It's Always Sunny in Gulf Breeze, Florida, Pt. 3
Lyn Buchanan's Psychic EMP / Vance Davis Meets a Major Alien Babe Through Self-Mind Control
The weird happenings at the USASA Field Station Augsburg were not without precedent: Six years earlier, a man named Leonard (Lyn) Buchanan was stationed at the same base as the Gulf Breeze Six and also performing similar Army Intelligence work. As with the GB6, he also had a psychic breakthrough. Buchanan claimed that while doing his regular duties, he let his anger get the best of him after a fellow soldier messed up his computer program. For a normal soldier, this would just result in an verbal outburst—nothing unusual. For Buchanan however, it made every computer at the station go dead.1 Recall George Clooney’s portrayal of Lyn Cassady in The Men Who Stare at Goats, partially based on Buchanan, who performs the same feat. Expecting to be reprimanded, Buchanan was actually plucked from the 701st Military Intelligence Brigade and placed in a unit of psychic soldiers at Fort Meade. He had drawn “the attention of the right people,” specifically Major General Albert Stubblebine (Stephen Lang’s character for those keeping score).2 The purported remote viewing abilities of Buchanan and the tests run on him are certainly a shocking example of government interest in parapsychology:
When I first came into the unit, I was there for the purpose of allowing Gen. Stubblebine to form a unit which would have the job of first learning how to destroy enemy computers and later, if possible, learning how to control the information within enemy computers. Anyway, Congress nixed that idea, since it smelled too much of “mind control.” (…) They decided to use me as a sort of guinea pig.3
Buchanan goes on to describe various remote viewing experiments where he would intuit the location of site where other soldiers were sent to. In one such instance, the “outbounders” got lost on their way to the site Buchanan was supposed to describe remotely. This was deemed a hit when he could not receive any psychic impressions of their location, thinking they must be lost. For more information on Buchanan, I highly recommend Jack Brewer’s article on him at The UFO Trail.
One of the GB6 soldiers, Vance Davis, made claims reminiscent of (albeit somewhat in reverse) Buchanan’s in various interviews after their discharge and the 1995 book Unbroken Promises: A True Story of Courage and Belief. In the latter, he speaks of his early experiences using the Silva Method, a form of “self-mind control” created by Jose Silva, a self-taught electrician from Laredo, Texas.4 Borrowing some techniques from hypnosis and meditation, the goal of the Silva Method is for the practitioner to control their “alpha state” of brain function which has impressive results ranging from stress relief to ESP to psychic healing. The course was respectably popular in the 1970s for people looking for self-help or guidance. Some business and even Catholic schools picked up the method as a useful tool. However, from Peter Clarke’s Encylopedia of New Religious Movements: “Some have questioned whether the Silva Method’s achievements can be scientifically verified, pointing to a lack of evidence of greater success, for example, in intelligence tests.”5
Davis purported that he was taught in the Silva Method of self-mind control as a teenager by Alex (Gerald) Merklinger who taught courses throughout the United States—predominantly the northeast—in the 1970s. Some forums indicate that Merklinger was involved in Silva training all the way up until 2004, meaning he was probably teaching it in some form or another within the time period Davis claims. However, I can find no evidence that Davis left the Wichita, Kansas area before joining the military, so there is a chance that Merklinger held a session there or that Davis had a different instructor. Merklinger later hosted a radio show called Mysteries of the Mind which shared some subjects and listenership with Coast to Coast AM. (There is a rabbit hole worth following in this area, but it's beyond the scope of this series.) He was eventually convicted of a variety of felonies including defrauding the U.S. government and mail fraud on two separate occasions.6 This is not the only time Davis would fall in with a new age felon, but the second instance will be explored later.
It was this training in the Silva Method that allowed Davis to experiment with altered states of consciousness from an early age. He recounts how the method allowed him to create a mental space he dubbed “the lab” that acted as a “mental building” where Davis had access to “all of the knowledge in the universe.”7 His Silva instructors taught him, among other marvels, the ability to intuit a person’s description, personality, and health through solely a name. Davis often compares “the lab” to a computer control room, bearing similarities to his later work with Army Intelligence. He describes talking to a mental projection of Sigmund Freud about teenage anxieties and a “Guide”—“a personification of our higher selves”—that came in the form of a blue-green-skinned extraterrestrial named Kia.8 This “major alien babe” taught him how to cure his flat feet using only the power of his mind.
Davis’ training and apparent proficiency in the Silva Method did not cease usefulness after his teenage years. Davis joined the army in 1984 after an argument with his father compelled him to leave his hometown of Valley Center, Kansas. After training at Corry Station in Pensacola, Florida, (where he first met fellow GB6ers Kenneth Beason and Annette Eccleston,) he was assigned to an NSA post at Fort Meade. The assignment surprised him, “as people were seldom assigned here during their first hitch,” needing “at least a four-year track record to be considered for this work.”9 Davis would later come to believe that his “fast-track to NSA was probably due to (his) Silva Mind Control background,” as he “had done work in psychic research (…) at Fort Meade, and was surprised at the seriousness with which our military approached this subject.”10 The time period is appropriate for Lt. Skip Atwater and Gen. Stubblebine’s Stargate Project to be in full swing at Ft. Meade. Davis might have even crossed paths with Lyn Buchanan. Elsewhere, Davis would recount that he was “reeducated” in United States history by “people that believe in” the country at the NSA during his training. From an interview with the aforementioned Alex Merklinger:
What I learned was why history happened, who history was, why or when history was. The dates in the book(s) are not all that accurate. Those are accepted dates(,) not factual dates. To give an example(:) The founding of this country did not occur. The founding fathers were already meeting many years before the advent, the war against England occurred. There was already a plan in place for the founding of new country. It was not just a spur because British soldiers shot someone or the stand-back. It was the series of events that happened over the period of 60 to 70 years. And they have been planning for the long (term).11
He goes on to describe ancient alien races, future human potential, and a cosmic ballet being played out on our planet. If his retelling of his training at the NSA are accurate, it definitely appears that Davis was primed for an event just like the AWOL adventure he would soon take. I am no military man, but I would tend to think this type of history education was unusual. Davis later requested a transfer to Germany after asking his alien guide Kia where a girl from his dreams could be found. With the transfer granted, he had a brief stint at the Bad Aibling NSA Field Station before winding up at USASA Field Station Augsburg where he would meet up again with Kenneth Beason and Annette Eccleston. Already a persistent Silva Mind Control student and armed with insider knowledge on untold human history, all that was needed for events to commence further was a Ouija board. Thank god they have those at the Augsberg PX.
Thank you for reading Getting Spooked. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read so far, consider supporting the publication through a paid Substack subscription or a one-time donation on Ko-fi. My appreciation goes out to everyone who has donated so far. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter at @TannerFBoyle1 with questions, comments, or recommendations. Until next time, stay spooked!
Buchanan, Lyn. The Seventh Sense: The Secrets of Remote Viewing as Told by a “Psychic Spy” for the U.S. Military. New York: Paraview Pocket Books, 2003. Ebook, page 25.
Marrs, Jim. PSI Spies: The True Story of America’s Psychic Warfare Program. Franklin Lakes: New Page Books, 2007. Page 145.
Ibid., page 145-146.
Sawyer, Susan G. “Faith, hope and clarity: Catholic schools are sold on Silva Mind Control.” New York Daily News, 19 January 1981. Accessed 1 February 2023. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117774873/daily-news/.
Clarke, Peter. Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. London & New York: Routledge, 2006. Page 591-592.
Davis, Vance A. and Brian Blashaw. Unbroken Promises: A True Story of Courage and Belief. Mesa: White Mesa Publishers, 1995. Page 18.
Ibid., page 21-23.
Ibid., page 32.
Ibid., page 37.
Davis, Vance. Interviewed by Alex Merklinger. Reprinted in document compiled by James Carrion which can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByaETuY4MjY8ODhTVDU4Rk5FMEk/view?resourcekey=0-QXHK7Em9_f4TIQsXZIIsvg. Page 10.