Debunked: FunVax, Pentagon Briefing on Removing the God Gene [Hoax]

[Mick West]

This is interesting, a video interview of the supposed "FunVax Scientist" (the guy with the DNA tie)

(Not Dean Hamer, who is a real person who popularized the "God Gene" idea).


Rather odd that they could get in contact with the scientist, ask him about his super secret world-shattering work, and post it on YouTube, but not get his name.

 

[Bill]

This is interesting, a video interview of the supposed "FunVax Scientist" (the guy with the DNA tie)

(Not Dean Hamer, who is a real person who popularized the "God Gene" idea).


Rather odd that they could get in contact with the scientist, ask him about his super secret world-shattering work, and post it on YouTube, but not get his name.

Everyone knows that when you are creating a new super-virus you hide the names of the people involved and not the technical information that would be useful in developing an antivirus.

 

[Leighton]

Everyone knows that when you are creating a new super-virus you hide the names of the people involved and not the technical information that would be useful in developing an antivirus.

Hi readers,

The man in the video says:

"so if someone asked me to design a vaccine"

Are you guys stating that he is the guy who developed the vaccine?

He is answering a hypothetical question asked of him: how would he go about the design of a vaccine, such as funvax...

So he is supposed to be an expert answering questions not the funvax scientist......

Am I missing something???


Please explain..

Thanks.

 

[Mick West]

Hi readers,

The man in the video says:

"so if someone asked me to design a vaccine"

Are you guys stating that he is the guy who developed the vaccine?

He is answering a hypothetical question asked of him: how would he go about the design of a vaccine, such as funvax...

So he is supposed to be an expert answering questions not the funvax scientist......

Am I missing something???


Please explain..

Thanks.

He's just an anonymous guy that is being used (knowingly or not) to perpetuate the story.

 

[Dan Wilson]

According to Carl Zimmer, the "god gene," VMAT2, has been implicated as such from only one unpublished, unreplicated study.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/faith-boosting-genes/

I, at first glance, would also doubt that one gene could either stop or grant an ability to feel spiritual experiences. I would assume it would be more complex than one gene.

 

[Marin B]

Someone on YouTube noticed the pictures were similar.

I (Mick) found the matching image using Google.

Seems like this blog is responsible for it:
http://funvax.wordpress.com/

Seems like it started early 2011, and the video was released in June 2011

It spread via youtube, Facebook and the various conspiracy sites.

I'm really impressed that you found the original publication of the brain image. Do you have a program that matches images, or just a lot of patience looking at Google images?

 

[Soulfly]

I'm really impressed that you found the original publication of the brain image. Do you have a program that matches images, or just a lot of patience looking at Google images?

You can drag an image into https://images.google.com/ and it will find all sites that image is on.

 

[Mick West]

I'm really impressed that you found the original publication of the brain image. Do you have a program that matches images, or just a lot of patience looking at Google images?

I did have to crop a bit of the image, but this is literally all I did, a few seconds.

 

[Marin B]

I did have to crop a bit of the image, but this is literally all I did, a few seconds.

I didn't know about that. This alone makes joining this board worth it. Thanks!

 

[Egu]

I have read the thread, and first I totally believed it was a scam, but then I thought of another possibility: that the fact that the slides are not scientific or fake does not imply that the whole thing did not happen. How about scientist wanting to impress and sell a placebo drug that they know won't work but still the US is wanting to implement it? You see, the fact that the slides are fake... does not mean these are genuine people wanting to make a business off the US administration.

 

[Mick West]

I thought of another possibility: that the fact that the slides are not scientific or fake does not imply that the whole thing did not happen.

Yes it does. Otherwise, you've got people trying to scam the Pentagon using an utterly unbelievable story using fake evidence that's trivially easy to debunk. So that all implies it did not happen, especially as nobody was arrested for fraud.

 

[Dan Wilson]

How about scientist wanting to impress and sell a placebo drug that they know won't work but still the US is wanting to implement it?

That would be an enormous waste of time and money if they knew it was a placebo but still wanted to sell it. Are you thinking it would still have an effect as a placebo? In that case, the person taking the drug would have to want to be converted from more fanatic to less fanatic, be aware of what the drug is supposed to do, and be aware that they have received it. It would not make any sense to expect a plan like that to work.

 

[MaybeOneGrape]

This popped up on twitter again, and forgive me if I'm doing this wrong:

It seems to me that if there is a "god gene," that is to say a gene that, when expressed, produces behavior akin to religious zealotry, that gene would need to be explained as reproductively advantageous. Now, we can get around this by saying 'individuals expressing this gene have a tendency to rape.' That's, frankly, an ugly interpretation of what we're talking about here. Long before social contracts involving religion-based rape, there would have had to have been a physical advantage to being religious. I think pattern recognition meets that criteria. There is, I think, selective pressure to 'believe' a pattern means something.

Now, that is not to say that all patterns are significant. But if there were a gene, a tendency, for an individual to consider a rustle of grass being meaningful, being worthwhile of attention, that might mean survival versus predation. And if it's just the wind, well, no harm no foul. But the ones who ignored the rustle of grass, well, we know what happened to them.

There absolutely is genetic selection pressure, especially during the 200 million years before the emergence of modern humans, to be paranoid, devout, unreasonable conspiracy theorists, because prior performance predicts future success. Jumping at shadows is our bread and butter, friends. It's what got us here.

Now, in the context of this gem here, none of these "top brass" in the audience asked "what are the side effects."
No concern at all. That may have been a selective edit, but if I were in that audience the first question in my mind would have been "Professor, you're talking about a communicable virus which disables the human mind from recognizing patterns. What controls have you instituted that allow you to target ONLY religious extremism, and not regular social interaction? Threat detection. The minutia of facial expression. Sir, have you created the autism virus?"

And then the scientist would be like "gentlemen, I would rather live in a world of Autists, than continue on as such."

"Harrumph harrumph" they would say, but it would be too late, for the virus had already left Logan INTL an hour before.

 

[Mick West]

Now, in the context of this gem here, none of these "top brass" in the audience asked "what are the side effects."
No concern at all.

That's because the entire thing is a hoax, a provocative art project. That's probably just a bunch of Ryan Harper's friends.

 

[eastbeast]

The video is obviously a fake... However, it appears that the pictures of the brain in question are in fact being projected onto the screen behind the presenter. Don't want to get into why I think that this has not been photoshopped, you can perform your own analysis of that. So the question becomes, what the fuck is going on? The people in the room are pentagon types, not neurosurgeons discussing the neurological effects of meth addiction. It was reported that this video was faked by students. The men in this video are grown men... I understand the audio could have been dubbed, but... why are meth addiction slides being presentation to military types? Unless they are actors. If the voices are dubbed they are adult voices, men in their 40s, not students. So this seems like a group of grownups, extremely talented and smart ones, who almost pulled off a masterful scam. The acting is so good that I would have never guessed that this was a fake. Even in studio movies with really good acting, the acting is not this believable. The innuendos, the timing, the human banter and scorn. It's an awfully good reproduction of an alleged historical event.

This video seems more like an expert attempt to disinform the public and cause acute resentment towards the United States government, and as such, I suspect that it was done by a group that had more interest than web hits. There aren't even any ads on the site. I suspect that what happened is someone created this hoax to cause public unrest, the hoax was uncovered much faster than they imagined, and so now the project has been shut down. What group would want to do this?

There are a lot of groups who would want to do this... Unfortunately. I'm curious who actually created this fake and why would someone pay for it (as I agree that it's done semi-profesionally, not by some throwaway account)?

The video is all over Russian TV now, they are exploiting this fake to the max, attached is one example. They claim that Bill Gates is in the video, everything else is pretty much the same: the Pentagon is trying to turn religious people into obedient atheists, except now the propagandists tie it to the covid 19 outbreak.

 

[Mick West]

There are a lot of groups who would want to do this... Unfortunately. I'm curious who actually created this fake and why would someone pay for it (as I agree that it's done semi-profesionally, not by some throwaway account)?

Like I said in the OP, the prime suspect is Ryan Harper, doing it as a publicly stunt, maybe trying to do a documentary about the process of fooling people.

 

[Joe]

Video is making its rounds on Twitter with a blurred version saying its Bill Gates , Sure sounded like him , Thanks Mick the rabbit hole almost got me

 

[ExMilitary]

It appears (and sounds) to me like the presenter in the OP video, and the guy with the DNA tie appearing in the "Dean Hamer" video are the same person.

 

[jasonkilanski]

First, I apologize for "necroing" this post. I'm only posting here because this seems like an honest discussion about this video.

I shot this video at around 2005, when I was stationed at the Pentagon. I was there from 2002-2005, and I don't remember what dates this was specifically shot. I don't know how or when this video got released. The only things that seem different from what I remember are the text that is added: date, time, etc. I am also unfamiliar with that the DoDID number is. Generally, that would have been my video ID number, but that was never my ID, and we never overlay the videographer's ID over the actual video, but would put it on a slide before the video started, along with the classifications etc. Last, I'm not sure, but that room number looks wrong too.

To me, it looks like this Ryan guy somehow got ahold of the video I recorded and added some of the text to say he "created it", which I guess could be technically argued.

I've reached out to Ryan at FunVax@gmail.com and have not received any responses.

Besides the text added, the video is how I remember it. The slide added in came from the person who requested the video documentation, who usually got it from the briefer. I even remember adding the slide in where it is because the camera was accidentally in auto-focus (a no no), so when someone walked close it messed the focus up, and I used the slide to hide it. Other than that, I can't attest to whether the slide was what the briefer was claiming.

For clarity, this briefing was a part of a series given by different briefers on how the Pentagon might approach combatting religious extremism, more specifically Islam and suicide bombers.

Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn if you have any questions, or if you want to verify that I was at the Pentagon at this time in a Unit that would document these things. I'm the only Jason Kilanski there.

 

[Mick West]

For clarity, this briefing was a part of a series given by different briefers on how the Pentagon might approach combatting religious extremism, more specifically Islam and suicide bombers.

Very interesting if true. That would imply the Pentagon had fallen for a crank scientist (possibly internal) or a prank (Ryan), however...

I shot this video at around 2005

Besides the text added, the video is how I remember it. The slide added in came from the person who requested the video documentation, who usually got it from the briefer. I even remember adding the slide in where it is because the camera was accidentally in auto-focus (a no no), so when someone walked close it messed the focus up, and I used the slide to hide it. Other than that, I can't attest to whether the slide was what the briefer was claiming.

The problem with that is, as described in the OP, the background brain image in that slide comes from a 2010 article, which makes your claim of seeing it in 2005 seem implausible.

More telling, it's actually the brain of a 43 year old meth addict, taken from this article in the Dec 2010 issue of Neurology.

http://www.neurology.org/content/75/18_Supplement_1/S67.full.pdf html

So, a video uploaded in 2011 is supposedly a secret Pentagon video from 2005. But actually used photoshopped images from an unrelated 2010 article. Since the image did not exist until 2010, this proves the video is a fake.

You also have a rather strong anti-coronavirus-vaccine post on your LinkedIn page, and anti-mask posts, which is going to make people think this is part of some general anti-gov-vaccine thing.

 

[jasonkilanski]

Very interesting if true. That would imply the Pentagon had fallen for a crank scientist (possibly internal) or a prank (Ryan), however...



The problem with that is, as described in the OP, the background brain image in that slide comes from a 2010 article, which makes your claim of seeing it in 2005 seem implausible.



You also have a rather strong anti-coronavirus-vaccine post on your LinkedIn page, and anti-mask posts, which is going to make people think this is part of some general anti-gov-vaccine thing.

Everything I've said here is true, as well as what I wrote on my LinkedIn page.

As far as the slides, I can't be sure that whoever added text didn't change the slides. I'd doubt it though, as I think it would be a lot harder to do on the presentation part, but movie magic is often good.

But, I'll answer any questions as honestly as I can.

If I remember right, we were just using new Canon cameras, that had autofocus added where my usual Beta and Digibeta cameras did not. When the autofocus went off, I was fumbling with the camera trying to turn it off. I think later I found that it was in the menu and not a toggle, like what I was accustomed to. I decided to zoom in to cut the audience member out that was causing the autofocus problem.

Again, some of this video has been altered, but as far as I can tell it's just that someone added text, which I suspect was the Ryan guy to try to make it look what he thought was "more legitimate".

Last, this was a set of briefings that the Pentagon was hosting to learn and possibly combat what they saw as Islamic extremism, like suicide bombers.

 

[jasonkilanski]

I'll add that I found this link where a guy Ryan is claiming he made the video:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/i...-theory-now-i-m-trying-to-kill-it/ar-BB1gNacx

I messaged him and asked him about it, and have not received any responses. On top of that, in the article Ryan says he has shown some people proof that he made the video, but nowhere has this "proof" been posted anywhere that I can find.

On top of that, YouTube and LinkedIn have deleted posts I've written where I just say that I am the one that shot the video. They mark it as "misinformation", which is a little funny since there is overwhelming evidence on LinkedIn that I did work where I am saying I worked. I not only posted my work history, but in my awards section I have transcribed what I got at the Pentagon as well as linking a photo of the awards to their slideshare. These posts have been there for years now.

In the end, I'm just correcting the record. I really don't care that much what people believe. I did what I could as due diligence to tell the truth, and welcome any dialogue, and would actually love to see how Ryan happened to create a video that looks almost exactly like one I shot, complete with my camera and editing mistakes.

 

[jasonkilanski]

I apologize for not knowing how to use the functionality of these threads. I'm going to have to quote the old fashioned way.

"Very interesting if true. That would imply the Pentagon had fallen for a crank scientist (possibly internal) or a prank (Ryan), however..."

I would agree with you here. I remember thinking the same thing when I shot this. If anything, the most impressive thing I remember thinking from the series of briefings was that one briefer was a female Colonel that was a Chaplain who didn't have a theology degree, and had a PsyD in psychology instead, which was the first and is the only time I have seen that. Before this, I thought that all military chaplains would have a theology degree, and on top of that she had made it to the rank of Colonel. That's how little I took the brain-vaccine guy seriously. Also, the Colonel had a full audience, and as you can see in the video, no one showed up for this guy.

I'll add for clarification, these weren't classified briefings. How I understood it was that someone at the Pentagon noticed that we were in a war against Islamic States, and Pentagon Officers were sorely ignorant on anything related to Islam, so they had anybody and everybody there that was willing to speak about anything related to Islam or religious extremism.

 

[deirdre]

I'll add that I found this link where a guy Ryan is claiming he made the video:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/i...-theory-now-i-m-trying-to-kill-it/ar-BB1gNacx

I messaged him and asked him about it, and have not received any responses

well now that he has publicized that he thinks religious people are a threat to "the smart people" and shouldn't breed, and that q-anon type folks believe his fake video, i imagine Netflix or some such platform will be eager to pay him for his mockumentary. we'll have to wait and see.

or he is working on a documentary about his mockumentary and is hoping to sell that.

I believe him. He can prove it quick by just telling us which college lecture hall he filmed that in.

 

[Mendel]

Otherwise, you've got people trying to scam the Pentagon using an utterly unbelievable story using fake evidence that's trivially easy to debunk.

The DoD investing in bunk isn't exactly unprecedented.

Article:

Channon imagined a new battlefield uniform that would include pouches for ginseng regulators, divining tools, food stuffs to enhance night vision, and a loudspeaker that would automatically emit "indigenous music and words of peace."

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion

Article:

In 2017, the CIA declassified some 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Star Gate. By the time the program was shut down in 1995, psychics known as "remote viewers" had taken part in a wide array of operations, from locating hostages kidnapped by Islamic terrorist groups to tracing the paths of fugitive criminals within the United States.

Source: https://www.history.com/.amp/news/cia-esp-espionage-soviet-union-cold-war

Article:

In 1987, the American Physical Society concluded that the technologies being considered were decades away from being ready for use, and at least another decade of research was required to know whether such a system was even possible.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative

 

[deirdre]

I apologize for not knowing how to use the functionality of these threads

just highlight the bit you want to reply to and a reply button automatically pops up.

PS you should remove your "about" section on Linked in if you are going to try to use that as any kind of credibility on Metabunk. I'm an old school republican and even i thought "ok, he's scamming us".

PSS Thank you for your service!

 

[jasonkilanski]

just highlight the bit you want to reply to and a reply button automatically pops up.

Wow, that's too easy. Thank you.

 

[jasonkilanski]

PS you should remove your "about" section on Linked in if you are going to try to use that as any kind of credibility on Metabunk. I'm an old school republican and even i thought "ok, he's scamming us".

I would if I used LinkedIn for this kind of stuff, but something like this video being controversial is new to me. In this case, I cited LinkedIn just to show some evidence that I'm a real person and not a troll. Normally, I use LinkedIn for it's real purpose, and I think telling employers that may require injections how I feel is appropriate and up front.

I will admit that it reads like a "rant", but it is an honest representation of how I feel.