"The Fred Incident"

Years ago I told a little of this story, but I think I'd like to set it all down now. I call the whole thing "The Fred Incident". The names may have been changed- or not, but you'll never know.

A few years ago I had a friend who would talk with me about his displeasure with the governmental status quo just about anytime we got to talk. I had known him for a couple of years and I trusted him and thought he sounded pretty reasonable.

He had told me he had been diagnosed as "paranoid/schizophrenic", but that he really wasn't. My only early warning was when he mentioned that he had an "alien implant" (and this was only a couple of weeks before "the incident"). I thought he was joking, and didn't think more of it. We had many long phone conversations about just about anything. He never seemed dangerous or anything.

Until "the incident".

He had loaned me, without prompting, some money to use to help a family that we both knew, and that I was staying with. I used it to buy food for the household. The next day at karaoke he asked what I had spent the money on and I told him. That was a little strange since he had loaned it to me specifically to buy food.

He seemed a little agitated. I still had the receipt and I offered it to him. We sat and talked and he started claiming I had tricked him into loaning me the money. I was a little shocked as it had been his idea. If there had been any way possible to do so, I would have paid him back immediately in order to avoid any problem, but I couldn't.

He began talking again about his "implant". He said the military had put it there decades ago. Unfortunately, I didn't take him seriously and made some joke about putting magnets inside his hat to scramble the signal. This got a red-faced spittle-laced lecture about electrical engineering. Then it began to get more personal.

The real fireworks began. He started saying that I was controlling his mind through his "implant" and that I was a "Martian". I told him that I was pretty certain I was human. He said "Why would you say that? Are you not positive?" I said I was, and he said "That is just what a Martian would say". He was getting extremely angry, too. He began pounding his fist on the table and his face was very red. I was trying to just get him calmed down at this point, but everything I did he saw as me trying to use my "Martian thought-control powers" to manipulate him.

He said I was able to force people to do things they didn't want to by getting inside their heads. He claimed I was inside his mind, reading his thoughts and putting my own in there, too. This is how I had tricked him into loaning me the money.

He became more and more upset. He spoke of the significance of his name and his initials. He went into a long discussion about his initials (M.A.T.), claiming that they were significant and meant he was to be an emissary between the Martians and Terrans. He laid out his "logic" in fine detail. Then he went on about other people's names and initials, especially focusing on John Denver.

He spoke of his own power and importance, but said he couldn't "claim to be God" (I suppose that should have been a relief).

He was talking about being in "Army Intelligence" back in the early '70s, and that he was still "in", but it was a secret. The more he spoke, the more unreal his claims became. He told of trying to drive to the Pentagon once in the middle of the night to carry out some mission, and stopping on a bridge instead of going through with it. I can't remember the specifics of this particular tale, but only that it seemed very improbable and yet I could tell he really believed it.

He claimed to be killing people "in high government positions" with mental feedback through his implant. He said he could "see" people being carried out of the Pentagon in body bags- people who had short-circuited their brains by trying to mentally influence him. His brain was stronger and was able to resist the bad things they were trying to get him to do, so he said.

He then asked me to knock him unconscious so I could kidnap him and a girl he wanted (he wanted me to knock her out, too), and take them somewhere they couldn't be tracked. He said that the only way his implant would not be able to lead his enemies to him is if he was unconscious and unable to know where he was being taken.

He did eventually calm down and I got out without harm. It was about 2 AM at this time. The next morning, very early, I called and warned the girl he wanted me to help kidnap. She freaked out a little because he had just called her up and was going to come over in about an hour. She didn't wait to hear the whole story, but hung up to call him with some excuse, then called me back to find out what had happened.

After this, I obviously wasn't close to him anymore. He was still in my circle, but I did warn a few people to watch out. Some of them never did believe that he had acted that way. One mutual friend had even been in the vicinity during his fit, but hadn't seen anything unusual. Yet, he did slip up to a couple of other people. He mentioned blowing my head off to mutual friends a few times when I sang a karaoke song he thought was written especially for him, but most never saw his bizarre behavior, and downplayed my concerns.

Added: I know now, due to encountering more people like him, that he likely suffered from the belief that is now known as being a "targeted individual".

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