Candy Jones - Biography - Mind-control Claims

Mind-control Claims

Shortly after their marriage, Nebel said, he noted that Jones exhibited violent mood swings, and, at times, seemed to display a different personality. Nebel called this "The Voice ... a look, a few moments of bitchiness." The Voice usually vanished rather quickly, but the change was so drastic from Jones's usually pleasant demeanor that Nebel was startled and distressed.

Colin Bennett writes, "A few weeks after their marriage, did tell Nebel that she had worked for the FBI for some time, adding mysteriously that she might have to go out of town on occasion without giving a reason. This left Nebel wondering whether there was a connection between the 'other' personality within Candy and the strange trips she said she made for the FBI."

Nebel began hypnotising Jones, and uncovered an alternate personality named "Arlene". Under hypnosis, Jones related a lengthy, elaborate account of her being trained in a CIA mind-control program, often at west coast colleges and universities. Jones and Nebel eventually recorded hundreds of hours of these hypnotic sessions.

Jones said she had some conscious memories of her involvement in the mind-control program: it began in 1960, she said, when an old USO acquaintance (an unnamed retired army general) asked to use Jones' modeling school as a mailing address to receive some letters and packages. Jones agreed, she said, out of a sense of patriotism.

Eventually, said Jones, she was asked to deliver a letter to Oakland, California on a business trip she had scheduled. Again, Jones reported she agreed, and was surprised to discover the letter was delivered to the same Dr. Jensen who had treated her in the Philippines nearly two decades earlier. Jones said that Jensen and his associate, Dr. "Marshall Burger" (another pseudonym) offered hefty amounts of cash if she was willing to engage in further plans; in their earlier meetings, Jensen had noted that Jones was an ideal subject for hypnosis. Jones agreed, she said, because her modeling school was faltering, and she wanted to keep her sons in their costly private schools.

During hypnosis sessions, an alternate personality called "Arlene" was reportedly groomed by Jensen, so that Jones would have no memory of Arlene's activities. Jones allegedly made trips to locations as far away as Taiwan. While hypnotized, Jones claimed that she was subjected to painful tortures in order to test the effectiveness of the alternate personality. Donald Bain writes, " would be a messenger for the agency in conjunction with her normal business trips."

Again with the USO, Jones visited South Vietnam in 1970; she later suspected her visit had some connection to a disastrous attempt to free American prisoners of war from North Vietnam.

Jones's and Nebel's claims were first made public in 1976 (in Donald Bain's The Control of Candy Jones, published by Playboy Press). Nebel apparently accepted his wife's claims, and openly discussed killing Dr. Jensen in revenge. However, Nebel was a prankster and a hoaxer of long standing and as he was not above hoaxing his radio audience, some of whom doubted the recovered memories of Candy Jones's past were genuine. Later skeptics would argue that an alleged false memory syndrome was a more plausible explanation.

Several years later, Jones' story gained more notice after the public disclosure of MK-ULTRA in 1977.

Bain reported that associates in Jones' modeling schools asserted that Jones indeed had some puzzling absences — supposed business trips where little or no business seemed to be conducted. Bain also writes that another piece of evidence came forth when "Candy inadvertently held onto a passport of 'Arlene Grant': Candy in a dark wig and dark makeup". Jones says she had no memory of dressing up in such an outfit, or of posing for a passport in a different name.

Bain also claimed that a tape recorded answering machine message was left on Jones and Nebel's home telephone number on July 3, 1973:

"This is Japan Airlines calling on oh-three July at 4.10 p.m. ... Please have Miss Grant call 759-9100 ... she is holding a reservation on Japan Airlines Flight 5, for the sixth of July, Kennedy to Tokyo, with an option on to Taipei. This is per Cynthia that we are calling". When Jones telephoned the number and asked for Cynthia, she was told that no one of that name worked at the reservations desk.

Bain speculates that "Cynthia" might have been a code word for "CIA".

Additionally, Brian Haughton notes that "There was also a letter wrote to her attorney, William Williams, to cover herself in case she died or disappeared suddenly or under unusual circumstances; she told him she was not at liberty to reveal exactly what she was involved in. Bain wrote to Williams who corroborated this fact."

Bain also notes that in 1971, an article by hypnosis expert George Estabrooks was published in Science Digest, wherein Estabrooks openly discussed the successful creation of amnesiac couriers of the type Jones claimed to have been.

Dr. Herbert Spiegel, a nationally-recognized hypnosis expert, wrote the foreword to The Control of Candy Jones.

Candy Jones is the subject of the Exit Clov song, "MK ULTRA."

The story of her mind control claims was featured in an episode of Dark Matters: Twisted But True in a segment entitled "Sexy Secret Agent".