which Paglan called the “Evil Twin of NASA.” The photos of these fascinating patches are collected in his book, mentioned previously. He showed a photo where there is a military base in the distant background around the physical limit of eyesight, a near complete abstraction. The visible language of the secret world started here to collapse into regular life, as at the end of the day, these people and airplanes come home and live in the same world we do, making it “Difficult to see where the secret world ends and our world begins.”