Have you been in a creepy unexplained school program?

The other day I was watching Metalocalypse with my younger brother, and he got rather agitated about a lot of elements, in particular the tone of the audio and the guitar screams over the profanity. It seemed pretty out of character for him, so I asked what gives.

He told me that when he was in a continuation high school (a public one in California in the early 2000's), his whole class was taken from their studies for the last 2 hours of the day for a few weeks, and the teacher very seriously belabored the point that the program they would be sent to was not in any way affiliated with the school and he had no idea what it was about.

They would go to another room on campus, where they were put on computers and instructed by a guy who he said "looked like a fed" (he elaborated that it was a white collar dude with a crew cut who almost never said anything to anybody aside from group instructions and had a tendency to "roll his ankles" and poise on his toes while speaking) [this is a form of body language that i recognize as common among Marine Corps Drill Instructors while lecturing- usually accompanied by pressing the fingertips together like a spider on a mirror and then opening your posture again- a sort of power unleashing gesture that conveys "i'm opening up a mystery to you and you will use it to perform as expected"]

What followed on the computers would be a series of "monotone sounds at strange intervals" and a series of "shapes and colors". He did not explain if or how he was expected to interact with them, but he said it had a very strange effect on his mood that wasn't quite boredom or drowsiness, but similar, and that he had "never felt so controlled".

His theory was that the program was designed to pick out programmable people. He pointed out that his school was full of troubled kids from rough parts of town and in his opinion, a great place to find disposable and dangerous people.

Then getting to the point, he says that he has been seeing more and more things in cartoons recently that remind him of that experience, and he wonders if it's some kind of a trigger mechanism. My counter-theory was that he was the subject of an experiment on attention, the results of which might now be in use to make television more conducive to a receptive state that makes advertising more effective.

I've asked him to write down more details for me, but so far he hasn't. He said he could tell me how to get more info also, but again so far he hasn't (it's only been a couple days though). So I thought I'd see if anybody else has had a similar experience and can add more information that I can compare to his experience if/when I get more info from him.

i dont know sounds either like a hearing test, or some kind of visual and hearing test..

As for school programs, I was in G.A.T.E. in 1st grade on, pretty stupid as I feel it was no different than normal school, we just got more "attention" because we would help skew their test results...

But why would you be given several dozen hours of hearing and vision tests? They usually get you in and out of a trailer in about 10 minutes and you spend another hour in line telling dirty jokes and that's it.

reply to post by The Vagabond

his whole class was taken from their studies for the last 2 hours of the day for a few weeks, and the teacher very seriously belabored the point that the program they would be sent to was not in any way affiliated with the school and he had no idea what it was about.

Why would you go to the after school thing if it was not affiliated with the school and seemed like an exercise in control? Was there some incentive to attend? Interesting story. Weird one for sure.

reply to post by Domo1


That's just it, even though it supposedly wasn't affiliated with the school, it wasn't after school. They were taken out of class for the last two hours of each day and made to participate on campus.

reply to post by The Vagabond


Ohhhh. Really strange and creepy.

Did you ask your brother why it took so long for him to mention it? I figure you believe him and know him well enough to tell when he's messing around. A school full of troubled disposable tough guys would be a great place to find someone to 'program'.

Interesting theory about it being a sort of testing ground. Hell perhaps it helped fun d the school and was some sort of attention test.

So he can't quite articulate what was on the screens? What was he supposed to do when watching?

reply to post by Domo1


That's what I'm still trying to get out of him. At the time of this conversation he was in an angry rant against the similarities he was seeing in cartoons and it was hard to slow him down to answer questions in any detail.

My brother is not one to make things up, but he is given to reaching for connections, for better or worse (in junior high he correctly anticipated the practice of destroying cancer cells by freezing, so his unreliability in interpretation of situations can be accompanied by unlikely hits sometimes).

I think the reason it never came up is because school was such a small part of his life- my brother only bothered with a year or two of high school- his raw intelligence and people skills made him reasonably important in the social network of scumbags who lacked gang affiliation in his town, and he made that his meal ticket for several years before he had kids and decided it was time to get his GED and start obeying the law. It might never have come up if I hadn't insisted on watching cartoons (he's always been moody about that, but this was the worst it ever set him off, and the first time he said more than "it's brainwashing you").

reply to post by The Vagabond

What followed on the computers would be a series of "monotone sounds at strange intervals" and a series of "shapes and colors". He did not explain if or how he was expected to interact with them, but he said it had a very strange effect on his mood that wasn't quite boredom or drowsiness, but similar, and that he had "never felt so controlled".

His theory was that the program was designed to pick out programmable people.

We had a hypnosis show when I went to high school. They spun spiral wheels and used auto hypnotic suggestion to find "controllable" students and then make a mockery of them in front of everyone for laughs. I think that is still going on somewhere. I also think ultimately they were looking for suggestible types there too. All of us were exposed, only a few were type "A".

This program you relate sounds similar, but more based on response to color and sounds. Not controlling as it were but more a measuring type.

Did he have to give responses during the sessions by pushing buttons or was he hooked to anything by wires or "straps"? Did he remember moments that he "couldn't remember"? Or wake up suddenly to annoying sounds or bells?

I hate it when they do this stuff to kids without parental consent. You really gotta wonder.

Sound and color induced hypnosis

reply to post by The Vagabond


is it possible to contact the school and inquire?

sounds very odd especially the teachers puzzlement over the whole thing, and the negative emotional impact it seems to of had on your brother.

pretty serious stuff.

I will show him some of those sound/color induced hypnosis things and see if it sounds familiar to him, and try to get more details on if/how it was interactive (the fact that they were using individual computers implies that it must have been interactive, otherwise why not use a projector?) I tend to think he would have mentioned being wired up though.

I'll check with him on the phone in a minute, cause it may be a while before he and I get another chance to talk about it in person.

reply to post by intrptr


Intrptr: exactly my thoughts, when i read the description - sounds a lot like a hypnosis induction.

Now it would be really imteresting to know what it was for? Was ittofind out who is receptable?
Was it inducing comands? What commands?....

OP: one way to find out: bring your brother to a hypnothist, it would be possible to go back to the tests and see what happenend back then.

I guess i don t have to mention that fro this you want to have a serious hypnotist you can trust and who is not affiliated with any alphabet agencies.

Not that hard.. easiest thing to do is call and ask. Cold call them with a story about you are moving to the area, have been speaking to some friends in the area, heard about this class/program whatever.. and want more info on it or what requirements are needed to participate.

I can't say that I remember anything wierd about my public education experience. The only thing about schools I find disconcerting is the idea of "Guidance Counselors." Basically, I think they are a government plot that reveal a student's weaknesses or strengths for some purpose.

Originally posted by chaosboy
I can't say that I remember anything wierd about my public education experience. The only thing about schools I find disconcerting is the idea of "Guidance Counselors." Basically, I think they are a government plot that reveal a student's weaknesses or strengths for some purpose.

I went to a college prep high school and we had "performance coaches" which are sort of like guidance counselors and believe me, their only focus was to find strengths and weaknesses.

I remember being in Odyssey of the Mind Link in 3-6 grades. Then being moved up to more advanced algebra classes, trig, geometry, etc. in middle school. I ended up taking Lots of College courses while still in high school. In my Junior year I was approached by a military recruiter that looked remarkably like my father, who had died 16 years earlier, and was trying to recruit me to work in military intelligence. I did't put all the pieces together until recently. Looking back there was definitely something weird there. I don't know my two cents.

I went to a continuation school and one teacher did weird crap like that. He would take the class down the street to a funeral home, or have an option to go watch autopsies. We watched quite a few in class that he had recorded. It wasn't that bad tho, most people would rather do random crap like that than read books and listen to lectures. The teachers at those schools are use to kids not wanting to do work, doing what they want and asking "whats the point of this".. I'm surprised those kids didn't ask questions right off the bat... I sure the hell would have

reply to post by The Vagabond


I'm actually rather intrigued by this whole thing. I would be a bit concerned about schizophrenia, I'm sure that's not the case though and that you would have recognized signs.

Think it's possible to get an answer if you call claiming to be a former student and are just interested to know what had been going on. Shoot maybe even hop on Facebook and look into asking some other former students if it's hard to get your brother to talk.

reply to post by svetlana84

Now it would be really imteresting to know what it was for? Was ittofind out who is receptable?
Was it inducing comands? What commands?....

Yah, hard to say. I found the OP statement interesting:

Then getting to the point, he says that he has been seeing more and more things in cartoons recently that remind him of that experience, and he wonders if it's some kind of a trigger mechanism. My counter-theory was that he was the subject of an experiment on attention, the results of which might now be in use to make television more conducive to a receptive state that makes advertising more effective.

Similarity in recent cartoons? Thats revealing. He would know if they reminded him of those "tests". I watch modern cartoons while my nephew does on cable. The stuff I see on there is rife with subliminal behavior modification. And that is the stuff I can see.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was also "under the mind's radar" stuff going on too. If you look away from the screen the room is "flashing" with the cartoon and the noise is deafening. Kind of a cacophony of sound and light. Very easy to hide stuff in there that gets past the minds filters.

OP, your bro may be onto something there.

reply to post by subject1145


Wow, I forgot all about that program! I was in OM as well, along with other funky activities I seem to have mostly forgotten.

reply to post by subject1145


Your link reminded me of a program I did in 6th grade. It was an invention contest. Everyone had to invent a new product and submit it to the company. Then the best ones were chosen to compete at a state level competition.

Not really creepy or out there like the op, though. I guess they could have been stealing our ideas and patenting them.