IARPA loves ARGs

[LilyPatToo]

Just found a link to this article: US intelligence agency wants to know how to use alternate reality gaming to bolster research. Tried to find another thread to post it in, but the last one discussing IARPA was the old Metaphors one, where this doesn't really fit. For those of us who've thought for quite a while that ARGs were being used by intelligence agencies, this might seem like non-news, but it's recent and an RI subject, so...

LilyPat

(Full disclosure--I'm somehow still on Dream's End's blog post notification list and that's where I read about it first)

[Col. Quisp]

Is he still posting? I sorta forgot all about him.

[Project Willow]

I can't point to a specific source as this is based in anecdotal sharing, but MC survivors who were kids in the 1980's report programming sessions involving virtual reality set-ups.

[LilyPatToo]

We used to have a program survivor poster here who remembers having a helmet put on his head as a kid during programming. I always wondered what exactly was shown to him...

And I think it was Kathleen Sullivan who eventually recalled a (real world) stage set that her father had built years ago to convince her of a cover memory, so a switch to virtual manipulation is logical as technology advanced.

Personally, I wish DE had had more to say about the ARG article. Maybe I'm more paranoid than I think I am, but back while he was wandering in the weeds, obsessed with the Duncan drama, I strongly suspected that he'd been deliberately sucked into an ARG that had possibly been based on actual events. He'd written a blog post not long before it all began about some similar deception being run on someone who was making Bad Guys nervous with their research/writing and I couldn't believe he didn't see it coming in his case.

He very rarely posts to this current blog and I'm sure if he realized that I was subscribed to it, he'd unsub me. I won't post the URL here, but if anyone is interested, PM me tomorrow.

LilyPat