Tin Foil Hat

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason. http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/2010/02/on-the-effectiveness-of-aluminium-foil-helmets/

Typically made with aluminum foil, this head-gear protects the wearer's brain from the effects of mind control and can block the intrusions of mind readers. An effective and low-cost solution to combating mind-control, it is popular among less wealthy paranoids. It can block RF waves from local radio and TV stations. Also known by the more technical term "Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie" (AFDB).

An excerpt from the definitive online AFDB work, http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html :

: An Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie (AFDB) is a type of headwear that can shield your brain from most electromagnetic psychotronic mind control carriers. AFDBs are inexpensive (even free if you don't mind scrounging for thrown-out aluminum foil) and can be constructed by anyone with at least the dexterity of a chimp (maybe bonobo). This cheap and unobtrusive form of mind control protection offers real security to the masses. Not only do they protect against incoming signals, but they also block most forms of brain scanning and mind reading, keeping the secrets in your head truly secret. AFDBs are safe and operate automatically. All you do is make it and wear it and you're good to go! Plus, AFDBs are stylish and comfortable.
: What are you waiting for? Make one today!

The TinFoilHat is not the sole domain of paranoiacs. It has a long, respectable, and scientific history, as attested in "The Tissue-Culture King" by Sir Julian Huxley, published in The Yale Review Apr 1926 and Amazing Aug 1927:

: Well, we had discovered that metal was relatively imperivous to the telepathic effect, and prepared for ourselves a sort of tin pulpit, behind which we could stand while conducting experiments. This, combined with caps of metal foil, enormously reduced the effects on ourselves.

An excellent strategem by the GrandConspiracy - make those paranoid enough to believe in them wear a device for focussing mind-control rays.

Q: Does it have a self-powered propeller to cool the head?

A: No, it depends on the wearer to remain calm.

Q: Does the reflective side of the tinfoil go in or out?

A: If you make it two-layered with one in and one out, it leaves only those that can live in the void between the two the control.

Don't forget that you have to ground the hat to get the desired effect. Use good quality copper braid.

Science is not a strong point among the paranoid.

Someone has their Tin Foil Hat on too tight!

Q: You IvoryTower academics think you're so smart, but you fail to come up with practical solutions. How am I supposed to ground my AFDB from inside a rubber room?

A: Conductive (silicon) rubber?

Don't forget, the more tin foil, the better the radar cross section, so we can track you. What you really need is a StealthTinFoilHat.

StealthTinFoilHat

An improved upgrade to the TinFoilHat, but made of transparent plastic wrap, to avoid being tracked by radar.

"That's logic!" (Tweedledum)

Velostat seems to be all the rage - http://aliensandchildren.org/ThoughtScreenHats.htm

Important news: an empyrical study by several people, one from MIT Media Lab and three from Electric Engineering and CS faculties, shows that tinfoil hats are dangerous for your mental invisibility: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

: Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Of course, this study could have been planted by the US government. MIT's Media Lab was founded by the brother of the directory of National Intelligence, after all.

You know, it has always fascinated me exactly where the Tin Foil Hat meme first arose. I know everybody uses it now as a catch-all phrase for any kind of paranoia, but when you think about it, 'Government mind control rays' is a very *specific* kind of thing to be paranoid about. I would love to see somewhere some scholarly research on exactly where and when this trope first originated. Is it American or European? Did it exist pre World War II? Pre Vietnam? I think I remember hearing about it first in the 1980s, but I'm unclear as to whether it was already an in-joke in the conspiracy underground culture at that point or not. How many documented psychiatric patients have presented with this very specific belief cluster? There must be a paper trail of this belief set somewhere.

There certainly is quite a SF/pop-culture footprint of the idea of 'radio hypnosis' which presumably arose from popular science portrayals of actual research such as the Frey microwave auditory effect and Jose Delgado's animal implant research and, I think, earlier military hypnosis research. I remember, for example, the 1975 Trigan Empire story 'The Convicts' (http://trigan.com/cgi-bin/triga.pl?x=t;y=TE54) which revolved around the concept of hypnosis plus simple radio implants. As SF tends to recycle quite old ideas, do the roots of this research go back to the 1950s or even earlier?

There is use of metal to defeat alien mind control in the movie "They Came From Beyond Space" made in 1967 - there's an entry for it in the IMDB.

It is interesting, how that a certain type of Paranoid Schizophrenic, seems to do this without knowing anything about its popularity in the real world. I have known of a couple of different people who have had late-onset Paranoid Schiz., and when they were found during an episode they were wandering around in the streets, usually naked except for an Aluminum Foil Hat. When asked, they usually say that it is to stop the voices in their head, and that these voices are put there by different paranoid conspiracies. If they lack foil, then anything will do such as a metal collander, metal pot, etc. Always interesting how the mind works, and how that if it wants to, it can make you see something that is not there, and it can make you hear voices that are only in your head. To the mentally ill it is all as real as the computer you are typing on. The experience is real, and so is the effect on their minds and bodies.

How to Make Your Tinfoil Hat http://mindcontrol101.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-make-your-tinfoil-hat.html

Contributors: MaggieMcFee, MartySchrader, ElizabethWiethoff

CategoryTinFoilHat, CategoryIdiom