Dear Ann (Part Ten, the conclusion)

Dear Ann, Part Ten :

And so, Ann, what I want to ask you is this - would you consider talking to me about what you remember from that night? It wouldn't have to be in person, or even over the phone, though those would be the best ways. But if you aren't comfortable with direct communication, you could write me a letter similar to the one I've written you. You could even send it by email. I know how difficult this subject is, believe me, and I am only asking you because I have no one else to turn to. For over twenty years I have tried to get answers about what happened to me between the dates of September 1 and September 12, 1989, but my queries have been met with a wall of silence. I have tried and tried and tried, but not only has no one ever been willing to talk to me, no one including those I know were present has ever even acknowledged that something out of the ordinary happened to all of us.

I know you are aware of my attempts to contact your sister in the mid-90s. That was a fiasco of my own making. I've apologized for it, and paid for it, and though I do not feel I deserved the response that was meted out to me, I've accepted responsibility for my actions at that time. I was only wanting to know what it was that I was remembering. That was why I tried so relentlessly to get Lillian to talk to me in 1995. My memories were just then coming back to me in force, but they were fragmented and I couldn't make sense of them. I knew something enormous had happened, but I didn't know what. In short, I was confused. When my life became stable, I used to send your sister a Christmas card every year, from about 1999 until 2015. I stopped after that year because I discovered on Facebook that she was now married. But in my Christmas cards and letters, I would very often allude to 1989, not in a blunt way but just by making suggestions that, in my opinion, it was very important that we not forget the truth of what happened to us, and that it was equally important that we tell that truth.

I sent Lillian a Christmas card for about 15 years in a row, give or take, but she never responded. I knew how incredibly difficult it would have been for her to gather the courage to talk to me, but I always hoped that one day it might happen. Once I saw that she was married, I stopped writing, and while I haven't given up hope that Lilly may one day talk about what she knows, I no longer harbor any expectations. As for her participation in the September 1989 event, I did not see her after she was placed in the back of an ambulance in the parking lot of Northridge Hospital, after she was attacked by Howard Schaller on the first night of September 1. I do have a vague memory of seeing her at the Wilbur Wash event, which took place many days later, but at the current time I cannot be certain of it's veracity. My guess is that she knows a lot more about what happened than I do, and while I feel that her continued silence is profoundly wrong for a number of reasons, I have also considered the possibility that, like me, she may have signed a non-disclosure oath all those years ago, but unlike me, she may have not had amnesia and was therefore aware of the gravity of her oath all along.

I have also considered, Ann, that over the years she may have been intimidated into silence by one faction or another.

Please know - and I hope Lillian knows - that I have never blamed her for what happened. Without going into a long explanation, it is sufficient to say that whatever the mystery behind the overall event, it involved a whole lot more than a domestic dispute in a Reseda apartment. My opinion of Lilly has never changed, nor have my feelings toward her.

But Ann, I also need to know what happened to me, and I will interject once again to say that it didn't just happen to me, but to all of us who were present. But speaking for myself, I can only say that it has been monumentally hard for me, not to know the entirety of the event, and most importantly why it happened. I have struggled mightily for all these years, hoping to recover another sliver of memory, but the stream more or less dried up around 2008, excepting the handful of revelations I have mentioned that returned to me since then.

The truth is that I live with this every day of my life, and every day I wonder what it was all about. This can be very debilitating at times, because it never goes away. It's there when I wake up in the morning, and it's there when I go to sleep at night. I cannot pretend it didn't happen, as certain friends and family members do even though they know better. I know it happened and so do they, and for that matter so does Lillian and so do you, I am sure.

So I am asking, very simply, if you will talk to me. If you do not wish to, that is fine, I understand and I will not bother you again. But if you decide that you are willing to write to me, in addition to asking for your memories of that night and the next day (in their entirety) I'd also like to ask you the following questions. I will ask them in the order of the incidents they correspond to :

1) Do you know why that "security thug" showed up at the door to Terry's apartment? I realize you wouldn't have direct knowledge as you weren't involved in any of the proceedings prior to arriving after the fact, but I ask because of the possibility that this information might have been told to you by someone else.

2) Do you have any idea why Mary Sean Young was present? I know that, on the surface, it sounds absurd for me to say that she was there, and that we rode in her car. But we did. And she was there. I have no idea why she was there, but I saw her with my own eyes, and she also has an unmistakable voice. I was, and still am, a fan of hers. Lillian and I saw her in several movies. After I joined Facebook in 2008, I saw that Mary was also a member and I sent her a friend request, which she accepted. At around the same time, give or take a year, I had obtained her email address (I don't recall how), and I sent her an email with a synopsis of her participation in the events on the night of September 1st, 1989. I was polite, in no way accusatory, and I gave a thorough explanation, but I assured her I knew she was there and that she had driven me to the hospital that night, along with others, meaning you, Ann, and Lys. To my surprise, Mary emailed me back. She stated that she "didn't think it was her", and that "people often mistake me for someone else". She was very nice in her reply, wished me well in my quest,  but basically disavowed her presence on that night.

Mary is an interesting person, a "conspiracy theorist" in her own right, and I do not mean that in a derogatory way. As I mentioned, her Hollywood career began it's downward slide after 1989, and she had been a star on the rise prior to that. Nowdays, she rails on Twitter in support of Donald Trump. In Mary's defense, regarding her denial of having been at Concord Square, I should mention that I have observed the same honest seeming "denial phenomenon" in other people who I know for a fact were present at one or more of the events in the twelve day sequence. I have said to others, including those close to me : "I know you were there (at such and such a location), and there is no doubt about it", and in certain cases I have gotten an honestly baffled response, where I do not think the person is lying to me but rather is not remembering the experience. But that happened to me, too. I remembered none of my experience for four years, so I suppose it's possible that others to this day do not remember, or remember in only a vague way that is frightening for them to think about. In Mary's case, because she is a bit of a strange person, I am not sure what to make of her denial.

I only know for certain that she was there. What's more, she wasn't the only well-known person who would become a participant as the days went on. So, Ann, I am asking you if you know why she was there. She appeared on the scene very quickly, within an hour of the arrival of the paramedics, and likely sooner. Someone must have called her, though I can't imagine it was anyone I know.

In any event, if you have any information about Mary's presence that night, I would be grateful if you could relate it to me. Thanks, Ann.

3) Do you know why Howard Schaller was waiting for us at Northridge Hospital? I have given you the only possibility I have been able to deduce, which involved a drug deal that went bad and included your sister. To repeat, she would have had no way of knowing or ever meeting Howard if not for my late friend Dave S., so it is likely my conclusion about a drug deal is on the mark. However, I know nothing about the specifics of this arrangement, or how it came about. All I know is that I was utterly shocked to see Howard suddenly attacking our car, totally out of the blue, and then I was doubly shocked to see that Lillian was his target. Because she is your sister, I can understand if you don't wish to answer this question. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you did. I repeat that it is very hard for me to wonder what happened that night, and why.

4) Do you know, Ann, why Federal agents were involved? In other words, do you know why a domestic argument between three people, which should have brought a police response, was instead responded to by a Federal agency, and with such urgency that a helicopter was landing in the street adjacent to Northridge Hospital within 30 to 45 minutes of the violence we experienced in the parking lot? There is something I have always wondered, Ann, about the events of that first night and consequently the overall twelve day experience.

I have asked myself : "What if I had not gone down to Concord Square that night, but instead stayed home. Would a similar situation have eventually presented itself (i.e. was something building up), or did I trigger the reactions of everyone involved by showing up and forcing a confrontation"? What I am asking has to do with not only the presence of the Federal agents but the swiftness of their response, which suggests to me that someone was under surveillance. I have even considered the possibility that Lillian was part of a sting operation, which once again seems absurd on the surface, but something has to account for the response of a Federal agency and for the fact that Howard Schaller knew who Lilly was.

Were agents keeping an eye on the situation prior to the night of September 1st? Or did they respond suddenly to an emergency, brought about by the unexpected confrontation in Terry's apartment, and the fact that an "apple cart" of some sort had been upset?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, Ann, but perhaps you do. At any rate, after all these years I finally decided to go directly to who I thought might be the source. In 2017, I filed an FOIA and Privacy Act request with the CIA, asking for any and all documents pertaining to my name. I listed the specifics of the situation in brief form. And I got back what is known as a "Glomar" response, in which the CIA told me they can "neither confirm nor deny" that "there is an association" between myself and the Agency. The letter they sent me is written in legalese, and so it must be parsed several times in order to glean what they are getting at. But they list the official reasons why my request for information about myself was denied, and - in short - it was denied because, though they can't confirm or deny it, the information is classified and is protected by an ordinance that prohibits the release of National Security information.

I have read over my letter from the CIA again and again, and also a second letter I got from them in response to my letter of appeal regarding their denial, and I have come to the conclusion that we were involved in a highly classified National Security event.

I have been writing about 1989 for many years, Ann, and I often refer to the twelve day experience as "The Biggest Secret In America". I say that because it has never even been acknowledged. I mean, Roswell was acknowledged and is now part of UFO folklore. Everybody has heard of Area 51, and even the bizarre story of the Skinwalker Ranch. There are conspiracy books about 9/11 and the Kennedys, and nothing seems off limits in the age of post X-Files awareness.

But for some reason, here we are thirty years after our experience in September 1989, and no one but myself has ever even mentioned it, or spoken a single word about it in acknowledgment.

To me, that means that - for some people - it is imperative that information about the experience be kept secret even to this day. I ask myself, why this experience over all others?

And I have my theories, but I still don't know the actual answer.

That is why I am asking for your help. I know this story has frightened a lot of people, not least your sister. But it doesn't have to be frightening if we bring it out into the open. It is only the prolonged secrecy that makes it worse and exaggerates the fear people have. If you signed an oath, and you feel you must abide by it even thirty years later, I respect that. However, there might still be something you could tell me that would be of help. I myself signed an oath, as I noted, but I have never respected it because I didn't remember signing it until 2015. My memory of the entire twelve day event was deliberately taken away from me by induced hypnotic amnesia, and I have so little respect for anyone who would do that do a person - who would take away a person's memory without their consent - that the oath I signed means nothing to me.

My life was basically stolen away by the people who induced my amnesia, and so I write what I want when I want to. I have talked about our experiences whenever I have felt like it, to no consequence thus far. Believe it or not, I hold no grudges, and even like to think of the CIA as my friends.

All of this is to say, Ann, that - in my opinion - if you decided to talk to me, I am certain that no one would care, not at this late date. That goes for Lillian, too. The men who oversaw the events would all be in their mid-70s now. Some would be deceased. So if you were to write me a simple letter, I know no one would object.

Ann, I want to thank you for reading this very lengthy letter, and for even opening it, considering that you saw my name on the envelope. I want to reassure you once again that this will be the only time you will hear from me, unless you decide to respond, and even then I will always be cordial and polite in any further communication.

Peace be with you and your family, and with your sister always.

Adam