31 August 2008

The curious case of General Stubblebine

This morning I was listening to a TED talk by Richard Dawkins ("The universe is queerer than we can suppose"); during his presentation he referred to Major General Albert Stubblebine. The anecdote is included in a book entitled "The Men Who Stare at Goats". Herewith a brief excerpt:
He stands up, moves out from behind his desk, and begins to walk.

I mean, he thinks, what is the atom mostly made up of anyway? Space!

He quickens his pace.

What am I mostly made up of? he thinks. Atoms!

He is almost at a jog now.

What is the wall mostly made up of? he thinks. Atoms! All I have to do is merge the spaces. The wall is an illusion…

Then General Stubblebine bangs his nose hard on the wall of his office.

Damn, he thinks.

General Stubblebine is confounded by his continual failure to walk through his wall...

In the Special Forces Command Center, the general decides to start soft. "I'm coming down here with an idea," he begins.

The Special Forces commanders nod.

"If you have a unit operating outside the protection of mainline units, what happens if somebody gets hurt?" he says. "What happens if somebody gets wounded? How do you deal with that?"

He surveys the blank faces around the room.

"Psychic healing!" he says.

There is a silence...


General Stubblebine rifles through his bag and produces, with a flourish, bent cutlery.

"What if you could do this?" says General Stubblebine. "Would you be interested?"

There is a silence...

4 comments:

  1. Stubblebine, I believe, is what is known as a cointelpro opperative, a plant designed to discredit (anti-establishment) political movements by his PROMOTION of the OBSURD.. A disinfo agent lacing the facts about various alternative theories and viewpoints with poison. A ridiculous poison. If he is genuine, he is AN IDIOT!

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  2. Anonymous 1 must right. Otherwise Stubblebine would just be like all those other loonies who talk about 911 conspiracies.

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  3. Actually, he's a totally real person. Now he's into fluoride conspiracies. Here's his wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Stubblebine

    I am the very model of a modern major general...

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  4. Stubblebine is real, all right, but was forced to retire because he's a complete loon. He ran the staring-at-goats debacle, some absurd Remote Viewing fiascos costing millions, and claimed he could train soldiers to walk thru walls. One of the reasons he was fired was for letting completely UN-cleared psychic frauds work in a high-security SCIF (Secure compartmented Information Facility).

    He's unemployable now, dumped his wife of 30+ yrs in favor of a young ugly bimbo just as crazy as he is -- a "UFOlogist." Now he spends his time either selling "natural food" junk or preaching at UFO conventions about how his new wife was kidnapped by aliens.

    Googling him is really interesting.

    Most of us who worked with him in Army & DoD Intelligence knew he was a complete nutcase, but it took a long time for him to make it obvious to the Army leadership.

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