Missing/ Murdered/ Suicide- Scientist's Thread- Marconi Mystery

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Missing/ Murdered/ Suicide Scientist’s Thread- Marconi Mystery


I would like to start this thread and see where it goes. I have been looking into the many number of scientists who have died since the early 1980’s-to present, many of them would be described as leading scientists and many of the cases are well out of the ordinary to put it mildly.

What initially focused my attention on this subject was the case of the Marconi Mystery. To start the thread off I’m going to begin with them….

“The GEC-Marconi scientist deaths conspiracy theory states that between 1982 and 1990 twenty-five British-based GEC-Marconi scientists and engineers who worked on the Sting Ray torpedo project, and other US Strategic Defense Initiative related projects (better known as Star Wars) died under mysterious circumstances. Police investigations found the deaths to be unconnected and lacking evidence of foul play.”
http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1557716
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marconi_Scientists

So who were these scientists, what did they do and how did they die? It has been reported that up to 25 scientists turned up dead but I’ve only got 23 names so far, not sure about the other 2 so will work with what I’ve got to begin with. One of the cases was found to have been caused by way of heart-attack.
http://www2.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/sdi-deaths.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20060115182514/http://www.miqel.com/text/microbiologist-death-mystery.html

March 1982: Professor Keith Bowden, 46
--Expertise: Computer programmer and scientist at Essex University engaged in work for Marconi, who was hailed as an expert on super computers and computer-controlled aircraft.
--Circumstance of Death: Fatal car crash when his vehicle went out of control across a dual carriageway and plunged onto a disused railway line. Police maintained he had been drinking but family and friends all denied the allegation.
--Coroner's verdict: Accident.



April 1983: Lt-Colonel Anthony Godley, 49
--Expertise: Head of the Work Study Unit at the Royal College of Military Science.
--Circumstance of Death: Disappeared mysteriously in April 1983 without explanation. Presumed dead.

March 1985: Roger Hill, 49
--Expertise: Radar designer and draughtsman with Marconi.
--Circumstance of Death: Died by a shotgun blast at home.
--Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

November 19, 1985: Jonathan Wash, 29
--Expertise: Digital communications expert who had worked at GEC and at British Telecom's secret research centre at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk.
--Circumstance of Death: Died as a result of falling from a hotel room in Abidjan, West Africa, while working for British Telecom. He had expressed fears that his life was in danger.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.


August 4, 1986: Vimal Dajibhai, 24
--Expertise: Computer software engineer with Marconi, responsible for testing computer control systems of Tigerfish and Stingray torpedoes at Marconi Underwater Systems at Croxley Green, Hertfordshire.
--Circumstance of Death: Death by 74m (240ft.) fall from Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol. Police report on the body mentioned a needle-sized puncture wound on the left buttock, but this was later dismissed as being a result of the fall. Dajibhai had been looking forward to starting a new job in the City of London and friends had confirmed that there was no reason for him to commit suicide. At the time of his death he was in the last week of his work with Marconi.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.

October 1986: Arshad Sharif, 26
--Expertise: Reported to have been working on systems for the detection of submarines by satellite.
--Circumstance of Death: Died as a result of placing a ligature around his neck, tying the other end to a tree and then driving off in his car with the accelerator pedal jammed down. His unusual death was complicated by several issues: Sharif lived near Vimal Dajibhai in Stanmore, Middlesex, he committed suicide in Bristol and, inexplicably, had spent the last night of his life in a rooming house. He had paid for his accommodation in cash and was seen to have a bundle of high-denomination banknotes in his possession. While the police were told of the banknotes, no mention was made of them at the inquest and they were never found. In addition, most of the other guests at the rooming house worked at British Aerospace prior to working for Marconi, Sharif had also worked at British Aerospace on guided weapons technology.
--Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

January 1987: Richard Pugh, 37
--Expertise: MOD computer consultant and digital communications expert.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead in his flat in with his feet bound and a plastic bag over his head. Rope was tied around his body, coiling four times around his neck.
--Coroner's verdict: Accident.

January 12, 1987: Dr. John Brittan, 52
--Expertise: Scientist formerly engaged in top secret work at the Royal College of Military Science at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, and later deployed in a research department at the MOD.
--Circumstance of Death: Death by carbon monoxide poisoning in his own garage, shortly after returning from a trip to the US in connection with his work.
--Coroner's verdict: Accident.

February 1987: David Skeels, 43
--Expertise: Engineer with Marconi.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead in his car with a hosepipe connected to the exhaust.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.

February 1987: Victor Moore, 46
--Expertise: Design Engineer with Marconi Space and Defence Systems.
--Circumstance of Death: Died from an overdose.
--Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

February 22, 1987: Peter Peapell, 46
--Expertise: Scientist at the Royal College of Military Science. He had been working on testing titanium for it's resistance to explosives and the use of computer analysis of signals from metals.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead allegedly from carbon monoxide poisoning, in his Oxfordshire garage. The circumstances of his death raised some elements of doubt. His wife had found him on his back with his head parallel to the rear car bumper and his mouth in line with the exhaust pipe, with the car engine running. Police were apparently baffled as to how he could have manoeuvred into the position in which he was found.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.

April 1987: George Kountis age unknown.
--Expertise: Systems Analyst at Bristol Polytechnic.
--Circumstance of Death: Drowned the same day as Shani Warren (see below) - as the result of a car accident, his upturned car being found in the River Mersey, Liverpool.
--Coroner's verdict: Misadventure.
(Kountis, sister called for a fresh inquest as she thought 'things didn't add up.')

April 10, 1987: Shani Warren, 26
--Expertise: Personal assistant in a company called Micro Scope, which was taken over by GEC Marconi less than four weeks after her death.
--Circumstance of Death: Found drowned in 45cm. (18in) of water, not far from the site of David Greenhalgh's death fall. Warren died exactly one week after the death of Stuart Gooding and serious injury to Greenhalgh. She was found gagged with a noose around her neck. Her feet were also bound and her hands tied behind her back.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.
(It was said that Warren had gagged herself, tied her feet with rope, then tied her hands behind her back and hobbled to the lake on stiletto heels to drown herself.)

April 10, 1987: Stuart Gooding, 23
--Expertise: Postgraduate research student at the Royal College of Military Science.
--Circumstance of Death: Fatal car crash while on holiday in Cyprus. The death occurred at the same time as college personnel were carrying out exercises on Cyprus.
--Coroner's verdict: Accident.

April 24, 1987: Mark Wisner, 24
--Expertise: Software engineer at the MOD.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead on in a house shared with two colleagues. He was found with a plastic sack around his head and several feet of cling film around his face. The method of death was almost identical to that of Richard Pugh some three months earlier.
--Coroner's verdict: Accident.

March 30, 1987: David Sands, 37
--Expertise: Senior scientist working for Easams of Camberley, Surrey, a sister company to Marconi. Dr. John Brittan had also worked at Camberley.
--Circumstance of Death: Fatal car crash when he allegedly made a sudden U-turn on a dual carriageway while on his way to work, crashing at high speed into a disused cafeteria. He was found still wearing his seat belt and it was discovered that the car had been carrying additional petrol cans. None of the normal, reasons for a possible suicide could be found.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.

May 3, 1987: Michael Baker, 22
--Expertise: Digital communications expert working on a defence project at Plessey; part-time member of Signals Corps SAS.
--Circumstance of Death: Fatal accident when his car crashed through a barrier near Poole in Dorset.
--Coroner's verdict: Misadventure.

June 1987: Jennings, Frank, 60.
--Expertise: Electronic Weapons Engineer with Plessey.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead from a heart attack.
--No inquest.

January 1988: Russell Smith, 23
--Expertise: Laboratory technician with the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Essex.
--Circumstance of Death: Died as a result of a cliff fall at Boscastle in Cornwall.
--Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

March 25, 1988: Trevor Knight, 52
--Expertise: Computer engineer with Marconi Space and Defence Systems in Stanmore, Middlesex.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead at his home in Harpenden, Hertfordshire at the wheel of his car with a hosepipe connected to the exhaust. A St.Alban's coroner said that Knight's woman friend, Miss Narmada Thanki (who also worked with him at Marconi) had found three suicide notes left by him which made clear his intentions. Miss Thanki had mentioned that Knight disliked his work but she did not detect any depression that would have driven him to suicide.
--Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

August 1988: Alistair Beckham, 50
--Expertise: Software engineer with Plessey Defence Systems.
--Circumstance of Death: Found dead after being electrocuted in his garden shed with wires connected to his body.
--Coroner's verdict: Open.

August 22, 1988: Peter Ferry, 60
--Expertise: Retired Army Brigadier and an Assistant Marketing Director with Marconi.
--Circumstance of Death: Found on 22nd or 23rd August 1988 electrocuted in his company flat with electrical leads in his mouth.
--Coroner's verdict: Open

September 1988: Andrew Hall, 33
--Expertise: Engineering Manager with British Aerospace.
--Circumstance of Death: Carbon monoxide poisoning in a car with a hosepipe connected to the exhaust.
--Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

Coincidence or did foul play have something to do with the deaths of the Star War Scientist's?

Jeboa Safari

Foul play from who?

Brown Bomber

Nice thread. Really interesting to see them put together like that rather than "those dead scientists". Some of them definitely seem have been suicided.

profitius

The mysterious deaths of top microbiologists

It all began with Don Wiley.
On November 15th, Harvard Professor Don Wiley left a gathering of friends and colleagues some time after 10:30 PM. The next morning, Memphis police found his rental car stopped on a bridge, with a full tank of gas and keys still in the ignition. There was no financial or family trouble. Indeed Wiley was supposed to meet his family at the Memphis airport to continue on to an Icelandic vacation. Neither was there any history of depression or mental illness.

In the report printed in the New York Times on November 27th, the FBI's Memphis office distanced itself from the case saying that the available facts did not add up to a suspicion of foul play. I guess at the FBI it's a perfectly everyday occurrence for a Harvard Professor to stop his rental car on a bridge in the middle of the night before he is supposed to leave for Iceland and just walk away into the Tennessee dark.

The NYT report of November 27th also downplayed Professor Wiley's expertise in virology, quoting Gregory Verdine, a professor of chemical biology at Harvard, said, "If bioterrorists were to abduct Don Wiley, they'd be very disappointed," because his research was in studying the component parts of viruses, and "that doesn't really help you make a more dangerous version of the virus."

But this statement is not consistent with the facts of Professor Wiley's full range of knowledge. Wiley has, in conjunction with another Harvard Professor, Dr. Jack Strominger, won several academic prizes for their work in immunology, including a Lasker prize. Don Wiley is a Harvard professor, but he is also a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Institute of Health. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and performs biological research, sometimes jointly funded by the Department of Defense and the NIH. Don Wiley's peers at Harvard include professors such as John Collier performing research on Anthrax.

So, contrary to the dismissive tone of the New York Times report, Professor Wiley would be of great value to anyone developing biological weapons. This makes the FBI's obvious disinterest in the case highly questionable, indeed reminiscent of the FBI's obvious disinterest in the numerous witnesses in Oklahoma City who had seen Tim McVeigh in the company of additional perpetrators not to mention the witnesses who had seen additional bombs.

Especially in light of the events of 9/11, the vanishing of a scientist with Professor Wiley's expertise in virology and immunology should have been expected to be an issue of critical national importance, yet the official tone of the government was that this is nothing to worry about. Move along citizen, nothing to see.

In the context of the Anthrax letters being sent through the mail, any disappearance of any microbiologist under questionable circumstances should have set off alarm bells across the nation. but it didn't. Professor Wiley was assumed to have committed suicide, end of story.

The professor's colleagues expressed doubts about the official "suicide" explanation for his disappearance.

Then, more biologists started to die under suspicious circumstances.

The Very Mysterious Deaths of Five Microbiologists.

The body count of infections disease experts continued to climb. Connections to weapons research began to surface.

As many as 14 world-class microbiologists died between 9/11/1 and 3/2/2, and on 6/24/2 yet another microbiologist was added to the list.

Still the US Government acted as if nothing was amiss, as silent on the question of dead microbiologists as they are on the question of the Israeli spies and their connection to 9-11.

In fact, the official silence on the question of how so many top experts in infectious diseases could die in such a short time span is deafening.

Now, statistically, it's possible, even likely, that one or two of these microbiologists legitimately were killed in random accidents. But for so many to die in such a short while exceeds all reasonable bounds of statistics. Prudence would demand an investigation, not the "ho hum" attitude of the government which even today continues to issue dire warnings to the general population of how much we are all in danger from "bioterrorism".

So, let's take a moment and step away from the perpetual fear-mongering of the media (and Rumsfeld) as they assure us another attack IS coming (with a certainty which suggests inside information on the subject) and assume for a moment that some party has indeed decided to "liquidate" weapons research infectious disease experts.

There is really only one reason to kill off a bunch of scientists. To keep them from doing something they are able to do.

What were these scientists able to do? Maybe blow the whistle if an artificially created disease was about to be used in a manner those who created it did not approve of.

Regardless of the exact reason, there does seem to be a clear pattern of targeted microbiologists, and paired with it, an obvious government disinterest in the matter.

I leave it to you to figure out why.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/deadbiologists.html


If you wonder who would murder these people, think about the trillions of Euro drug companies make each year because people are unwell. A cure for cancer for instance would be a massive blow for the drug companies.

profitius

Stan Meyer invented engines powered by water in 1985. He called it the water fuel cell.

Here it explains that in 1996 after signing a $30m deal to develop the fuel cell he died of food poisoning the next day.

WakeUp

Jeboa Safari wrote: »

Foul play from who?

I don’t know for certain, this happened in the 80’s pre-internet is hard to find paper reports and stuff like that to see what the talk was at the time, there seems to be a few lines of thought….

Members of the British parliament at the time where asking for an inquiry to be held but the Thatcher government refused this request for reasons only known to them. The US refused to comment on the situation on the record.
Marconi Company Ltd., was at the time Britain's largest electronics-defense contractor. It would seem that the two main “suspects” in the case that is if foul play was involved in the death’s, were the British and Russian’s.

Maybe the deaths where an indication of a security leak and Star War secrets were being sold to the Russians, one or more of these people were involved or stumbled on to the espionage ring and were silenced. In return for the Thatcher government's early support of the Star Wars program, the Reagan Administration at the time promised a number of extremely lucrative SDI contracts to the British defense industry--hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars the struggling British economy couldn’t afford to lose. If it had been proven that members of the British Defense network were selling secrets to the Russians they stood to lose a lot. Maybe the British discovered something was afoot and took “action” to cover it up.

According to a high-ranking British government official at the time, the Ministry of Defense had been secretly investigating Marconi on allegations of defense- contract fraud--overcharging the government, bribing officials. If Marconi was systematically defrauding the government for millions of pounds each year, perhaps an employee stumbled upon incriminating evidence and had to be done away with and that started a chain reaction. Maybe all these people where in on it and when they realized they were about to be caught, stress got the better of them and they took their own lives. Personally I think that is not the case myself.

Or maybe the Russians wanted to find out what was going on with the Star-Wars program and were responsible is some way for the deaths. I don’t know how they would manage to get at so many people but the world of espionage is a dark & seedy place I don’t know much about how it operates to be honest, truth is often stranger than fiction though. They way some of them died some might say they showed signs of being tortured at some stage in the process. All of the above is obviously speculation answer is I don’t know for sure.

WakeUp

profitius wrote: »

If you wonder who would murder these people, think about the trillions of Euro drug companies make each year because people are unwell. A cure for cancer for instance would be a massive blow for the drug companies.

Very true they would stand to lose a lot a cure for any number of disease's would impact on their industry for sure.
Just to add something about Dr. Wiley this is taken from his obituary on Harvard University website.

Don C. Wiley, one of the most distinguished structural biologists of his generation, has died. He was 57.

His work focused on the molecular mechanisms that enable viruses to infect cells, and on how cells respond to external challenges by presenting antigens and mobilizing defensive cells. A senior investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Wiley studied the structure of such viruses as the AIDS virus, Ebola, herpes simplex, and influenza. He examined the ways in which viruses bind to cell surfaces, enabling their entry into the cell, and the ways in which viruses evolve to infect different organisms and to escape the immune response of their hosts. By understanding these processes, Wiley sought to find new ways to combat these viruses.

In 1995, Wiley and Harvard colleague Jack L. Strominger won the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award for their work on how the body fights infections and can reject organ transplants. In 1999, Wiley and Strominger won the prestigious Japan Prize for their cumulative discoveries related to the functioning of the human immune system. This prize, awarded by the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan, recognizes original and outstanding achievements that advance knowledge and serve the cause of peace and prosperity for humankind. -(link)

Dr. Wiley was one of the worlds leading authorities in the fight against infectious disease. Five weeks after his car was discovered on that bridge, his body turned up floating in a Mississippi river estuary some 300 miles away.-(link)

Mahatma coat

IS there anyway of gettin our paws on some of the original documents from the time via FOI acts, someone must be in the UK that could ask, the eones with the Bags/VClingfilm and the Bindings Just SCREAM suspicious at me, I'd like to see more informmation on them.

WakeUp

Mahatma coat wrote: »

IS there anyway of gettin our paws on some of the original documents from the time via FOI acts, someone must be in the UK that could ask, the eones with the Bags/VClingfilm and the Bindings Just SCREAM suspicious at me, I'd like to see more informmation on them.

Thats a really good idea I totally agree the bags and cling film scream at me too, but it seems somebody has already attempted to do it and got nowhere fast. Im hoping somebody who remembers the story at the time will come and talk to us maybe give us some insight into it because it was big news at the time it happened.

Tony Collins who writes for computerweekly wrote to the British MOD, under the FOI, and asked for any information pertaining to the case to be forwarded to him. Under the FOI in the UK it states that they will reply to you within 20 days. It took them 6 months to get back to him. The official reply he got stated " that the MOD has no recorded information on any of the cases I asked about" its as if the deaths had never happened. This is his post in full I'll include a link at the bottom.

Mysterious deaths, freedom of information, Marconi and the Ministry of Defence

By Tony Collins on November 29, 2006 9:40 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
| More

Under the Freedom of Information [FOI] Act publicly-funded organisations have 20 working days to answer or notify the applicant if they need more time to answer. Some organisations with well managed records answer more quickly than others but none has been quite as slow as the Ministry of Defence. Its first response to my FOI request came more than six months later.
And there was no acknowledgment of my application, although this is a legal requirement.


I had asked about the mysterious deaths of computer programmers and scientists, some working for Marconi, some for other defence contractors, and others for the MoD and the government communications headquarters GCHQ.
The 25 deaths in the 1970s and 1980s led to countless articles in many countries around the world, including France, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Australia. Separate TV documentaries were made by crews in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. The MoD’s press officers received countless calls from journalists about the deaths; and Lord Weinstock, the then managing director of GEC, one of the government's biggest defence contractors and at that time Marconi's parent company, set up an inquiry.
It was carried out by Brian Worth, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard. He concluded that "on the evidence available that the suicide verdicts reached were credible on their own facts, and in the four cases where open verdicts were returned the probability is that each victim took his own life".
One of the Marconi computer programmers, from London, had gone to Bristol where he tied his neck to a tree and apparently drove off in his car. Less than three months earlier another Marconi programmer from London had travelled by car to Bristol where he apparently jumped off the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Police stopped the cremation of his body as the service was taking place, to investigate further.
Letters to the coroner from the dead man's friends were unanimous in their scepticism that the programmeer had committed suicide. Police found a tiny puncture mark on the man's left buttock.
The local coroner alluded to a possible "James Bond" link. He said: "As James Bond would say, 'this is past coincidence,' and I will not be completing the inquest today until I know how two men with no connection with Bristol came to meet the same end here." He did not discover why.
The two dead programmers had been working on highly sensitive projects for the government.
If the MoD had been so swamped with information that it could not answer my FOI request quickly, this would have explained its late reply. In fact the poor official who spoke to me had spent months looking for material and found nothing at all. Not one piece of paper. The official reply was that the MoD has no recorded information on any of the cases I had mentioned. So much for the ministry's record-keeping.
It was as if the deaths had never happened. (link)