Ghosts in the machine: a closer look

A full breakdown

In this article, we will explore the full video, as it contains some true nuggets.

It is a very slick production, unlike some of the other recruitment videos that are childishly amateurish, compared to this. People remarked: this looks like a teaser of some kind of thriller, made by a top studio!

Weaving together sounds, music, song, narration, on screen text and genius screenplay cycling through images, it is a masterpiece. Certainly, a weapon as well. It is more than simply a recruitment tool. But how far does it go?

Let’s see how much we can uncover.
First, though, an important reminder. Where I started my previous article with a correction of some claims, and an important warning not to run with things too quickly, I will be blowing both hot and cold.

I will break down the video in its different parts, and you will see that I will offer 2 explanations. ‘It will be tempting to see…’, and then ‘but a simple, plausible answer would be…’. I have to offer both explanations, to be honest in my analysis, and prevent my mind from going where it wants to go, instead of where the data leads us to. But here is an important question: do we have to chose between the two? Why not both? Or perhaps something else in addition, as well? Not everything is a stark ‘either/or’, but instead some form of ‘both/and’.

While we have to be careful NOT to jump to conclusions, and NOT make links and statements based on superficial elements and connections, I do believe that there is more to this video than meets the eye. Perhaps not in the direction some others see it, but still, very layered. I will leave the judgement to you, and hope that this breakdown and attempted identification is of help.

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As stated, the video begins with a quote from Sun Tzu.

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”

One cannot but see a nod to the woke left and their incredible thin skinned anger towards any who dare even remain silent? The small pokes and cases and jabs constantly being made towards the DNC, Biden, Harris, Clinton, and now bringing also Obama back into the spotlight?

Or how Trump appears so weak, surrendering a stolen election without any real fight? (Or so it seams). And we see indeed the arrogance of the thieves, in spades…

Is this what they are aiming for with that quote? The temptation is high, but it also simply pertains to the work a unit such as the 4th PsyOps Group does. Understand your opponent, use it against him. Appear weak, or non-existent, and then use the carelessness of their arrogance.

So it can also simply refer to the general practice of operational deceit/secrecy, not just for the military, but in business or any other group: appear small, weak, and hide your actual capabilities. Good advice for ANY group dealing with strong competitors or adversaries. Why give them the inside knowledge of how you operate, so they can set up the necessary counters or workarounds?

Next, as stated, the 2 opening views, first of Beijing, next of Berlin. East and West. Both centered around iconic TV towers. Not a coincidence. TV is central (or screens, using TV as a pars pro toto).

Notice also the theme of the narration: a link to the bloody oppression of student protests by the Communist Regime in China, and to the tearing down of the Wall in Berlin. A reminder of the enemy, and that the enemy, even if they look unassailable, can be overtaken. (Keep in mind, that the fall of the USSR came VERY rapidly, and took many by surprise!)

Next, ‘Who is pulling the strings?’

Again, tempting to think about the cabal, the elites. But the suggestion is simple: the 4th PsyOp Group is. They are the masters of the cognitive war… True or not, it is also recruitment. (It could also be both, or another thing).

The chess images are a recurrent theme. A battle of wits, of great minds. The symbolism is clear. Even the board at the beginning is suggestive: white is in danger, but not hopelessly so. What is the next move? What are the anonymous white faced soldiers doing? Are they the pawns of the white king and queen?

Next, the text: “Born from the ashes, of a world at war.”

Strong words. It refers directly to the birth of such advanced PsyOps units, born in the raging violence of World War II. The image of the Ghost Patch is a clear nod to that, as well, as that unit brought the deception through visual and signal means into the constant daily back-and-forth of warfare (unlike Operation Fortitude, which was a one-time deception to hide a single, albeit very large and pivotal, move against the enemy).

It is a series of much smaller operations to keep the enemy busy on one field, while the actual troops they are chasing are already elsewhere.

Tempting to see the way the Trump Campaign had all those lawsuits in the beginning, the talk about forensic reviews and recounts, which led to nowhere, in the end. And suddenly they drop 2000 mules on us all (after a leak, and now we hear Gregg Phillips talk about betrayal within their circles, was he referring to the leak, among possible other things?), and even much more powerful truth bombs to drop in six weeks! (Even more powerful than 2000 mules? I cannot fathom the depth of the rot they will expose!). But you have to put that next to the revelation that Trump was already talking to Engelbrecht and Phillips shortly after the 2016 elections! WITHOUT ANY LEAK since!

Others have pointed out that it is not easy to get use of a supercomputer, and that the one True the Vote used is linked to Oracle, favorable to the US military.

But it is also simply the introduction of the theme of the video: ghosts, with a fantastic nod to their own founding unit. The forest theme is interesting, as well, as is the fact that the smoke from the campfire is going ‘back’ to the fire, this is shown backwards! (Are they about to turn the clock? Reverse the effects of what has been going on? Or simply saying that they are going back in time, to show their WWII founders?)

Next, a clip of a subway train. First underground, next out on the open.

Tempting, yet again, to see a message that things are ready to come above ground, finally.

Or simply an image that signifies that the 4th POG is coming out for a little, to ask for people to join them. Can’t do that without revealing yourself, now can you?

The next on screen text tells us “You’ll find us in the shadows”, and it shows a birdseye view of New York City, followed by a raid by Special Operations Soldiers of a house against the backdrop of a city skyline. While it is about our minds, and psychological war, the human element and the factor of raw power, in the raid by those SpecOps soldiers, is still part of it (guided by, directed by,…?) are also present, apparently even domestically.

Again, tempting to see this is a sign that they are involved States-side, in this struggle against the cabal, fraud, treason… Or simply to reflect the changed nature of war, that now includes EVERYONE. Yes, New Yorkers are part of ‘everyone’, too. So am I, and so are you.

But also ask this: if it’s true that the election was stolen (more evidence bolstering this claim becomes known daily!), and if it’s true that foreign military and intelligence services were involved, does that mean the US was overrun? As in a Manchurian candidate who was successfully placed into the highest seat of power? With puppets all throughout the political, academic, business and media world, and also a whole host of sleeper cells and other Chinese operatives, possibly numbering in the tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands?

I think you could make this argument. If that were true, posse comitatus would evaporate and US.MIL could legally operate on US soil - but it would have to be clandestine. In other words, you’re fighting a battle and trying to repair the airplane’s structure while you’re trying to land - everything must be done carefully and out of sight of the passengers. And all at once.

“At the tip of the spear”…

And with that, they show a huge military parade in Beijing, close to or at the Tienanmen square the first narrator referred to! Huge in scope, a true signal of military strength by Chinese Chairman Xi JinPing! Both in sheer numbers of troops and vehicles, but also in the technology displayed.

Clearly, a nod to who our real enemy is!

Or perhaps simply to refer to the Second World War again, as this parade was for the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in China! (Notice also how the last detachment of troops is actually from a Soviet era parade, likely a WWII Victory Day parade in Moscow, hat tip J. Szeko.)

But the next on screen text seems to favor the first interpretation: “A threat rises in the East”!
Shown with marching soldiers, and the threatening sound of marching boots.

And then a news ticker on a NY (?) street, breaking news: “Russia invades Ukraine!”

China is a threat, now Russia, too?

This brings the video to the next part: “Warfare”

It shows early medieval cavalry, some wielding what appear to be early medieval swords and armor. The next screen text repeats the word warfare, now in a short statement: “Warfare is evolving.”

As our view changes in quick succession, we are shown modern troops leaving an armored personal carrier, a prisoner with a hood over his head being brought in for interrogation/being filmed, a person playing the piano, a view as through a night vision camera that is zooming in on an armed patrol from above (use of drone tech? As we see amply used in the Ukraine war?), a hacker (leather jacket over hoodie) behind screens but turns around and sticks hands in the air as if in surrender (hat tip J. Szeko), and a person holding up a Molotov cocktail with burning wick.

Almost what you’d expect, even with the raid on hackers who attack US infrastructure (Elections? Pipelines? Blackmail? Extortion?), but not quite: what is the piano player doing there?

What is the place of the interrogation of the prisoner in warfare?

But we see a move towards local uprising, non-state hacking and attacks, and guerilla, exemplified by the Molotov.

But the series isn’t done yet: we see the quick succession of images slow down, and stop to a full screen view of a finger swiping on a screen, with a new text: “And all the world’s a stage”.

Apart from the famous first line of a monologue of William Shakespeare’s comedy ‘As You Like It’, it also shows the changed reality: the theater of war (you really got to love and appreciate the brilliance of the reference here!) is widened to ALL of us. All the men and women are players now. Not just the armies, but each and every one of us. And continuous, too. Exactly as I described in my series, now referenced in this video by an actual Psy-Ops group of the US Army. It is real, folks! Covert war is upon us, whether we want it, or not!

Now the view comes back to the conductor from the beginning, and we come to a change in message and pace.

We see an old tape player, a person installing the tape from the spools, an old projector, and the front view of a person, as a silhouette against the light from the projection. Meaning that he is looking at US, through the 4th wall. We are looking out from the screen of that person, as he is watching the tape from the projector behind him…

Completely matching the style of the 50s-60s sound and video equipment, we hear a narrator as we remember from those old army documentaries instructing us about what to do in case of an atomic attack. Different voices are used, perhaps to denote different snippets from different sources. I haven’t been able to trace them back, but this is what they say:

“There is another very important face of warfare. It has, as its target, not the body, but the mind of the enemy. The target of psychological warfare is to enter the enemy’s mind. It is words and ideas. Ammunition used by Psy War.”

The sound now marks a punctuation, and we see a hand holding a microphone, and text on the screen: “Anything we touch,” with the view now of a man behind studio equipment, and next of a brush as used for Japanese calligraphy, writing on paper, while the following appears on screen: “is a weapon”.

A nice nod to the pen (which is also a nod to the  motto of the 4th POG, shown at the very end: verbum vincet. The word will win. Notice the future tense. Will win. Not ‘has won’, or even ‘wins’, but ‘will win’. Again, not without meaning.

Now the video changes pace again.

We hear a helicopter and see an aerial view of a coast line, with the text on screen:
“We can”
The narrator helps explain: “Its mission is to influence the thoughts of the enemy soldiers. And at the same time, is expected and is encouraged to study foreign languages and the social sciences such as history, economics and sociology. He must have a broad and sympathetic understanding of all phases of human experience.”

In quick succession the following images are shown, as the narrator gives us the above text:
We see a view of a body floating in ocean waters near a coast (a hint to helicopter rides? This is the most puzzling of the images here, as it has no ‘easy’ or 'common’ link you can make with the overarching theme, unless you go darker, but it appears linked to ‘deceive’), a soldier at night, African children sitting outside with a soccer ball in their hands, Arab girls and their teacher in a classroom (Jerusalem? Palestine? There is a picture of the Temple Dome visible), protestors at a communist march who seem very elated (red flag, arm bands, ‘[upper text of sign cut off by screen] for revolution’ on sign), a father with a baby, a woman in a tunnel standing still to look at her phone, the inner mechanics of a watch and the hour, minute and seconds arms, a woman in the rain under umbrella who is looking up, and a Masai warrior with his shield and spear.

All very evocative, and during those images, five distinct words appear on screen, in answer to that first line that is no longer shown:

“We can”
“Deceive” “persuade”, “change”, “influence”, “inspire”

The first 4 are keywords the different groups and units involved with cognitive warfare often use to describe their own work, openly. What really stands out is the last one: inspire.

This is NOT something aimed at your enemy, but at your OWN population and your allies. This is significant, as it shows a very distinct, but related, aspect of the techniques used. If you can influence ‘minds’ to subvert them and steer them towards your own goals, to demoralize, to have them lose hope, to have them start fighting among themselves in discord, you ALSO have the tools in your hands to lift up your own side, to inspire them!

Tempting, yet again, to see a nod that they are on our side, ready to inspire us for what is to come.

Or what else, after all, could this be but a reference about that story on ‘The Ghost of Kiev”, an attempt by Ukraine to inspire their own nation? This is what they do, what they taught the Ukrainians to do. There is, again, a simple and mundane answer, as well.

Now we come to the last main part of the video.

We see a forest, very similar to the one we saw first. But now we see at least 6 figures, dressed in fatigues, each with a faceless white mask.

The text on the screen tells us: “We come in many forms”, and we are shown a man putting on clown make-up. The many forms include deceptive ones: not everything we see is what it seems.
Next, a hand moving the knight on a chess board, a side frontal view of that man in clown make-up, and the dancing clown we saw at the beginning.

The narrator tells us: “But the use of this force as an integral part of combat, has now taken on new forms.”

The sound signals a punctuation again, to underscore what is shown next:

We get a view of the earth from space, with the text “We are everywhere”.
Even in space.

Tempting to see a nod to the Space Force that Trump created.

Or simply to the satellite capabilities that existed already before Trump.

Now we see an empty movie theater (movies are part of their influencing, but where are the people?), the same Berlin subway station as before (Stadtmitte, located at the center of Berlin, right under the wall, and thus closed for years, until the wall fell, perhaps symbolizing unification, in the center, away from the extremes or polarization?). This seamlessly switches to a view of the Statue of Liberty, in NYC, symbolizing that the call by Reagan from the beginning of the video was heard: there is now freedom! PsyOps was part of the fall, notably the Star Wars program by Reagan, and the space war that the Americans won in a major comeback after the initial Soviet successes! This, too, is possibly part of that nod to the space view, as the subsequent frames and images suggest.

This section ends with that dancing clown, who is put through a mirror by a witch, to be revealed as a ghost. The clown is a ‘ghost’, an operative…

The next section has the text “A feeling in the dark”,

This is interesting, as the images all are about the Maidan protests. Riot police, burning armored vehicles, all from 2014, the immediate start of the conflict that has now culminated in the ‘special operation’ by Russia in Ukraine.

Are they suggesting something with that? Referencing ‘a feeling in the dark’? That something is amiss? Not with the invasion, but starting in Maidan? And the clear influencing by the US in that whole color revolution?

The following section has the text “A message in the stars”.

Again we see riots, (as well as a hand moving a dial, but which dial, and to what purpose, is not clear at all, and another chess image) this time from Lebanon in the 2011 Intifada of Dignity, part of the Arab Spring, and the 2019-2020 protests in Hong-Kong, as well as a view of a plane dropping pamphlets.

Now we come to the ending part of this section.

Three short series, each beginning with a view of that same forest.

First, with a single man in fatigues and a white mask, and the word “Ghosts’, faded, and hard to read. The images are that of the Lebanon and Maidan protests.

Second, with 3 men in fatigues and white masks, but now ‘Ghosts’ is clearly visible.
The image is of a burning TV, with the dancing clown playing, and the full text ‘Ghosts in the Machine’ that appears. (Why is the TV burning? Is the old technology, and the old TV News companies obsolete? Or is such technology ‘burned’?)

We see flashes of WWII soldiers flipping over a blow-up tank, that switches to the iconic images of the lone protester on Tienanmen, and the main tank moving out of the way. The suggestion here is brilliant, again: US soldiers move the fake tank, and in China a real tank moves, in the same direction, based on the actions of a single citizen (the target of the 4th POG). Next, Iraqi people flocking around a statue of Saddam, and Arabs in a trench in the dessert, with their hands in the air in a sign of surrender.

Third, the same woods, but now with 5 people in fatigues and white masks.

Now, the word ‘What’ appears, and the images of mass prisoners or war in a dessert, being walked forward (and the soldiers guarding have white-ish heads because of the glare of the sun on their helmets, reminiscent of the white masks of the people in the woods), now we see the statue of Saddam falling, and a clip of Arabs shouting in tense standoff with civilians and military. The actual war is over, the enemy surrendered, the leader toppled, but the work of the 4th POG is not over, as the people themselves are still shouting and unhappy.

This leads to the reveal:

“What, are we?”

A fellow reader here, Jonathan Szeto, made the following astute observation and link about these 3 short words:

”Normally this would be a call to action for the curious viewer to find out more. But by adding a comma after "what", it changes the meaning to a form of denial: "Who, me? You must be mistaken."

Which seems to hearken back to the previous text: "Ghosts in the Machine" (Are we really ghosts? Or are we real?)

Or possibly it's a tacit acknowledgement of the first question all the way at the beginning of the video: "Have you ever wondered/who's pulling the strings?"“

Now the letters fill the whole screen:

PSYWAR.

It fades to the shield of the unit, as the narrator tells us “These are the Psywar soldiers”, and the shield fades to show their motto (also on the shield): verbum vincet.

The last image is simply the URL: goarmysof.com

A brilliant recruitment video.

With a constant undertone tempting us to see more into it, while always providing another, plausible answer. But, as I asked in the beginning: do we have to chose between the two? Why not both? Or perhaps something else, as well?

All is well.


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