Objective Jerk

THE CIA'S VAMPIRE STRATEGY: How America Used Filipino Superstitions Against Communists

Jerk Season 3 Episode 175

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The CIA once employed a bizarre psychological warfare tactic in the Philippines, exploiting local superstitions about the Aswang monster to fight communist rebels in the 1950s. This disturbing operation involved CIA-trained special forces capturing Huk rebels, draining their blood, and leaving their bodies with puncture wounds in the neck to create the appearance of vampire attacks.

• Edward Lansdale, a former advertising executive turned CIA operative, pioneered psychological operations in the Philippines
• The Huk rebellion began as an anti-Japanese resistance that later opposed the US-backed Philippine government
• Filipino folklore about the Aswang, a shapeshifting monster similar to a vampire, was weaponized for military purposes
• CIA-trained squads would capture rebels, puncture their necks "vampire fashion," drain their blood, and leave corpses as warnings
• The operation successfully scared Huk fighters away from certain areas, demonstrating the power of psychological warfare
• Governments throughout history have exploited local beliefs and superstitions to achieve military and political objectives
• Similar psychological operations could potentially be used against civilian populations, including Americans

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Speaker 1:

What's up? You're listening to the Objective Jerk. And I am said, jerk, how's everybody doing? Hope everybody's well and living their life the best they can. I was going to talk a little bit about some Filipino stuff. Not talking about the traffic or anything like that, just a crazy story that happened here in the Philippines that involved the American government.

Speaker 1:

So, real quick though anybody that's listening that listens to me, do you? Is there anybody that doesn't listen or watch YouTube? Um, or just any kind of you know bit, shoot, uh, um, what do you call it? Rumble, um, odyssey, there's a bunch of them, but I know a lot of people do.

Speaker 1:

So I mean, I would assume that's pretty far and few between where people don't realize, but there's so much good stuff out there that people are, you know, content creators put out. Yeah, there's stupid shit like mine, but there's also like really good, produced, written, well-written, investigated stuff on there, you know, and one of my favorites and a lot of people's favorites, because I want to say he's got like 5 million subscribers, but it's the Y Files. The Y Files, if you know what I'm talking about, then you know. But if you don't know and they're on a few different things, but the Y FFiles. If you know what I'm talking about, then you know. But if you don't know and there aren't a few different things, but the Y-Files is it's basically like a show that you would have on TV, you know, 20, 30 years ago. But it's just a guy telling stories, just all kinds of different stories Conspiracy, alien, scary just interesting stories. You know, um, but the way he presents it and the way he breaks it all down, everything is just very digestible. You know what I mean. Like, it's just easy to consume. I think that's why he's so popular.

Speaker 1:

Um, a lot of work goes into it. There's no way I could do that. There's just, you know, have a, make a script and a teleprompter and I don't know, I just can't do that. I'm too lazy and too stupid. But check it out, the Y files. It's pretty badass. And then there's, he has a goldfish that sits next to him, called the hecklefish, and that's what he does. He heckles, you know, aj, the, the presenter, or whatever, and to be honest with you, it kind of bugged me. At first it was kind of annoying, but then as I watched more and more and time grew and everything, um, now I get kind of annoyed when heckle fish is not included, and so I just listened to the latest episode while I was doing some stuff and what gave me the idea for the topic I want to talk about? But it also hecklefish wasn't in it, which kind of annoyed me. Check it out.

Speaker 1:

If you are on, you know, if you use youtube or any of those, those, those, uh, you know rumble, I don't know what the hell you call them, but if you use and look up the y files, it's pretty awesome, especially like if you liked unsolved mysteries and and things like that back in the day. You know if you liked you or amer America's most. No, I mean I guess, yeah, if you can, unsolved mysteries is probably the best. If you liked unsolved mysteries back in the day, you'll love the Y-Files.

Speaker 1:

I'm acting like this guy sponsored my video, like he needs it, but I did want to kind of look real quick and see what, how many sponsors or how many subscribers this guy has on YouTube. So this is just YouTube alone. The Y files, yeah, 5.11 million subscribers Damn, that's a lot. He's got 16 million views, 30 million views. Dude, he's killing it, but it's. You can see why it's awesome, anyway.

Speaker 1:

So I was, you know doing some housework listening to the Y-Files, and he was talking about Let me see, I want to pull it up. Okay, yeah, he was talking about Peru's most terrifying mystery, the face peelers, right? So it's this crazy ghost thing, stuff that happens in Amazon or by the Amazon and stuff. And you know, as he's talking about the stuff, it's obvious that it's some like I'm thinking the CIA doing some of this shit. Because you know you have some tribes that are very secluded and not keen to what's going on in the real world and the different technologies and everything. So you know what we see. On a normal basis, they would look at and be like, oh my God, it's a demon, or whatever you know that's see. On a normal basis, they would look at and be like, oh my god, it's a demon or whatever. You know. That's why a lot of them.

Speaker 1:

So I'm not going to try and get too much into what his episode was. You should watch it. It's pretty cool Anyway. But during his episode he brought up an incident that's not a conspiracy, it's an actual fact of basically how the CIA used vampires to fight communism in the Philippines. So I was like and he briefly went over it, but I was like what? So anything that's kind of Filipino related I'm trying to talk about. So I haven't read anything.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to do this while I'm recording. So first I'm going to look up Wikipedia but before I get into that, so there are, like terror, you know there was like the NRA. People are like you, the, I, the irish national, I and the ira. There we go, the ira, things like that. You know there's always been like militia type terrorism groups trying to stick it to the government and whatever right um.

Speaker 1:

But here in the philippines back in the day they had communism groups, um, that let's see if it talks about it a little bit, trying to get the names. So yeah, you had the Communist Party of the Philippines, the People's Liberation Army and all these different groups that were, you know, trying to fight the Filipino government. But I kind of think, you know, they died down a lot after Marcos was gone. So I'm kind of thinking a lot of it had to do with that. Maybe they weren't so much communists, but it was just like that was the group to fight the dictatorship or whatever.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, that stuff used to be pretty rampant. You know, now it's all the Muslim stuff back down south, in the southern parts of the Philippines, which is pretty far from me, thank goodness, I mean definitely, if you know, my wife was from there we wouldn't have moved there, and if that stuff was happening here we wouldn't have moved here in the first place. But anyway, so this kind of stuff, there were attacks and, and you know, police and military being attacked and hit and people stealing things and whatever. For this, the communists, these, these groups, these communist terrorist groups, I mean not far from where I'm at, and actually my wife's aunt, her husband, was military and he was killed in one of these. You know, gosh, what's. Oh man, can I every time right the forgotten word, not an ambush, I mean, I think it was an ambush, but like an excursion, and you know that was in the 80s and stuff. So it's. You know what happens around here. Excuse me, but it it's really died down massively. They're still around, but it's just nowhere near like it was so during that time.

Speaker 1:

So there's the Haka how the hell do you say that? The Hakpa Nbayan Laban Sahapon, people's Army Against the Japanese, and so this was in the 50s, better known by the abbreviation the Hakpa La'ap. I don't think I'm saying that right, but it was like the hucks is what it's like abbreviated for, let's see. Anyway, I'll just kind of read over this. I don't think it's too long. I'm not gonna read the whole thing, so I'm just kind of reading the wikipedia that I'm gonna read. That article that I talked about. All right was a phil, so this group let me just call them the Hucks, because that's what they kind of, I think, later became. Yeah, here it is Hucks, so it's easier.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, it was a Filipino communist guerrilla movement formed by the farmers of central Luzon. They were originally formed to fight the Japanese but extended their fight into the rebellion against the Philippine government known as the Huk Rebellion 1946. It was eventually put down through a series of reforms and military victories by Defense Secretary and later President Ramon Magasasa I don't know how to say it, magasasa, that's probably right. Constituted in March of 42, the Hux was to be a part of a broad, united front resistance to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. See, like it has good original origins. Right, original intent is reflected in its name. But then it just kind of grew into something else.

Speaker 1:

By 1950, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the PKP, had resolved to reconstitute the organization as the armed wing of a revolutionary party, prompting a change in the official name to Hukabong I don't know, I'm not going to try and say it again likely an emulation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Notwithstanding this name change, the HMB continued to be popularly known as the I'm not going to try and say it and the English-speaking press continued to refer to it and its members as the Hucks, because we can't pronounce it, because, like what are we trying to say? The Huckaluck? Yeah, okay, the Hucks, you know that's what people do. During the whole period between 45 to 1952, the end of the war saw the return of american forces in the philippines. While the hucks expected to have their war efforts recognized and be treated as allies, the americans, with the help of yusuf guerrillas and former PC members, forcibly disarmed Huk squadrons while charging other guerrillas of treason, sedition and subversion activity Subversive activity, sorry, leading to the arrest of Louis-Torok Kista 945, as well as incidents such as the massacre of 109 Huk guerrillas in Malolos Balakhan. I wonder if I said that right. It sounded right. Public sympathies for the movement had been waning due to their post-war attacks, the Huks confiscated funds and property to sustain their movement and relied on small village organizers for political and material support. The Huk movement was mainly spread in the central province of Nuivenpampanga, tarlacbalacan and Nueva Vizca I don't know how to do this, I can't pronounce shit Pangasinan and Laguna Baton, or the Baton March and Kwazon.

Speaker 1:

In July 1950, major Valerian assumed the command of the Elite 7th Battalion, developed a reputation towards employing a more comprehensive, more unconventional counter-surgency strategy and reduced the random brutality against the civilian population. And reduce the random brutality against the civilian population. In June 1950, American alarm over the Hux Rebellion during the Cold War prompted President Harry Truman to approve special military assistance that included military advice, sale at cost of military equipment to the Philippines and financial aid under the joint United States Military Advisory Group Just mag. On August 1950, in an anniversary celebration of the cry of Pugadla, when the Hawks temporarily seized Santa Cruz, laguna and Camp Macaluos I think I've been, I think I've seen it Tarlet confiscating money, food, weapons, ammunition, clothing, medicine and office supplies. Did you get the Post-Its All right? American assistance allowed Magus SSA to create more BCTs, bringing the total to 26. By 1951, army strength had increased by 60% Over the previous year.

Speaker 1:

Major military offense campaigns against the Hux were carried out by the 7617. Another major effort against the Hux was Operation Knockout of the Panay Task Force Compose. I want to see if this brings up the vampire thing. Anyway, under the command of somebody, the operation conducted a surprise attack. Commander Holt, command of the Sim blah blah blah, local mountain leader, died on Panay of battle wounds. 1954. Lieutenant Colonel Lorian Monroe, the former head of the Force X, the 16th PC Company, assumed command One of the most mobile strike blowers in Philippines, the Hux from Miller Da da da da da, trading the lessons learned from the force x quite well, with all the anti-dissidence campaigns against the hucks, they numbered less than 2000 by 1954 and without protection and support of local supporters, active hucks resistance no longer presented a serious threat to philippine security. Okay, so they don't really talk about, but that's kind of what was going on, right. So it does talk about how they got support from America and here is one of the ways that America supported.

Speaker 1:

There are more than 7,000 islands that make up the Philippines and the former Spanish colony is home to 175 different languages. Damn, I didn't realize it was that many, or did I? I did. I think I read that once before and I was still shocked, like that's crazy. And a wide array of cultural practices, but if there is one indigenous belief that survived centuries of Spanish rule and continue to haunt Philippine nightmares, it's the terrifying boogeyman known as the Aswang Dude Philippines. I talked about it before, but they have crazy fears and crazy superstitions, so it's not crazy to think that these face peelers that are in the Amazon is actually being conducted by people harvesting organs and different things from elite military whatever. You know what I mean. It's not so far out there because of this. Look what happened here. And this was in the 50s, right? The Aswang? I think I'm saying that wrong.

Speaker 1:

Aswang doesn't have an exact match in the western pathion of monsters. Some people call it a vampire, but it feeds on more than just blood organs, unborn children, and it can take on alternate forms, like a giant pig, a nasty dog or even a man-sized vulture. Whatever shape it takes, the Aswang is widely believed to be the source of sudden illness, mysterious deaths and other misfortunes in the Philippines. Believe it or not, back in the Cold War craziness of the 50s a CIA operative in the Philippines took advantage of Aswang superstitions to scare off communist rebels. And how he did it puncturing a victim's neck with two vampire-like holes, hanging them from a tree and draining them of their blood might have been even scarier than the Aswang legend itself. This is probably what sounds like. This is what inspired the Predator.

Speaker 1:

You know, jordan Clark is a filmmaker and researcher who has devoted years to studying Aswang lore in the Philippines and I spent five minutes. He runs the Aswang project. Aswang I don't know how to say it. I should have asked my wife before. I did this Website and directed a documentary web series called Creatures of the Philippine Mythology. I think I actually watched it.

Speaker 1:

Aswang is a very old cultural belief that means something different to each region of the Philippines, says Clark in the email. Yeah, it's different all over. The belief that the Aswang was the main bringer of awful things was likely very prevalent before Spain arrival. It's just like, you know, when you tell your kids not to stay out in the jungle late, because I mean you tell them like, like, hey, there's snakes and there's this out there that might not scare them, but that mean that's the fear. You know what I mean. Like you don't want your kids running around through the jungle in the middle of the night playing, when that's a lot, that's a lot. That's the time when a lot of creatures that are dangerous are out. So instead of being like, oh, there's lots of dangerous creatures out there, okay the ass one will get you. You know that's more effective. Real quick, tell you a story. Did I tell the story? I probably did Whatever.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I went mountain biking once with my youngest son no, was it? I can't remember which son it was. To be honest with you, anyway, one of my sons and we. We got started kind of late and it was going towards the end of fall or whatever. So it was getting darker earlier, so I wasn't paying attention to the time and everything. So we started riding, but towards the end of it it got pretty dark and you know, we didn't have any headlamps or any lights on our bikes. All we had were our phones that had the light. So we couldn't ride. So we had to push our bikes towards the last part of the ride because it was too dark to really see anything and it wasn't pitch black dark yet. But you know, in the jungle it's a lot darker.

Speaker 1:

But I remember just kind of walking, holding my phone, just walking down, and all of a sudden we just heard this thing kind of like like in the trees and, like this, make a loud noise and all this kind of stuff. It was probably like an eagle or something or an owl, maybe I don't know, but it scared the shit out of us and we just like I was like go go, like go, go, go go, and we just kind of, you know, I hadn't, I mean, I might have had a knife in my bag or something, but it it was a little freaky so I could see. You know, and you know, what's funny is like I do notice that here in the philippines people aren't out at night really, like everything just closes down so early and everybody goes to to their spot and you know, that's it. I mean, they might go drinking or this and that to a place or whatever, but it's nothing like in the States where everything's still going all night long, you know, and it's all because of the asshole. Okay, anyway, and that's a little too far. I'm trying, I don't want to Humanoid uh, clark says that the belief in the asswong. Okay, okay, here we go. So here we go. Here's a picture of the guy edward geary.

Speaker 1:

Before the outbreak of world war ii, edward geary was san francisco-based advertising whiz with clients like levi, nestle, wells, fargo, the army recognized last land landsdale's talent and recruited him for the OSS, which was the CIA, because, if you don't know that, so they had the OSS, which was basically the CIA back then, but then it was disbanded and rebranded as the CIA. Anyway, lansdale capitalized on his advertising experience to become a pioneer of psychological operations, the targeted use of propaganda, media and marketing strategies to win support for the allies and demonize the enemy when world war ii. So so that's the government the american government is doing that. Let me read that one more time became the pioneer of psychological operations, the targeted use of propaganda, media and marketing strategies to win support for the allies and demonize the enemy. So if you think that they won't do that to the American people, you're an idiot, because they do. I mean this is, you know, I mean right here. You know they do it to all these other countries. They do all this crap. What makes you think they're not going to do it to? You know, keep things going for themselves. So if you think that the CIA will not do this, do propaganda, media strategies and whatever against its own people, then you need to open your eyes.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, when World War II was over, the US government needed Lansdale's special skills to defeat a new enemy the Soviet Union and its communist operatives in Southwest Asia. Skills to defeat a new enemy the Soviet Union and its communist operatives in Southwest Asia. In 1950, lansdale arrived in the Philippines as an Air Force officer and advisor to the Philippine President, ramon Magaseyse Remember I just talked about him. Actually, I think I confused him with someone else when I was reading it. What Lansdale didn't print on his business card was that he was really working for the CIA. What Lansdale didn't print on his business card was that he was really working for the CIA.

Speaker 1:

Lansdale was assigned to the Philippines because Magasese and his US-backed regime were fighting a protracted war against communist rebels known as the Huks. Oh, you pronounce it Hooks, though Hooks, alright. Well, now I know, because it's spelled H-U-K. During World War II, the Huks were a heroic Philippine army that fought the Japanese. But after the War of the Hooks and their leader Louis Taruk broke with the government over the Controversial Philippine Trade Act of 1946, which handed the American government equal rights to the Philippines' natural resources which, I mean, can you really blame them? I mean, they probably needed the help, but I don't know. That probably wasn't the greatest deal. Philippines could have got a better deal maybe. Anyway, the Hooks had legitimate complaints, since the free elections in the Philippines were rigged by the US operatives Probably? See, yeah, they rigged the elections. You don't think they'll do that in the states, their own country, to their benefit? Come on now. And the CIA also controlled the Philippines' free press.

Speaker 1:

But to hear Lansdale explain it in his memoir In the Midst of Wars, an American Mission to the Southwest Asia, he was sent to the Philippines to protect the democratically elected government from dangerous communist rebels. My orders were plain Holy crap, I've been talking for 30 minutes already. My orders were plain, wrote Lansdale. The United States government wanted me to give all help feasible to the Philippine government in stopping the attempt by the communist-led Hux to overthrow that government by force. My help was to consist mainly of advice where needed and desired. It was up to me to figure out how to best do this. Conventional military men think of combat psych or psyops almost exclusively in terms of leaflets or broadcasts appealing to the enemy to surrender. Early on I realized that psyYOPs had a wider potential than that. He said PSYWAR, but it's PSYOPs. Now Lansdale and the CIA team got busy doing a military version of market research.

Speaker 1:

According to William Blum, lansdale's team conducted a careful study of the superstitions of the Filipino peasants living in Hook's area. Their lore, taboos and myths were examined for clues to the appropriate appeals that could wean them from supporting the insurgents. So they're trying to stop the rural communities from supporting the Hooks communities, from supporting the hooks. According to Blum, one of Lansdale's tactics was to fly over hook-controlled areas and light aircraft and broadcast mysterious curses into Galug on any villagers who offered help to the Huck soldiers. The tactic reportedly succeeded in starving some Huk units into surrender. Starving Starving, yeah, I thought they mean like weird scary noises too, or something. In his memoir Lansdale brags about an improvised bit of homemade voodoo he called the Eye of God. It was based on a World War II PSYOP tactic of learning the names of individual German officers and announcing on the battlefield over loudspeakers that they would be the next to die if they didn't surrender. Lansdale's twist was to paint a cryptic symbol he called the Eye of God outside the homes of suspected hook sympathizers. The mysterious presence of these malevolent eyes the next morning had a sharply sobering effect. But Lansdale was clearly proud of his most brazen and bloody psychological warfare operation in the Philippines.

Speaker 1:

According to Lansdale, a Hux squadron had set up a camp on a hill outside of a village. The village leaders claimed that the Hux threatened to kill any village bigwigs who didn't cooperate. Lansdale sent the CIA trained combat cywar squad special forces with clear instructions. First, the Philippine cyops agents were to plant stories among the villagers that an Aswang was hunting the hill where the Hux were camped. Then, after a few days, enough time for the rumors to infiltrate the Hux camp meant it was time to strike. Here's how Lansdale described the operation in his own words.

Speaker 1:

The Psy-Op squad set up an ambush along the trail used by the Hucks. When a Huck patrol came along the trail, the ambushers silently snatched the last man of the patrol. Their move unseen in the dark night. Unseen in the dark night. They punctured his neck with two-hole vampire fashion, held the body up by the heels, drained it of blood and put the corpse back on the trail. When the Hucks returned to look for the missing man and found their bloodless comrade, every member of the patrol believed that the Aswang had got him and that one of them would be next if they remained on the hill. When daylight came, the whole Huck squadron moved out of the vicinity. To be clear, a CIA trained squad of Philippine soldiers oh, end quote on that, sorry To be clear, a CIA trained squad of Philippine soldiers kidnapped the Huck fighters and killed them vampire style, leaving their bodies corpse behind Things. That's pretty messed up. It's a little crazy To me. This is brutal and horrific scene, with or without the Aswang lore, says Clark. It's not even clear if the Hucks believed it was Aswang killing the people or if they were horrified by the desecration of the deceased. But they didn't have any idea about the CIA, so they thought it was the Aswang and, as research clocked found that the people in the region of the Philippines believed in the creature called something I'm not going to try and pronounce a self-segmenting type of Aswan that fed on the fetus of pregnant women, not a Dracula-style bloodsucker. There was no vampire-like Aswan lore in the region, so I'm skeptical that the cyborg tactic even worked, says Clark.

Speaker 1:

Who is this Clark dude? Again, other than the terrifying visual of seeing your friend strung up like that, clark also points out that the asshole in Scare Tactics was apparently only used once to dislodge a Huck squadron. It didn't win the entire war. I mean still Wait, who's this Clark dude? I missed that. Dang it. William Blum. No, who's Clark? I missed who. That is Spectre Gadget Clear. I'm listening. Clark, I just read that. Who's this Clark? Dude, is that the person? Hold on David Ross, let me see who's Clark. Here's another that says Clark Clark. Who's this Clark? Jordan? Oh, the filmmaker. Okay, jordan Clark is a filmmaker, and okay, okay. Okay, I forgot who the Clark person was. Um, what I already read that, okay, to be clear. Oh, that's basically it. Okay, so that's pretty crazy, right, I've been talking for 36 minutes.

Speaker 1:

I might have to edit this episode a little bit, um, but yeah, so governments of all shapes and sizes do crazy things to get what they want. You know, um, so some of this crazy shit that goes out in the world and they're like, oh my god, it's a monster, it's an alien. Most likely it's the us government, you know, or at least being um inspired or being helped or, uh, aided by the us government. I don't, I love my country, but our government is shit. You know, with the Epstein files, I'm just like dude, I don't trust you know. I mean Trump. I still like Trump and I want him to do what he's got to do and everything, but you know he wasn't a politician.

Speaker 1:

So now you got I know they want I don't know. It's just I'm I don't know. I'm just kind of done. I'm done hoping that America's going to heal itself and everything. Now you have the lefts that are like, oh my God, the racism's so bad. It's like that's not even the problem. It's like you are the result of the problem because you get brainwashed to think all this retarded shit. Anyway, that's it. I just wanted to share that story. Tell me what you think. I appreciate you hanging out and I'll see you next time. All right, god bless, bye.

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