Schemes — odd or ominous — lurk amid old secrets

David Duchovny’s career had been littered with oddities.
He’s met monsters and mutants, ghosts and cryptids and schemes to create alien-human hybrids. Also, poison labs and poison guns and mind control and a plan to have bats carry incendiary devices.
We expected that from his “X-Files” series. But bizarrely, some of that is non-fiction: Everything that was listed above after “also” involves real-life schemes, detailed on “Secrets Declassified” (shown here), which he hosts at 10 p.m. Tuesdays on the History Channel.
“Some of it is laughable,” Duchovny said, in a Television Critics Association session. “But then you step back and you go, ‘Well, this could have really impacted a lot of people in a negative way.'”
Some schemes may seem amusing now. The British considered a plan to “feminize” Hitler by spiking his food with estrogen; later, the East Germans maintained a “scent collection,” gathering the odors of potential dissenters.
But others were ominous: Both the Americans and the Russians reportedly considered showing their might by detonating a nuclear bomb on the moon.
And there are the extremes, he said — “all the governmental and CIA investigations, like MKUltra, into mind control and drug use.”
In the post-Watergate era, investigators began looking into government secrets. One problem: When Richard Helms was fired as CIA director, he ordered the destruction of all files related to the program called MKUltra.
At first. a congressional probe had to rely on verbal testimony and a few surviving documents. Later, a cache of 20,000 documents was found, showing a 20-year pattern of exploring mind control.
Working with 30 colleges, plus hospitals and more, the CIA experimented with the use of LSD. hypnosis, electroshock, sense deprivation and more.
Some of the people tested were there willingly, some weren’t. In 1953, early in the program, a former CIA official was given LSD without his knowledge; he plunged 13 stories to his death.
The government settled with his family and most of the MKUltra project remained unknown … until the investigations, two decades later.
Other secrets have seeped out gradually, Duchovny said. “Files do become declassified after a certain amount of time.”
Some might merely seem wierd. This week (April 14), the show includes a World War II project that would have packed a bomb-shaped device with bats — each bearing a delayed-timer incendiary device.
And others feel ominous. “There are numerous stories of (nearing) mutually assured destruction and nuclear Armageddon,” Duchovny said.
The show’s first episode, last year, had an infamous example: In 1961, a U.S. military plane began to fall apart. Its two nuclear bombs landed in North Carolina; one, investigators said, came within one safety switch of exploding.
This second season also started with close calls — a look at various examples of “brinksmanship” nudging the world near disaster.
“The fact that we haven’t blown ourselves up — that’s pretty hopeful when you realize how many times we’ve gotten close,” Duchovny said.
Other somber subjects have included government bunkers, Stalin’s scheme to create hybrid soldiers and the Soviet bio-weapon programs. On the maybe-lighter side, the show has discussed odd disguises, clever codes and daring rescues. It should all please a sci-fi guy like Duchovny.
There’s one surprise, though: “I’ve never really been interested in science fiction,” he said. Now he’s on the creepier turf of science fact.