Annie Jacobsen

The definitive history of the military's decades-long investigation into mental powers and phenomena, from the author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain and international bestseller Area 51. This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances.For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves.Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? PHENOMENA is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.

There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States. Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.

It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn’t exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada’s desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government-but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now.Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror.This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.

The “remarkable” story of America's secret post-WWII science programs (The Boston Globe), from the New York Times bestselling author of Area 51.In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States.Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery. They were also directly responsible for major advances in rocketry, medical treatments, and the U.S. space program. Was Operation Paperclip a moral outrage, or did it help America win the Cold War?Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and with access to German archival documents (including previously unseen papers made available by direct descendants of the Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and dossiers discovered in government archives and at Harvard University, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into a startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secret of the twentieth century.In this definitive, controversial look at one of America's most strategic, and disturbing, government programs, Jacobsen shows just how dark government can get in the name of national security.

The definitive, character-driven history of CIA covert operations and U.S. government-sponsored assassinations, from the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's BrainSince 1947, domestic and foreign assassinations have been executed under the CIA-led covert action operations team. Before that time, responsibility for taking out America's enemies abroad was even more shrouded in mystery. Despite Hollywood notions of last-minute rogue-operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually a cog in a colossal foreign policy machine, moving through, among others, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the House and Senate Select Committees. At the end of the day, it is the President, not the CIA, who is singularly in charge.When diplomacy fails and overt military action is not feasible, the President often calls on the Special Activities Division, the most secretive and lowest-profile branch of the CIA. It is this paramilitary team that undertakes dramatic and little-known assignments: hostage rescues, sabotage, and, of course, assassinations.For the first time, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen takes us deep inside this top-secret history. With unparalleled access to former operatives, ambassadors, and even past directors of the Secret Service and CIA operations, Jacobsen reveals the inner workings of these teams, and just how far a U.S. president may go, covertly but lawfully, to pursue the nation's interests.

The definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, from the author of the New York Times bestseller Area 51No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present.This is the book on DARPA--a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

An urgent investigation into warfare, good, and evil in the age of biometrics, the technology that would allow the government to identify anyone, anywhere, at any time This is a story that starts off close and goes very big. The initial part of the story might sound familiar at It is about a platoon of mostly nineteen-year-old boys sent to Afghanistan, and an experience that ends abruptly in catastrophe. Their part of the story folds into the inexorably linked to those soldiers and never comprehensively reported before is the U.S. Department of Defense's quest to build the world's most powerful biometrics database, with the power to identify, monitor, catalogue, and police people all over the world.First Platoon is an American saga that illuminates a transformation of society made possible by this new technology. Part war story, part legal drama, it is about identity in the age of identification. About humanity--physical bravery, trauma, PTSD, a yearning to do right and good--in the age of biometrics, which reduce people to iris scans, fingerprint scans, voice patterning, detection by odor, gait, and more. And about the power of point-of-view in a burgeoning surveillance state.Based on hundreds of formerly classified documents, FOIA requests, and exclusive interviews, First Platoon is an investigative expos� by a master chronicler of government secrets. First Platoon reveals a post-9/11 Pentagon whose identification machines have grown more capable than the humans who must make sense of them. A Pentagon so powerful it can cover up its own internal mistakes in pursuit of endless wars. And a people at its mercy, in its last moments before a fundamental change so complete it might be impossible to take back.

On June 29, 2004, journalist Annie Jacobsen, traveling with her family on Northwest Airlines flight 327, witnessed what she believed was a terrorist ?dry run.? The blogosphere quickly made world news of Jacobsen's article on her terrifying experience, launching her on a year-long investigation. In Terror in the Skies, Jacobsen tells, for the first time, the full story of the events on Northwest 327 and the investigation that followed. What happened on her flight, she discovered, was not an isolated incident, and if our air security does not improve, 9-11 is likely to happen again.

Can you imagine catching more fish than your boat can hold? That's what happens to Sigurd and Tor, two old Scandinavian fishermen. "Ole Mackerel," what a fix they are in! Join them on their hilarious adventure to see if they sink or swim.

Please Note The individual books included in this listing will be dispatched as per the original UK ISBN and UK edition cover image shown—are included in the Annie Jacobsen 2 Books Collection Set (Nuclear War & Surprise Kill Vanish):📚 Books in This Nuclear War Surprise Kill Vanish Nuclear There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of nuclear war.Until now, no one outside official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilization. Decisions that affect hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, in the knowledge that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction.Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, been privy to the response plans, and taken responsibility for crucial decisions, this is the only account.Surprise, Kill, Since 1947, domestic and foreign assassinations have been executed under the C IA-led covert action operations team. Before that time, responsibility for taking out America's enemies abroad was even more shrouded in mystery. Despite Hollywood notions of last-minute rogue-operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually a cog in a colossal foreign policy machine, moving through, among others, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the House and Senate Select Committees. At the end of the day, it is the President, not the C IA, who is singularly in charge.For the first time, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen takes us deep inside this top-secret history.With unparalleled access to former operatives, ambassadors, and even past directors of the Secret Service and CIA operations.

From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her biological warfare.A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario. It would be only a matter of days from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.The mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other dystopia.Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small, and something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result. This is what could happen; a ticking-clock roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.