Humanzee: Human-Alien Hybrids

 

The humanzee (sometimes chuman, manpanzee or chumanzee) is a hypothetical hybrid of chimpanzee and human, thus a form of human–animal hybrid. Serious attempts to create such a hybrid were made by Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov in the 1920s, and possibly by researchers in China in the 1960s, though neither succeeded.

Etymology

The portmanteau humanzee for a human–chimpanzee hybrid appears to have entered usage in the 1980s.

Possibility

The possibility of hybrids between humans and other apes has been entertained since at least the medieval period; Saint Peter Damian (11th century) claimed to have been told of the offspring of a human woman who had mated with a non-human ape, and so did Antonio Zucchelli, an Italian Franciscan capuchin friar who was a missionary in Africa from 1698 to 1702, and Sir Edward Coke in "The Institutes of the Lawes of England".

Chimpanzees and humans are closely related. Genetic animal hybrids with different chromosome numbers decrease the probability of viable offspring and rarely occur in the first cross. Evolutionary biologists have found evidence that hybridization between humans and Pan Troglodytes resulted in some varieties of archaic humans. Chimpanzees and bonobos are separate species, but hybridization has been documented. Genetic similarity, and thus the chances of successful hybridization, are not always correlated with visual appearances. Domestication and backcrossing have been found to increase fertility in subsequent generations.

All great apes have a similar genetic chromosome structure. Humans have one pair fewer chromosomes than other apes, as humans have 23 chromosome pairs, while all other apes have 24, with ape chromosomes 12 and 13 fused in the human genome into a large chromosome (which contains remnants of the centromere and telomeres of the ancestral 12 and 13). Chromosomes 6, 13, 19, 21, 22, and X are structurally the same in all great apes. Chromosomes 3, 11, 14, 15, 18, and 20 match among gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. Chimpanzees and humans match on 1, 2p, 2q, 5, 7–10, 12, 16, and Y as well. Some older references include Y as a match among gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans, but chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans have recently been found to share a large transposition from chromosome 1 to Y not found in other apes.

The degree of chromosomal similarity among apes is roughly equivalent to that found in equines. Interfertility of horses and donkeys is common, although sterility of the offspring (mules) is more common. Complexities and partial sterility pertain to horse–zebra hybrids, or zorses, whose chromosomal disparity is very wide, with horses typically having 32 chromosome pairs and zebras between 16 and 23, depending on species. The Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) with 33 chromosome pairs, and the domestic horse (E. f. caballus) with 32 pairs, are interfertile, and produce semi-fertile offspring: male hybrids can breed with female domestic horses.

In 1977, researcher J. Michael Bedford discovered that human sperm could penetrate the protective outer membranes of a gibbon egg. Bedford's paper also stated that human spermatozoa would not even attach to the zona surface of non-hominoid primates (baboon, rhesus monkey, and squirrel monkey), concluding that although the specificity of human spermatozoa is not confined to Homo sapiens sapiens alone, it is probably restricted to the Hominoidea. However, in the opposite direction of closely related species, it has been found that human sperm binds to gorilla oocytes with almost the same ease as to human ones.

Hybridization between members of different, but related genera is sometimes possible, as in the case of cama (camel and llama), wholphin (common bottlenose dolphin and false killer whale), and some felid hybrids. Even hybridization between different families, as in the case of the sturddlefish, is possible (albeit exceedingly rare) provided the parent species are genetically similar enough to one another.

Reports of attempted hybridization

There have been no scientifically verified specimens of a human–chimpanzee hybrid, but there have been substantiated reports of unsuccessful attempts to create one in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, and various unsubstantiated reports on similar attempts during the second half of the 20th century.

Ilya Ivanov was the first-person to attempt to create a human–chimpanzee hybrid by artificial insemination. Ivanov outlined his idea as early as 1910 in a presentation to the World Congress of Zoologists in Graz. In the 1920s, Ivanov carried out a series of experiments, culminating in inseminating three female chimpanzees with human sperm, but he failed to achieve a pregnancy. These initial experiments took place in French Guinea. (For comparison with known cama statistics, in the case of male camel–female guanaco cross, the probability that insemination would lead to pregnancy was approximately 1/6.) In 1929, he attempted to organize a set of experiments involving nonhuman ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan. The next year, he fell under political criticism from the Soviet government and was sentenced to exile in the Kazakh SSR; he worked there at the Kazakh Veterinary-Zootechnical Institute and died of a stroke two years later.

In the 1970s, a performing chimpanzee named Oliver was popularized as a possible "mutant" or even a human–chimpanzee hybrid. Claims that Oliver had 47 chromosomes—midpoint between the normal 46 for humans and 48 for chimpanzees—were disproven after an examination of his genetic material at the University of Chicago in 1996. Oliver's cranial morphology, ear shape, freckles, and baldness fall within the range of variability exhibited by the common chimpanzee. Results of further studies with Oliver were published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

In the 1980s, there were reports of an experiment in human–chimpanzee crossbreeding conducted in China in 1967, and on the planned resumption of such experiments. In 1981, Ji Yongxiang, head of a hospital in Shenyang, was reported as claiming to have been part of a 1967 experiment in Shenyang in which a female chimpanzee had been impregnated with human sperm. According to this account, the experiment was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, with the responsible scientists sent off to farm labour and the three-month pregnant chimpanzee dying from neglect. According to Timothy McNulty of Chicago Tribune, the report was based on an article in the Wenhui Bao newspaper of Shanghai. Li Guong of the genetics research bureau at the Chinese Academy of Sciences was cited as confirming both the existence of the experiment prior to the Cultural Revolution and the plans to resume testing.

In 2019, unconfirmed reports surfaced that a team of researchers led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the U.S. successfully produced the first human-monkey chimera. Belmonte and others had previously produced pig and sheep embryos containing a small percentage of human cells. As with those embryos, the human-monkey chimeras were reportedly only allowed to develop for a few weeks. Although development was stopped before the formation of a nervous system or organs, avoiding more severe ethical concerns, the research was reportedly carried out in China to avoid legal issues. Due to the much larger evolutionary distance between humans and monkeys versus humans and chimpanzees, it is considered unlikely that true human-monkey hybrids could be brought to term. However, it is feasible that human-compatible organs for transplantation could be grown in these chimeras.

Evidence for early hominin hybridization

There is evidence for a complex speciation process for the Pan–Homo split which may include hybridization, or what is known as reticulate evolution. Different chromosomes appear to have split at different times, suggesting that large-scale hybridization may have taken place over a period of as much as four million years leading up to the emergence of the distinct human and chimpanzee lineages as late as six million years ago.

The similarity of the X chromosome in humans and chimpanzees might suggest hybridization taking place as late as four million years ago. However, other mechanisms, such as natural selection on the X chromosome in the chimpanzee–human last common ancestor, may also explain the apparent short divergence time in the X chromosome.

It is hypothesized that the peculiar features of Homo naledi may be due to them being descendants of a relatively recent hybridization event between Homo and Australopithecus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

Chemtrail Conspiracy Theory

  

The chemtrail conspiracy theory /ˈkɛmtreɪl/ is the erroneous belief that long-lasting condensation trails left in the sky by high-flying aircraft are actually "chemtrails" consisting of chemical or biological agents, sprayed for nefarious purposes undisclosed to the general public. Believers in this conspiracy theory say that while normal contrails dissipate relatively quickly, contrails that linger must contain additional substances. Those who subscribe to the theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be solar radiation management, weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, biological or chemical warfare, or testing of biological or chemical agents on a population, and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

The claim has been dismissed by the scientific community. There is no evidence that purported chemtrails differ from normal water-based contrails routinely left by high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions. Proponents have tried to prove that chemical spraying occurs, but their analyses have been flawed or based on misconceptions. Because of the conspiracy theory's persistence and questions about government involvement, scientists and government agencies around the world have repeatedly explained that the supposed chemtrails are in fact normal contrails.

The term 'chemtrail' is a portmanteau of the words 'chemical' and 'trail', just as 'contrail' blends 'condensation' and 'trail'.

History

Multiple concurrent contrails. How long they last depends on the weather, especially the temperature, humidity, and wind speed.

Chemtrail conspiracy theories began to circulate after the United States Air Force (USAF) published a 1996 report about weather modification. In the late 1990s, the USAF was accused of "spraying the U.S. population with mysterious substances" from aircraft "generating unusual contrail patterns." The theories were posted on Internet forums by people including Richard Finke and William Thomas and were among many conspiracy theories popularized by late-night radio host Art Bell, starting in 1999. As the chemtrail conspiracy theory spread, federal officials were flooded with angry calls and letters.

A multi-agency response attempting to dispel the rumors was published in 2000 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Many chemtrail believers interpreted agency fact sheets as further evidence of the existence of a government cover-up. The EPA refreshed its posting in 2015.

In the early 2000s, the USAF released an undated fact sheet that stated the conspiracy theories were a hoax fueled in part by citations to a 1996 strategy paper drafted within their Air University titled Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025. The paper was presented in response to a military directive to outline a future strategic weather modification system for the purpose of maintaining the United States' military dominance in the year 2025, and identified as "fictional representations of future situations/scenarios." The USAF further clarified in 2005 that the paper "does not reflect current military policy, practice, or capability" and that it is "not conducting any weather modification experiments or programs and has no plans to do so in the future." Additionally, the USAF states that the "'chemtrail' hoax has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications."

The conspiracy theories are seldom covered by the mainstream media, and when they are, they are usually cast as an example of anti-government paranoia. For example, in 2013, when it was made public that the CIA, NASA, and NOAA intended to provide funds to the National Academy of Sciences to conduct research into methods to counteract global warming with geo-engineering, an article in the International Business Times anticipated that "the idea of any government agency looking at ways to control, or manipulate, the weather will be met with scrutiny and fears of a malign conspiracies”, and mentioned chemtrail conspiracy theories as an example.

Description

Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory find support for their theories in their interpretations of sky phenomena, videos posted to the Internet, and reports about government programs; they also have certain beliefs about the goals of the alleged conspiracy and the effects of its alleged efforts and generally take certain actions based on those beliefs.

Interpretation of evidence

Airbus A380 water-filled tanks simulate passenger weight for different takeoff and landing displacement weights. Similar photographs are sometimes said to show chemtrail planes in action.

Ballast barrels with water in a prototype Boeing 747 flight-test plane

Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by their long duration, asserting that the chemtrails are those trails left by aircraft that persist for as much as a half-day or transform into cirrus-like clouds. The proponents claim that after 1995, contrails had a different chemical composition and lasted a lot longer in the sky; proponents fail to acknowledge evidence of long-lasting contrails shown in World War II–era photographs.

Proponents characterize contrails as streams that persist for hours and that, with their criss-cross, grid-like, or parallel stripe patterns, eventually blend to form large clouds. Proponents view the presence of visible color spectra in the streams, unusual concentrations of sky tracks in a single area, or lingering tracks left by unmarked or military airplanes flying atypical altitudes or locations as markers of chemtrails.

Photographs of barrels installed in the passenger space of an aircraft for flight test purposes have been claimed to show aerosol dispersion systems. The barrels' actual purpose is to simulate the weight of passengers or cargo. The barrels are filled with water, and the water can be pumped from barrel to barrel to test different centers of gravity while the aircraft is in flight.

Former CIA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden, interviewed on The Joe Rogan Experience, said he had searched through all the secret information of the U.S. government for evidence about (aliens and) chemtrails. According to a CNN report about the webcast, he said: "In case you were wondering: ... Chemtrails are not a thing" and "I had ridiculous access to the networks of the NSA, the CIA, the military, and all these groups. I couldn't find anything".

Jim Marrs has cited a 2007 Louisiana television station report as evidence for chemtrails. In the report, the air underneath a crosshatch of supposed chemtrails was measured and apparently found to contain unsafe levels of barium: at 6.8 parts per million, three times the nationally recommended limit. But a subsequent analysis of the footage showed that the equipment had been misused and the reading exaggerated by a factor of 100—the true level of barium measured was both usual and safe.

In 2014, a video that went viral showed a commercial passenger airplane landing on a foggy night, which was described as emitting chemtrails. Discovery News pointed out that passengers sitting behind the wings would clearly see anything being sprayed, which would defeat any intent to be secretive, and that the purported chemical emission was normal air disruption caused by the wings, visible due to the fog. In that same year, several photos of German chancellor Angela Merkel visiting the ILA Berlin Air Show, the water tanks next to her were falsely identified as toxic chemicals.

In October 2014, Englishman Chris Bovey filmed a video of a plane jettisoning fuel on a flight from Buenos Aires to London, which had to dump fuel to lighten its load for an emergency landing in São Paulo. The clip went viral on Facebook, with over three million views and more than 52,000 shares, cited as evidence of chemtrails. He later disclosed that the video post was done as a prank.

In some accounts, the chemicals are described as barium and aluminum salts, polymer fibers, thorium, or silicon carbide.

Chemtrail believers interpret the existence of cloud seeding programs and research into climate engineering as evidence of the conspiracy.

Beliefs

Various versions of the chemtrail conspiracy theory have been propagated via the Internet and radio programs. There are websites dedicated to the conspiracy theory, and it is particularly favored by far-right groups because it fits well with a deep suspicion of the government.

A 2014 review of 20 chemtrail websites found that believers appeal to science in some of their arguments but do not believe what academic or government-employed scientists say; scientists and federal agencies have consistently denied that chemtrails exist, explaining the sky tracks are simply persistent contrails. The review also found that believers generally hold that chemtrails are evidence of a global conspiracy; they allege various goals which include profit (for example, manipulating futures prices, or making people sick to benefit drug companies), population control, or weapons testing (use of weather as a weapon, or testing bioweapons). One of these ideas is that clouds are being seeded with electrically conductive materials as part of a massive electromagnetic superweapons program based around the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Believers say chemtrails are toxic; the 2014 review found that they generally hold that every person is under attack and often express fear, anxiety, sadness, and anger about this. A 2011 study of people from the US, Canada, and the UK found that 2.6% of the sample believed entirely in the conspiracy theory, and 14% believed it partially. An analysis of responses given to the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study showed that 9% of the 36,000 respondents believed it was "completely true" that "the government has a secret program that uses airplanes to put harmful chemicals into the air" while a further 19% believed this was "somewhat true".

Chemtrail conspiracy theorists often describe their experience as being akin to a religious conversion experience. When they "wake up" and become "aware" of chemtrails, the experience motivates them to advocacy of various forms. For example, they often attend events and conferences on geo-engineering and have sent threats to academics working in geo-engineering.

Some chemtrail believers adopt the notions of Wilhelm Reich, who devised a "cloudbuster" device from pipework. Reich claimed this device would influence the weather and remove harmful energy from the atmosphere. Some chemtrail believers have built cloudbusters filled with crystals and metal filings, which are pointed at the sky in an attempt to clear it of chemtrails.

Chemtrail believers sometimes gather samples and have them tested, rather than rely on reports from government or academic laboratories, but their experiments are usually flawed; for example, collecting samples in jars with metal lids contaminates the sample and is not done in scientific testing.

Incidents

In 2001, in response to requests from constituents, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced (but did not author) H.R. 2977 (107th), the Space Preservation Act of 2001, which would have permanently prohibited basing weapons in space, listing chemtrails as one of several "exotic weapons" that would be banned. Proponents have interpreted this explicit reference to chemtrails as official government acknowledgment of their existence. Skeptics noted that the bill in question also mentions "extraterrestrial weapons" and "environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons". The bill received an unfavorable evaluation from the United States Department of Defense and died in committee, with no mention of chemtrails appearing in the text of any of Kucinich's three subsequent failed attempts to enact a Space Preservation Act.

In 2003, in a response to a petition by concerned Canadian citizens that "chemicals used in aerial sprayings are adversely affecting the health of Canadians", the Government House Leader responded: "There is no substantiated evidence, scientific or otherwise, to support the allegation that there is high altitude spraying conducted in Canadian airspace. The term 'chemtrails' is a popularized expression, and there is no scientific evidence to support their existence." The House leader added, "It is our belief that the petitioners are seeing regular airplane condensation trails or contrails."

In 2005 in the United Kingdom, Elliot Morley, a Minister of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was asked by David Drew, the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Stroud, "what research [the] Department has undertaken into the polluting effects of chemtrails for aircraft", and responded that "the Department is not researching into chemtrails from aircraft as they are not scientifically recognised phenomena", and that work was being conducted to understand "how contrails are formed and what effects they have on the atmosphere."

During the 2011–2017 California droughts, some local politicians in Shasta County reacted credulously to conspiracy theories suggesting that weather-modifying chemtrails had caused the unusual weather conditions.

Contrails

Contrails, or condensation trails, are "streaks of condensed water vapor created in the air by an airplane or rocket at high altitudes". Fossil fuel combustion (as in piston and jet engines) produces carbon dioxide and water vapor and soot particulates that act as cloud condensation nuclei. At high altitudes, the air is very frigid. Hot humid air from the engine exhaust mixes with the colder surrounding air, causing the water vapor to condense into droplets or ice crystals that form visible clouds. The rate at which contrails dissipate is entirely dependent on weather conditions. If the atmosphere is near saturation, the contrail may exist for some time. Conversely, if the atmosphere is dry, the contrail will dissipate quickly.

Exhaust gases and emissions

Wingtip condensation trails

It is well established by atmospheric scientists that contrails can persist for hours, and that it is normal for them to spread out into cirrus sheets. The different-sized ice crystals in contrails descend at different rates, which spread the contrail vertically. Then the differential in wind speeds between altitudes (wind shear) results in the horizontal spreading of the contrail. This mechanism is similar to the formation of cirrus uncinus clouds. Contrails between 25,000 and 40,000 feet (7,600 and 12,200 m) can often merge into an "almost solid" interlaced sheet. Contrails can have a lateral spread of several kilometers, and given sufficient air traffic, it is possible for contrails to create an entirely overcast sky that increases the ice budget of individual contrails and persists for hours.

Experts on atmospheric phenomena say that the characteristics attributed to chemtrails are simply features of contrails responding to diverse conditions in terms of sunlight, temperature, horizontal and vertical wind shear, and humidity levels present at the aircraft's altitude. In the US, the grid-like nature of the National Airspace System's flight lanes tends to cause crosshatched contrails, and in general it is hard to discern from the ground whether overlapping contrails are at similar altitudes or not. The jointly published fact sheet produced by NASA, the EPA, the FAA, and NOAA in 2000 in response to alarms over chemtrails details the science of contrail formation, and outlines both the known and potential impacts of contrails have on temperature and climate. The USAF produced a fact sheet that described these contrail phenomena as observed and analyzed since at least 1953. It also rebutted chemtrail theories more directly by identifying the theories as a hoax and disproving the existence of chemtrails.

Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center, has said that logic does not dissuade most chemtrail proponents: "If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy'".

Analysis of the use of commercial aircraft tracks for climate engineering has shown them to be generally unsuitable.

Astronomer Bob Berman has characterized the chemtrail conspiracy theory as a classic example of failure to apply Occam's razor, writing in 2009 that instead of adopting the long-established "simple solution" that the trails consist of frozen water vapor, "the conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their children."

A 2016 survey of 77 atmospheric scientists concluded that "76 out of 77 (98.7%) of scientists that took part in this study said they had not encountered evidence of a [secret large-scale atmospheric program] (SLAP), and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, such as typical contrail formation and poor data sampling instructions presented on SLAP websites."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

Aum Shinrikyo

Aleph (Japanese: アレフ, Hepburn: Arefu), better known by their former name Aum Shinrikyo (オウム真理教, Oumu Shinrikyō, lit. 'Religion of Aum Supreme Truth'), is a Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for the Matsumoto sarin attack the previous year.

The group says that those who carried out the attacks did so secretly, without their plans being known to other executives and ordinary believers. Asahara insisted on his innocence in a radio broadcast relayed from Russia and directed toward Japan.

On 6 July 2018, after exhausting all appeals, Asahara and six followers on death row were executed as punishment for the 1995 attacks and other crimes. Six additional followers were executed on 26 July. At 12:10 am, on New Year's Day 2019, at least nine people were injured (one seriously) when a car was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating the new year on Takeshita Street in Tokyo. Local police reported the arrest of Kazuhiro Kusakabe, the suspected driver, who allegedly admitted to intentionally ramming his vehicle into crowds to protest his opposition to the death penalty, specifically in retaliation for the execution of the aforementioned Aum cult members.

Aum Shinrikyo, which split into Aleph and Hikari no Wa in 2007 had already been formally designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including Russia, Canada, Japan, France, Kazakhstan, as well as the European Union. It was previously designated by the United States as a terrorist organization until 2022, when the State Department determined the group to be largely defunct as a terrorist organization.

The Public Security Intelligence Agency considered Aleph and Hikari no Wa to be branches of a "dangerous religion" and it announced in January 2015 that they would remain under surveillance for three more years. The Tokyo District Court canceled the extension to surveillance of Hikari no Wa in 2017 following legal challenges from the group, but continued to keep Aleph under watch. The government appealed the cancellation, and in February 2019, the Tokyo High Court overturned the lower court's decision, reinstating the surveillance, citing no major changes between Aum Shinrikyo and Hikari no Wa.

History

The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo's Shibuya ward in 1987, starting off as a yoga and meditation class known as Oumu Shinsen no Kai (オウム神仙の会, "Aum Heavenly Sage Association") and steadily grew in the following years. It gained official status as a religious organization in 1989 and attracted a considerable number of graduates from Japan's elite universities, thus being dubbed a "religion for the elite".

Early activities

Shinri Party (Truth Party)

Although Aum was, from the beginning, considered controversial in Japan, it was not initially associated with serious crimes. It was during this period that Asahara became obsessed with Biblical prophecies. Aum's public relations activities included publishing comics and animated cartoons that attempted to tie its religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes, including space missions, powerful weapons, world conspiracies, and the quest for ultimate truth. Aum published several magazines including Vajrayana Sacca and Enjoy Happiness, adopting a somewhat missionary attitude.

Isaac Asimov's science fiction Foundation Trilogy was referenced "depicting as it does an elite group of spiritually evolved scientists forced to go underground during an age of barbarism so as to prepare themselves for the moment...when they will emerge to rebuild civilization". Lifton posited that Aum's publications used Christian and Buddhist ideas to impress what he considered to be the shrewder and educated Japanese who were not attracted to boring, purely traditional sermons.

Advertising and recruitment activities, dubbed the "Aum Salvation plan", included claims of curing physical illnesses with health improvement techniques, realizing life goals by improving intelligence and positive thinking, and concentrating on what was important at the expense of leisure. This was to be accomplished by practicing ancient teachings, accurately translated from original Pali sutras (these three were referred to as "threefold salvation"). These efforts resulted in Aum becoming one of the fastest-growing religious groups in Japan's history.

David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, in their 1996 book, The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia, claims that its practices remained secret. Initiation rituals, assert the authors of the book, often involved the use of hallucinogens, such as LSD. Religious practices often involved extremely ascetic practices claimed to be "yoga". These included everything from renunciants being hung upside down to being given shock therapy.

In the early days, Aum was able to recruit a variety of people ranging from bureaucrats to personnel from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.

Incidents before 1995

The cult started attracting controversy in the late 1980s with accusations of deception of recruits, holding cult members against their will, forcing members to donate money and murdering a cult member who tried to leave in February 1989.

In October 1989, the group's negotiations with Tsutsumi Sakamoto, an anti-cult lawyer threatening a lawsuit against them which could potentially bankrupt the group, failed. In the same month, Sakamoto recorded an interview for a talk show on the Japanese TV station TBS. The network then had the interview secretly shown to the group without notifying Sakamoto, intentionally breaking protection of sources. The group then pressured TBS to cancel the broadcast. The following month Sakamoto, his wife and his child went missing from their home in Yokohama. The police were unable to resolve the case at the time, although some of his colleagues publicly voiced their suspicions of the group. It was not until after the 1995 Tokyo attack that they were found to have been murdered and their bodies dumped in separate locations by cult members.

Kaplan and Marshall allege in their book that Aum was also connected with such activities as extortion. The group, the authors report, "commonly took patients into its hospitals and then forced them to pay exorbitant medical bills".

The cult is known to have considered assassinations of several individuals critical of the cult, such as the heads of Buddhist sects Soka Gakkai and The Institute for Research in Human Happiness. After cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi began satirizing the cult, he was included on Aum's assassination list. An assassination attempt was made on Kobayashi in 1993.

In 1991, Aum began to use wiretapping to get NTT uniforms/equipment and created a manual for wiretapping.

In July 1993, cult members sprayed large amounts of liquid containing Bacillus anthracis spores from a cooling tower on the roof of Aum Shinrikyo's Tokyo headquarters. However, their plan to cause an anthrax epidemic failed, likely because they used a vaccine strain of Bacillus anthracis that is generally regarded as nonpathogenic. The attack resulted in a large number of complaints about bad odors, but no infections.

At the end of 1993, the cult started secretly manufacturing the nerve agent sarin and, later, VX. Aum tested its sarin on sheep at Banjawarn Station, a remote pastoral property in Western Australia, killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then used in several assassinations (and attempts) over 1994–95.

On the night of 27 June 1994, the cult carried out a chemical weapons attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto, Nagano. With the help of a converted refrigerator truck, members of the cult released a cloud of sarin which floated near the homes of judges who were overseeing a lawsuit concerning a real-estate dispute which was predicted to go against the cult. This Matsumoto incident killed eight and harmed 500 more. Police investigations focused only on an innocent local resident, Yoshiyuki Kouno, and failed to implicate the cult at the time. It was only after the Tokyo subway attack that Aum Shinrikyo was discovered to be behind the Matsumoto sarin attack.

At the end of 1994, the cult broke into the Hiroshima factory of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in an attempt to steal technical documents on military weapons such as tanks and artillery.

In December 1994 and January 1995, Aum Shinrikyo member Masami Tsuchiya synthesized 100 to 200 grams of VX which was used to attack three people. On 2 December, Noboru Mizuno, who was believed to have assisted former members of Aum, was attacked with syringes containing VX gas, leaving him in a serious condition. Tadahito Hamaguchi, whom Asahara suspected was a spy, was attacked at 7:00 a.m. on 12 December 1994, on the street in Osaka by Tomomitsu Niimi and another Aum member, who sprinkled the nerve agent on his neck. He chased them for about 100 yards (91 m) before collapsing, dying 10 days later without coming out of a deep coma. Doctors in the hospital suspected at the time he had been poisoned with an organophosphate pesticide. But the cause of death was pinned down only after cult members arrested for the subway attack in Tokyo in March 1995 confessed to the killing. Ethyl methylphosphonate, methylphosphonic acid, and diisopropyl-2-(methylthio) ethylamine were later found in the body of the victim. Unlike the cases for sarin (Matsumoto incident and Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway), VX was not used for mass murder.

On 4 January 1995, the cult tried to kill Hiroyuki Nagaoka, an important member of the Aum Victims' Society, a civil organization that protested against the sect's activities, in the same way. In February 1995, several cult members kidnapped Kiyoshi Kariya, a 69-year-old brother of a member who had escaped, from a Tokyo street and took him to a compound in Kamikuishiki near Mount Fuji, where he was killed. His corpse was destroyed in a microwave-powered incinerator, and the remnants were disposed of in Lake Kawaguchi. Before Kariya was abducted, he had been receiving threatening phone calls demanding to know the whereabouts of his sister, and he had left a note saying, "If I disappear, I was abducted by Aum Shinrikyo".

Police made plans to simultaneously raid cult facilities across Japan in March 1995. Prosecutors alleged Asahara was tipped off about this and that he ordered the Tokyo subway attack to divert police.

Meanwhile, Aum had also attempted to manufacture 1,000 assault rifles, but only completed one. According to the testimony of Kenichi Hirose at the Tokyo District Court in 2000, Asahara wanted the group to be self-sufficient in manufacturing copies of the Soviet Union's main infantry weapon, the AK-74; one rifle was smuggled into Japan, to be studied so that Aum could reverse engineer and mass-produce the AK-74. Police seized AK-74 components and blueprints from a vehicle used by an Aum member on April 6, 1995.

Tokyo subway sarin attack and related incidents

On the morning of 20 March 1995, Aum members released a binary chemical weapon, most closely chemically similar to sarin, in a coordinated attack on five trains in the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 more. Some estimates claim as many as 6,000 people were injured by the sarin. It is difficult to obtain exact numbers since many victims are reluctant to come forward.

Prosecutors allege that Asahara was tipped off by an insider about planned police raids on cult facilities and ordered an attack in central Tokyo to divert police attention away from the group. The attack evidently backfired, and police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country.

Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki, on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. While the finding of biological warfare agents such as anthrax and Ebola cultures was reported, those claims now appear to have been widely exaggerated. There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people.

Police also found laboratories to manufacture drugs such as LSD, methamphetamine, and a crude form of truth serum, a safe containing millions of U.S. dollars in cash and gold, and cells, many still containing prisoners. During the raids, Aum issued statements claiming that the chemicals were for fertilizers. Over the next six weeks, over 150 cult members were arrested for a variety of offenses. The media was stationed outside Aum's Tokyo headquarters on Komazawa Dori in Aoyama for months after the attack and arrests waiting for action and to get images of the cult are other members. On 30 March 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was shot four times near his house in Tokyo and was seriously wounded. While many suspected Aum involvement in the shooting, the Sankei Shimbun reported that Hiroshi Nakamura is suspected of the crime, but nobody has been charged.

On 23 April 1995, Hideo Murai, the head of Aum's Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death outside the cult's Tokyo headquarters amidst a crowd of about 100 reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Korean member of Yamaguchi-gumi, was arrested and eventually convicted of the murder. His motive remains unknown. On the evening of 5 May, a burning paper bag was discovered in a toilet in Tokyo's busy Shinjuku station. Upon examination it was revealed that it was a hydrogen cyanide device which, had it not been extinguished in time, would have released enough gas into the ventilation system to potentially kill 10,000 commuters. On 4 July, several undetonated cyanide devices were found at other locations in the Tokyo subway.

During this time, numerous cult members were arrested for various offenses, but arrests of the most senior members on the charge of the subway gassing had not yet taken place. In June, an individual unrelated to Aum had launched a copycat attack by hijacking All Nippon Airways Flight 857, a Boeing 747 bound for Hakodate from Tokyo. The hijacker claimed to be an Aum member in possession of sarin and plastic explosives, but these claims were ultimately found to be false.

Asahara was finally found hiding within a wall of a cult building known as "The 6th Satian" in the Kamikuishiki complex on 16 May and was arrested. On the same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of Yukio Aoshima, the governor of Tokyo, blowing off the fingers of his secretary's hand. Asahara was initially charged with 23 counts of murder and 16 other offenses. The trial, dubbed "the trial of the century" by the press, ruled Asahara guilty of masterminding the attack and sentenced him to death. The indictment was appealed unsuccessfully. A number of senior members accused of participation, such as Masami Tsuchiya, also received death sentences.

The reasons why a small circle of mostly senior Aum members committed atrocities and the extent of personal involvement by Asahara remain unclear, although several theories have attempted to explain these events. In response to the prosecution's charge that Asahara ordered the subway attacks to distract authorities, the defense maintained that Asahara was not aware of events, pointing to his deteriorating health. Shortly after his arrest, Asahara abandoned his post as the organization's leader, and maintained silence afterward, refusing to communicate even with lawyers and family members.

After 1995

On 21 June 1995, Asahara acknowledged that in January 1994 he ordered the killing of a sect member, Kotaro Ochida, a pharmacist at an Aum hospital. Ochida, who tried to escape from a sect compound, was held down and strangled by another Aum member who was allegedly told that he too would be killed if he did not strangle Ochida. On 10 October 1995, Aum Shinrikyo was ordered stripped of its official status as a "religious legal entity" and was declared bankrupt in early 1996. However, the group continues to operate under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, funded by a successful computer business and donations, and under strict surveillance. Attempts to ban the group altogether under the 1952 Subversive Activities Prevention Law were rejected by the Public Security Examination Commission in January 1997.

The group underwent a number of transformations in the aftermath of Asahara's arrest and trial. For a brief time, Asahara's two preteen sons officially replaced him as guru. It re-grouped under the new name "Aleph" in February 2000. It announced a change in doctrine: religious texts related to controversial Vajrayana Buddhist doctrines and the Bible were removed. The group apologized to the victims of the sarin gas attack and established a special compensation fund. Provocative publications and activities that alarmed society are no longer published.

Fumihiro Joyu, one of the few senior leaders of the group under Asahara who did not face serious charges, became official head of the organization in 1999. Kōki Ishii, a legislator who formed an anti-Aum committee in the National Diet in 1999, was murdered in 2002.

For over 15 years, only three fugitives were being actively sought. At 11:50 p.m. on 31 December 2011, Makoto Hirata surrendered himself to the police and was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the 1995 abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, a non-member who had died during an Aum kidnapping and interrogation. On 3 June 2012, police captured Naoko Kikuchi, the second fugitive, acting on a tip from residents.

Acting on information from the capture of Kikuchi, including recent photographs showing a modified appearance, the last remaining fugitive, Katsuya Takahashi, was captured on 15 June 2012. He is said to have been the driver in the Tokyo gas attack and was caught in Tokyo, having been on the run for 17 years.

On 6 July 2018, Asahara and six other Aum Shinrikyo members were executed by hanging. Japan's Justice Minister Yōko Kamikawa stated that the crimes "plunged people, not only in Japan but in other countries as well, into deadly fear and shook society to its core." Amnesty International criticized use of the death penalty in the case. While executions are rare in Japan, they have public support according to surveys. There were 13 members on death row at the time:

An anti–Aum Shinrikyo banner in 2014

Aum Shinrikyo members executed on 6 July 2018:

Shoko Asahara, leader of Aum Shinrikyo

Yoshihiro Inoue, Aum's "head of intelligence" and chief coordinator of the Tokyo subway attack

Tomomitsu Niimi, the getaway driver for Ikuo Hayashi, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack

Tomomasa Nakagawa, a perpetrator of the Sakamoto family murder

Kiyohide Hayakawa, Aum's "construction minister", was convicted of strangling a young cult member in 1989, suspected of dissidence

Seiichi Endo, the "head scientist" of Aum Shinrikyo

Masami Tsuchiya, Aum Shinrikyo's chief chemist and director of the sarin gas manufacturing

The six remaining Aum Shinrikyo members were executed on 26 July 2018.

Yasuo Hayashi, a perpetrator of the Tokyo subway attack

Kenichi Hirose, a perpetrator of the Tokyo subway attack

Toru Toyoda, a perpetrator of the Tokyo subway attack

Masato Yokoyama, a perpetrator of the Tokyo subway attack

Kazuaki Okazaki, a perpetrator of the Sakamoto family murder

Satoru Hashimoto, a perpetrator of the Sakamoto family murder

Initially it was expected that Shoko Asahara's ashes would be collected by his youngest daughter according to his will. She urged her relatives and cult members to "put an end to the Aum and stop hating society". The ashes were kept at the detention center for fears of reprisals from other elements of the cult. In 2020 the Tokyo Family Court ruled that the second daughter, who had the "closest" relationship with her father, and who had repeatedly visited her father while he was incarcerated, should receive his hair and remains. On July 2, 2021, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the fourth daughter and upheld the ruling of the family court. In 2024 the Tokyo District Court ordered the government to hand over the remains to the second daughter.

Doctrine

Aum Shinrikyo is a syncretic belief system that draws upon Asahara's idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Hinduism, taking Shiva as the main image of worship; it also incorporates Christian millennialist ideas, the theory and practice of yoga, and the writings of Nostradamus. Its founder, Shoko Asahara (born Chizuo Matsumoto), claimed that he sought to restore "original Buddhism" but employed Christian millennialist rhetoric. In 1992, Asahara published a foundational book, declaring himself to be "Christ", Japan's only fully enlightened master, as well as identifying himself as the "Lamb of God".

Asahara's purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world, and he claimed he could transfer spiritual power to his followers and ultimately take away their sins and bad deeds. While some scholars reject Aum Shinrikyo's claims of Buddhist characteristics and affiliations with Japanese Buddhism, other scholars refer to it as an offshoot of Japanese Buddhism, and this was how the movement generally defined and saw itself.

Their teachings claimed a nuclear apocalypse was predicted to occur soon, as the result of a conspiracy involving Jewish financiers, Freemasons, and war profiteers. The United States would lead a Western nuclear attack on Japan in 2000 or 2006, and WWIII would start. It would be fought with particle beam weapons. According to Robert Jay Lifton, an American psychiatrist and author:

[Asahara] described a final conflict culminating in a nuclear 'Armageddon', borrowing the term from the Book of Revelation 16:16.

Humanity would end, except for the elite few who joined Aum. Aum's mission was not only to spread the word of salvation, but also to survive these End Times. Asahara predicted the gathering at Armageddon would happen in 1997. Kaplan notes that in his lectures, Shoko Asahara referred to the United States as "The Beast" from the Book of Revelation, predicting it would eventually attack Japan. Asahara outlined a doomsday prophecy, which included a Third World War instigated by the U.S.

In the opinion of Daniel A. Metraux, Aum Shinrikyo justified its violence through its own unique interpretation of Buddhist ideas and doctrines, such as the Buddhist concepts of Mappō and Shōbō. Aum claimed that by bringing about the end of the world, they would restore Shōbō. Furthermore, Lifton believes, Asahara "interpreted the Tibetan Buddhist concept of phowa in order to claim that by killing someone contrary to the group's aims, they were preventing them from accumulating bad karma and thus saving them". In Aum's terminology, phowa is spelled "poa" (ポア).

The name "Aum Shinrikyo" (オウム真理教, Oumu Shinrikyō), usually rendered in English as "Aum Supreme Truth", derives from the Sanskrit syllable Aum, used to represent the universe, followed by the Japanese Shinrikyo (meaning, roughly, "Teaching of Truth") written in kanji. (In Japanese, kanji are often used to write both Sino-xenic and native Japanese words, but only rarely to transcribe direct borrowings from other languages.)

In January 2000, the organization changed its name to "Aleph", a reference to the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it also replaced its logo.

Subsequent activities

Aleph

According to a June 2005 report by the National Police Agency, Aleph had approximately 1,650 members, of whom 650 lived communally in compounds. The group operated 26 facilities in 17 prefectures, and about 120 residential facilities. An article in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper on 11 September 2002 showed that the Japanese public still distrusts Aleph, and compounds are usually surrounded by protest banners from local residents.

Monitoring

In January 2000, the group was placed under surveillance for a period of three years under an anti-Aum law, in which the group was required to submit a list of members and details of assets to the authorities. In the same year, a Russian member was arrested for plotting a bombing attack as part of a plan to rescue Asahara from police custody. The plan was led by Dmitry Sigachev, who was arrested at Primorsky Krai.

In 2001, Russian Aum members had reportedly planned to attack the Tokyo Imperial Palace with explosives to free Asahara from police custody.

In January 2003, the Public Security Intelligence Agency received permission to extend the surveillance for another three years, as they found evidence which suggested that the group still revered Asahara. According to the Religious News Blog report issued in April 2004, the authorities still considered the group "a threat to society".

On 15 September 2006, Shoko Asahara lost his final appeal against the death penalty. The following day Japanese police raided the offices of Aleph in order to "prevent any illegal activities by cult members in response to the confirmation of Asahara's death sentence". Thirteen cult members were eventually sentenced to death.

Split

On 8 March 2007, Fumihiro Joyu, former Aum Shinrikyo spokesman and head of Aum's Moscow operation, formally announced a long-expected split. Joyu's group, called Hikari no Wa ("The Circle of Light"), claims to be committed to uniting science and religion and creating "the new science of the human mind", having previously aimed to move the group away from its criminal history and toward its spiritual roots.

In April 2011, the Public Security Intelligence Agency stated that Aum had about 1,500 members. In July 2011, the cult reported its membership as 1,030. The group was reportedly active in trying to recruit new members via social media and proselytizing on college campuses.

Japan's Public Security Examination Commission announced in January 2015 that Aum Shinrikyo's two spinoffs would remain under surveillance for three more years starting 1 February 2015.

Admirers

In 2014, The Japan Times alleged that "good looks and commitment to a cause", demonstrated by Aleph, "inspire a new generation of admirers". Dissatisfaction with society and low degrees of success in life make them "identify with the cult" and "adore the cultists as if they were pop idols".

2013 investigation and media coverage

Sometime after April 2013, the Public Security Intelligence Agency took a photograph inside Aleph's facilities. In this photograph, a bundle of papers is pierced with a knife on an altar-like object. The papers included photographs of PSIA employees and directors, police officers, and lawyer Taro Takimoto, who helped followers, leave Aum Shinrikyo. At least at this point, Aleph still displayed portraits of Shoko Asahara and demanded followers' dependence using videos of Asahara.

2016 Montenegro crackdown

In March 2016, Montenegro expelled 58 foreigners suspected of being associated with Aum Shinrikyo. Four of them were from Japan; 43 were from Russia, seven from Belarus, three from Ukraine, and one from Uzbekistan.

2016 Russian crackdown

On 5 April 2016, the Investigative Committee of Russia announced it opened a criminal case against Aum Shinrikyo followers and that its investigators, along with Federal Security Service (FSB) forces, were conducting raids in Moscow and Saint Petersburg to find them and confiscate literature, religious items and electronic information. On 20 September 2016, the Russian government banned Aum Shinrikyo from the country, declaring it a terrorist organization.

2017 Aleph raids

In November 2017, Japanese police raided five offices of Aleph in an investigation into the group's recruiting practices after a woman paid tens of thousands of yen for study sessions.

2019 Tokyo car attack

On 1 January 2019, in Tokyo, Aum sympathizer Kazuhiro Kusakabe told authorities he intentionally rammed into pedestrians crowded into narrow Takeshita Street in Harajuku district as a terrorist attack in "retaliation for an execution". It remains unclear whether he was referencing the 2018 executions of Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult members directly or making a broader statement. The attack, on New Year's Day, left eight injured. A ninth person was also directly injured by the driver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo