vault backup: 2026-09-21 23:37:10

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John B. Alexander.md

@@ -1,11 +1,13 @@
 ---
 created: 2026-05-15
-updated: 2026-05-17
+updated: 2026-09-21
 title: John B. Alexander
 aliases:
   - John B. Alexander
   - Lieutenant Colonel John B. Alexander
   - Colonel John Alexander
+  - Col. John B. Alexander
+  - John Alexander
 category: "Military"
 tags:
   - Person
@@ -16,7 +18,7 @@ tags:
   - Army
   - 1980s
   - 1990s
-summary: "John B. Alexander was a Green Beret colonel and Special Forces Vietnam veteran who authored the 1980 Military Review article on psychic warfare, ran INSCOM's Advanced Human Technology Office under Albert Stubblebine, and became one of the most prominent advocates for non-lethal weapons and anomalous phenomena research within the U.S. military establishment."
+summary: "Army lieutenant colonel who published The New Mental Battlefield in Military Review in 1980, served under Stubblebine at INSCOM during Center Lane, and later ran non-lethal weapons work at Los Alamos."
 born: 1937-01-01
 location: "New York, New York"
 ---
@@ -25,7 +27,7 @@ Lieutenant Colonel John B. Alexander is a former Green Beret and Special Forces
 
 In December 1980, Alexander authored an article titled "The New Mental Battlefield: Beam Me Up, Spock," published in *Military Review*, an official U.S. Army publication. This article was the first time [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] and [[Psychokinesis|PK]] were discussed in an official Army publication, asserting that "there are weapons systems that operate on the power of the mind whose lethal capacity has already been demonstrated"[^1]. The article, based on personal experience and open-source information, gained national attention after *Washington Post* columnist [[Jack Anderson]] wrote about it under the heading "Voodoo Warriors of the Pentagon"[^1].
 
-Alexander's esoteric interests caught the attention of Task Force Delta, a high-level Army organization. In 1981, [[Richard G. Stilwell]], the deputy undersecretary of defense, arranged for Alexander's transfer to [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] under Major General [[Albert Stubblebine]]. Here, Alexander was put in charge of the Advanced Human Technology Office, interacting with Stubblebine's High Performance Task Force[^1].
+Alexander's esoteric interests caught the attention of [[First Earth Battalion|Task Force Delta]], a high-level Army organization. In 1981, [[Richard G. Stilwell]], the deputy undersecretary of defense, arranged for Alexander's transfer to [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] under Major General [[Albert Stubblebine]]. Here, Alexander was put in charge of the Advanced Human Technology Office, interacting with Stubblebine's High Performance Task Force[^1].
 
 Alexander's work at INSCOM focused on developing human technologies to enhance soldier performance and narrow the "human technology gap." He explored various new age and self-help programs, including sleep discipline, neurolinguistic programming, and Silva Mind Control[^1].
 
@@ -36,5 +38,21 @@ After retiring from the military, Alexander joined [[Psi]]'s corporate board in
 ### Publications
 *   "The New Mental Battlefield: Beam Me Up, Spock" (*Military Review*, 1980)
 
+### The Documents
+
+John B. Alexander, a lieutenant colonel of the [[United States Army|Army]] who had served with the Special Forces in Thailand and Vietnam, published "The New Mental Battlefield: 'Beam Me Up, Spock'" in *[[Military Review]]* in December 1980. Its author note placed him on the staff of the Army's inspector general in Washington after heading the human resources division of the organizational effectiveness office at [[Fort McPherson]].[^2]
+
+### INSCOM
+
+He served under Major General Albert Stubblebine at INSCOM during the [[Center Lane]] years. The project manager's record of a meeting with Stubblebine on November 30, 1983, notes "an update on the RAPT training" and that the general "confirmed his decision to hold a 'bonding' ceremony and that it would be lead by LTC Alexander." At a meeting on January 6, 1984, the "recent LTC Alexander problem concerning the debriefing of Russell Targ" was raised: "The CG stated that he was unaware that there was a problem as he had not instructed LTC Alexander to debrief [[Russell Targ|Targ]] because Alexander was not a trained intelligence officer. The CG stated that he would get with Alexander and resolve the issue."[^3]
+
+### Afterward
+
+He retired as a colonel in 1988, his last post the advanced systems concepts office of the Army Laboratory Command, and went to [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]], where he worked on non-lethal weapons with [[Janet Morris]] of the [[U.S. Global Strategy Council]], the body chaired by [[Ray Cline]]. His books include *The Warrior's Edge* (1990, with Richard Groller and Janet Morris), *Future War* (1999), and *UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities* (2011).[^4]
+
 ### Footnotes
+
 [^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
+[^2]: *Military Review,* vol. 60, 1980, annual index, archive.org item sim_military-review_1980_60_index; the December 1980 issue itself was not obtained. Author note as summarized in search results, not read in the original.
+[^3]: Buzby, Brian, memoranda for the record, "Initial Grill Flame Briefing to MG Stubblebine as CG, INSCOM, 30 June 1981" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220001-0), "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0), and "Meeting with MG Stubblebine on 6 January 1984" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220009-2). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
+[^4]: Career details from Alexander's own books and publishers' biographical notes, not verified against service records.