Unexplained Mysteries of THE KALPA VIGRAHA

Submitted by Robert Menard

The following has been revealed to us by two retired CIA agents who wish to remain anonymous

The loss of a small 47 gm ancient Hindu brass-like metal idol of extreme antiquity called the Kalpa Vigraha has caused the American Central Intelligence Agency considerable anxiety. This unusual disclosure was made recently by a retired CIA agent on condition of absolute anonymity.

Firstly, what was the importance of this idol; what was the CIA doing with an ancient Hindu relic; and why the angst?

The story begins almost half a century ago. A heavy chest containing the idol was reportedly given to CIA officials for safekeeping at Lo Monthang (called "Mustang" in CIA files) by a Tibetan monk accompanied by Khampa bodyguards sometime in 1959-60. The monk apparently related to the CIA officials the importance of the chest and its contents. A curious CIA official meticulously wrote down the details of what the Buddhist monk told them about the chest and its contents. Why he thought it important to record the Buddhist monk's story is anybody's guess. But it also appears that the Americans were initially not quite impressed with the quaint values attached to objects of Oriental worship at that time when their priority was conducting a guerrilla war against the Chinese forces advancing into Tibet.

 

In the same week that the CIA officials received the chest a skirmish erupted with Chinese forces in which the Tibetan monk and his guards were killed. The CIA officials not knowing what to make of the curious chest loaded it onto an aircraft and had it sent to a secret airbase in India, later transporting it to Camp Hale, a now-abandoned Army base near Vail, Colorado. A few weeks later the chest wound up at a CIA store-room in Washington DC labeled "ST Circus Mustang-0183".

Many months would elapse before someone in the CIA decided to take an interest in the chest and its contents. A strange manuscript found inside and the unusually age-worn chest coupled with its noticeably unique design prompted them to conduct a radiocarbon test of the timber with which the chest was made. The results given to them by the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Berkeley astounded the CIA officials. The antiquity of the worn-out wooden chest and the idol was mind-boggling to say the least. It did not belong to this "yuga" or epoch on the Hindu time scale just as the monk had claimed. That is to say, it belonged to a period called the Dwapara yuga, making it the oldest human artifact in existence. Radiocarbon (C14) dating conducted by the University of California Radiation Laboratory on the heavy 9-inch thick timber sides and lid of the chest in which it was discovered arrived at readings that indicated a period around 26,450 BCE. That would make it over 28,450 years old today, and about 23,300 years older than the legendary Hindu Kurukshetra war. The idol was also tested by experts who concluded that it was the oldest Hindu idol in existence. None of the known ancient excavated civilizations of history – Egyptian, Mesopotamian or Indus Valley existed before 6000 years ago.

The Kalpa Vigraha idol was reportedly found placed inside this heavy metal-lined wooden chest with a socket-and-pivot hinged lid and an ancient loop-and-rod lock assembly. The chest itself presented a curiosity, as the space within the box was barely 8 X 8 X 8 inches while the timber pieces used to construct all its five sides was about 8 inches thick each! The timber of which the lid of the chest was made also measured about 6 inches in thickness. The teak-wood timber was further protected by a 1-inch thick bronze-like alloy plate on all sides which despite severe external corrosion had preserved the teak-wood of the box to a fair extent. The metal plate appears to have been riveted into the teakwood with nails of some similar metal alloy. Though many rivets were missing, the metal casing held well. The appearance of the chest suggested that it might have lain buried for a considerable period of time, though scrape-marks from attempts made to clean the corrosion on the outside were visible.

Corrosive salts or dampness had not crept into the chest despite its age, though some degree of natural oxidation and decay was noticed in the contents of the chest which included a manuscript written on wooden slats and the small brass-like crude metal idol. The old pre-Rigvedic Sanskrit-type manuscript was translated by the CIA with difficulty. In fact it reportedly took two long years to decipher, employing experts including some Indian and Nepalese. They concluded that the language belonged to the proto-historic period of Hinduism when it was thought no language existed and that the Vedas were being passed down orally. The manuscript appeared to be something akin to Sanskrit, but not quite anything any archaeologist or historian had ever encountered before. The manuscript mentioned the name of the idol – "kalpa maha-ayusham rasayana vigraha" abbreviated in CIA files to "Kalpa Vigraha."

The Kalpa Vigraha is a small crude brass idol weighing about 47.10 gms depicting a deity resembling the Hindu god Shiva kneeling or seated on one knee, a serpant's hood forming a canopy above the head of the idol. In the right hand of the figure was a discus or circular weapon, perhaps the "sudharshan-chakra" of Hindu mythology. Around its neck was a string of beads. The metal formed three "loops" on one side caused by the snake, an arm holding a conch-shell and the discus. It measured about 5.3 cm tall and about 4.7 cms wide, with an oval base 2.5 cms long and 1.7 cms wide. There was no doubt the small statue was of some extreme importance to have been preserved with such care in a chest of such strength and durability.

But following the translation of the manuscript, events surrounding the Kalpa Vigraha suddenly took a mysterious turn. The UCRL's records were impounded by the CIA and a shroud of silence was cast over all matters regarding the chest and the Hindu idol. "ST Circus Mustang-0183" was removed from the inventory at the CIA storehouse records, and the whole episode was swept under the carpet for some inexplicable reason.

However, the unnamed source, a retired CIA agent, revealed recently that based on the text of the manuscript found along with the idol, a series of top-secret experiments were conducted by the CIA on unsuspecting human subjects in the United States and elsewhere in the world. According to this unnamed source in Langley, Virginia, an "inner-circle" of the CIA dedicated most of their time in the early 1960s conducting experiments based on the ancient manuscript, and the Kalpa Vigraha idol itself played the most important role in this bizarre research.

The source, who was partially involved in the research, explained that one of the experiments was particularly intriguing. It required a human subject to consume a tumbler of water each day for 3 days. This water was earlier "charged" by CIA agents by simply placing the idol in a large copper vessel containing drinking water for nine days before the human subject was required to drink it. What results the "inner circle" officials expected to see by this innocuous experiment was not known to anybody at that time, but top CIA officials evinced great interest in it. The "charged" water was also sent to various laboratories under heavy security and all reports and documents received from the labs were sent directly to the CIA director, John McCone.

The unnamed source also recalled that during this period a number of packages containing literature on homeopathy and ayurveda were received from various parts of the globe and often circulated in the department with markings and footnotes. Barring perhaps the inner-circle, nobody quite knew what this was all about.

A month later, the source was asked to head a nine-member team consisting mostly of women whose sole task was to feed this water to unsuspecting citizens in the US. They called themselves the "Watering Team". It was not known to the Watering Team whether the subjects to whom the water was to be fed were randomly chosen by the inner-circle officials, but what was certain as the team met up with the target recipients of the water was that they were of all ages- some in their teens, some even past their middle-ages and many being above the age of sixty or sixty-five at least. Detail instructions were handed out as to how they were to go about the "watering". What was also apparent to the team later was that all the subjects were born Americans, both black and white from various walks of life. Many were African American women. The "watering" had to be done without the subjects' knowledge by befriending them or by looking for innocuous opportunities to get them to consume a glass of water for three consecutive days in a row. The team often failed, with some other members of the target recipient's family ending up drinking the water inadvertently. The CIA required them to report such slips also.

This went on for a few months. Some of the human test subjects chosen were in far-flung states and in remote towns and cities of the United States. Apparently the CIA had some system in place to monitor their subjects for whatever results they expected as an outcome of the experiment for the "Watering Team" was not required to hang around once the subject had consumed the water over three days. "Ease-out of the acquaintance without raising any questions", they were told.

For the purpose of keeping a personal record, the source also made notes in his private diary - the names and addresses of the various recipients his team was required to befriend to feed the water. Maintenance of any such record was forbidden by the agency, nevertheless many agents did it and the CIA was aware of it.

The source recalls with amusement that during this time the agents in the CIA who were in-the-know about these experiments, including the members of their own "Watering Team" often doubted and double-checked their own drinking water, often leaving the office to fetch drinking water for themselves or settling for coffee, juice or soft-drinks. "It was a period of discomfort and uneasiness for reasons we could not fathom," the source recalls.

Soon after the "watering" experiments were completed, the assignment was abruptly called off. In the subsequent years that the unnamed CIA official served in the agency not much was heard or spoken of this experiment, except as a joke. The inner-circle members were deployed to more pressing assignments around the US and the world. The reason for the bizarre experiment was never revealed, neither were the results ever known. Over time it was quite forgotten, and treated as some of the many idiosyncrasies that the CIA indulged in during the cold war years.

A recent long-distant telephone call from another state in the US on the morning of December 2008 changed all that. The source, now long retired, with great-grandchildren playing around him, was unexpectedly informed one night by another retired agent of the CIA that the Kalpa Vigraha was "missing". The agent who made the call was once a member of the "inner circle", a man who knew what the experiments conducted in the early 1960s was all about.

As he listened, it took our long-retired CIA source some time to remember what "idol" was being referred to, as today he was more familiar with the popular "American Idol" music competition program he enjoyed watching on TV with his grand and great-grand children.

"The Hindu idol, my dear Mac (name changed), don't you remember, the one they called the Kalpa Vigraha?" the voice said. "Don't you remember the experiments that put you in charge of the Watering Team assignment? I'm only calling you this morning because I knew for certain that you would be alive and well to hear this news."

"Ken (name changed), you call me today, thirty-two years after my retirement to tell me about an old forgettable idol that never made sense to any of us! So, what if it's missing? What's the big deal here, Ken?"

The Big Deal

The voice at the other end of the phone had an astounding story to tell.

The inside story of CIA experiments involving the Kalpa Vigraha as revealed to Mac was stuff that would rival even the fictional and immensely popular X-File TV serial.

Ken the CIA agent who made the telephone call to his former colleague on the morning of December 2008 and who was once a member of the inner-circle was a microbiologist with expertise in immunotherapy when he was initially recruited by the CIA in 1946 to analyze "Lebensborn" data confiscated from Nazi Germany after the downfall of Hitler. Ken was only 38 years old then. That makes him about 100 years old when he made the telephone call to his former CIA colleague Mac (our source), aged 98 years on the morning of December, 2008.

Ken, the inner-circle CIA agent reminded Mac of the many subjects the CIA had targeted for consumption of the "charged" Kalpa Vigraha water back in 1960-61, many of whom had been fed the water personally by Mac. Mac could recall many of the names and even crossed-checked in his own diary to confirm and refresh his memory of all the people he had surreptitiously befriended to feed the "charged" water.

A week later Ken and Mac met to discuss the matter. They went over the list in Mac's old diary, and for the first time in decades, recalled the events of more than 45 years ago. Ken updated Mac with facts of the CIA's Kalpa Vigraha experiments that were not revealed to him earlier. For the first time Mac learnt that there had been other "watering teams" operating in many parts of the world in the early 1960s. Ken had brought with him a much longer list, showing corrections made over time to the names of female test-subjects who had married or remarried and stopped using their maiden names.

The CIA had been keeping a meticulous watch ("kalpa-tag", they called it) over almost all test-subjects around the globe, and monitoring their lives in secrecy. There was not much to monitor, really. CIA's kalpa vigraha cell's job was, and still continues to be, to report back if a recipient of the charged water (wherever he or she was in the world) was alive. The Reason? All persons subjected to the Kalpa Vigraha experiment were expected to live very long lives, past the age of 100 at least, perhaps crossing 110 and even reaching the age of 120. Of course this does not include those who died unnatural deaths in road-accidents or other mishaps, murder, suicide, accidental poisoning, or dying in conflicts or war.

Mac updated and corrected the names on his own list, of people whom his own Watering Team had subjected to the experiments in the United States. In some cases he replaced the word "negro" to "African American" as it is accepted today. Ken would not have him keep the names on the larger list of people world-wide. It was irrelevant, he said.

Ken also revealed to him that he had learnt many years after he had retired that both he and Mac apart from a dozen other CIA staff had also been unsuspectingly subject to the Kalpa Vigraha experiment before being allotted their watering team assignment. Both men shed tears following this disclosure. It was deeply disturbing now despite the loyalty with which they had served the agency.

Mac, our source, the now-retired CIA agent who led the Watering Team in the United States chose to disclose his own list to us. But before he did that he removed the names of those test subjects he believed were still alive, as he felt he would not be able to "face" any of them if they were to ever appear on TV against the CIA when the list was published by us.

The list of those who had died comprised of the following names. What is astonishing is that all the persons whose names Mac gave us had lived to an age of above 110 before they died, some even reaching the age of 115 and above.-

Fannie Thomas, Sarah Knauss, Mary McKinney, Lucy Hannah, Margaret Skeete, Elizabeth Bolden, Maggie Barnes, Edna Parker, Bettie Wilson, Susie Gibson, Zora Wriggle, Maude Davis Farris-Luse, Delina Filkins, Mathew Beard, Carrie Lazenby, Myrtle Dorsey, Elena Slough, Wilhelmina Geringer Kott, Clara Huhn, Ettie Mae Greene, Emma Verona Johnston, Odie Mathews, Florence Knapp, Irene Frank, Emma Tillman, Grace Thaxton, Minnie Ward, Arbella Ewing, Catherine Hagel, Fred H. Hale, Sr., Bertha Fry, Mae Harrington, Agatha Mitchell, Moses Hardy, Corinne Dixon Taylor, Bettie Chatmon, Mary Christian, Johnson Parks, Mary Parr, John Ingram McMorran, Mary Electa Nobel Bidwell, Martha Graham, Gladys Swetland, Mary Randall, Mary Anna Boone.

Four names, that of Ruth Golonka, Willie Lee Morgan, Steven Martin and Bert Jenkins were found to be of people who had died "accidentally". Ruth Golonka, died of a car accident, Willie Lee Morgan was murdered. Both Steven Martin and Bert Jenkins had died in Vietnam.

The Loss of the Kalpa Vigraha

(The following information was sought and received by us from another source (No. 2) still working in the CIA)

The Kalpa Vigraha, the CIA store-room inventory item labeled "ST Circus Mustang-0183", was not seen or heard of for many decades. An audit conducted in 1996 revealed that the heavy metal-lined chest was very much in the store, but that the idol and the manuscript had been "misplaced". In a search conducted over many weeks, spanning many states, and enquiries made from many retired personnel, the agency was able to trace the manuscript from the house of a microbiologist the CIA had many years ago hired for analysis of the "charged" kalpa vigraha water. The manuscript was found but the whereabouts of the Kalpa Vigraha is still a mystery. Following the discovery of the manuscript, a spate of mysterious deaths of microbiologists followed. The media and the internet were rife with conspiracy theories on the death of the rather alarming number of them, but few laid suspicion on the CIA until our above-mentioned source No 2, a serving agent of the CIA spilled the beans. However hard it will be to pin all these inexplicable deaths on the CIA, the coincidences are equally hard to rule out if source No.2 is honest regarding the facts. We would not like to go into the details revealed to us and would rather allow police and the investigation agencies to arrive at their own conclusions with regard to the deaths.

According to our CIA source no.2 the Kalpa Vigraha has since been smuggled out of the United States to India. The latest information received at the CIA headquarters is that it lies in the possession of some software employees or IT professionals at Hyderabad, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. For the first time in 48 years, photographs of the Kalpa Vigraha, depicting the idol from four different directions were circulated around the world by the CIA with an enormous cash reward for its recovery.