tinfoil hat (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mullins, Bill AMRDEC Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL
Fri Mar 25 17:32:32 UTC 2011


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

The March updates for the OED include "tinfoil hat" ("With allusion to
the belief that such a hat protects the wearer from mind control or
surveillance"), with 19 July 1986 for first citation.


_Miami Herald_ 2/19/1983 p 8C. [from Newsbank archives, no page image or
column # available]

"There is more involved in this romance than a striking violation of
professional ethics, though the film does concede that; along the way, a
marriage is smashed, a suicidal patient is abandoned, and a derelict is
turned out into the street, wearing a tin- foil hat to keep the
Trade-Center beams off his brain. The film nods at these scenes, and
then forgets them altogether. "

Cleveland OH _Plain Dealer_ 5/16/1982 p 25 col 5
"A Cleveland woman telephoned last year to complain that her neighbor
was shooting an invisible death ray at her.  She wanted the police to
stop it.

The dispatcher suggested she wear a tin foil hat and put tin on her
windows to deflect the rays."


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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