Episode 11 Ockham’s Razor, Solving the Mystery of Q875
Q359: Test, test, one two, testing, testing, testing, testing.
Mike Prokes: Greetings from the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project from Jonestown near Port Kaituma of the Northwest District in Guyana. Music you’ve been hearing is by the Jonestown Express and one of the several senior choirs. I’m Mike Prokes and I’m here with Jim Jones, the founder and administrator of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. Jim, I thought you might like to review some of the things that have been happening in Jonestown, including some of the recent prominent visitors we’ve had here.
Jim Jones: Yes, we’ve had a number of people who have come to our satisfaction and gone through the community with a thorough, microscopic eye. Because the truth always comes out in the end. We know why we’re being persecuted. Let them bay at the moon, the little dogs bay at the moon. They cannot stop this fire. It’s alive here, and we mean no harm to anyone. We’re not going to be involved in any violent activity. We are peace-loving people. But you cannot put out the light of socialism. It sprung up everywhere and every day you look at it, children, it’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And no matter how many corrupt alliances are made, or how many kind of patchworks are made in the systems that don’t believe in sharing, it will come tumbling down, because the truth is that God is love and love is socialism, and it shall prevail. That cannot be denied. I wanted to tell you at this hour of five o’clock in the morning, I am in good health. This leaves me in the best of mind and spirit. The same power is in this name. So, call on it and run into that power and follow what I told you to do, to go forth and shed your– shed that old system. Shake the dust from your feet and march forward, and don’t look backward and run into the ark of safety while you have time, because I know who is that shelter in the time of storm, and you know also.
Mike Prokes: From Dad and all of us here in the beautiful community he’s built for us, hurry home, family. You don’t know what you’re missing. You just don’t know.
Welcome back to Transmissions from Jonestown. This is episode 11, Ockham's Razor: Solving the Mystery of Q875.
After 40 years of reflection and debate, researchers and historians are still struggling to piece together what really happened in Jonestown. When a crime is committed such as a mass murder or the assassination of a congressman an investigation ensues. People are questioned, evidence is collected, and a forensic analysis of the crime scene conducted, but deep in the jungles of 1970s, Guyana, this just wasn't possible. A crime of this size and complexity committed by a radical group of American socialists shocked Guyanese law enforcement and quickly exhausted their resources. The technology and manpower to properly investigate the carnage spread out between three remote locations involving over a thousand people just wasn't available.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Burnham’s socialist government were tenuous in 1978 and the FBI was discouraged from meddling with Guyana’s affairs. This left the Guyana Defense Force and the state department to try to unravel a chronological timeline and make sense of the chaos left behind in the immediate aftermath.
1290: Schollaert: Okay, uh– well. We we were just wondering what’s going on, uh–
Ellice: There’s some troubles up there. I don’t know what it is. I’ll let you know when I find out.
Schollaert: Okay. I suspect the same here from some of the behavior I see–
Ellice: Yeah, you may have some visitors out there at the airport from the group.
Schollaert: Pardon me?
Ellice: Uh, the group is on the move.
Schollaert: Uh-huh.
(Radio Traffic in the background)
Ellice: Okay, I’ll, I don’t, I have no idea what’s going on yet, but I’m trying to find out.
Schollaert: Right.
Ellice: Okay. Be cool.
Schollaert: Okay
Dr. Leslie Mootoo, a pathologist and his team examined the scene nearly twenty hours after the mass tragedy and made their assessments. Prior to this, widespread looting had tainted the scene. Documents and valuables had been removed. Remains may or may not have been tampered with and tropical rain and darkness obstructed their brief investigation.
All of the evidence collected by the Guyanese investigators and the state department was eventually given to the FBI, but the FBI focused their investigation on the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan, and the prosecution of Larry Layton. The real investigation of Jonestown wouldn't begin until researchers and family members gained access to the tapes and documents locked in the FBI's fault.
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, 971 audio tapes recovered in Jonestown and thousands of documents have been released to the public. I spoke with Mike Carter. He was a radio operator in Jonestown. He survived the mass tragedy when he and his brother carried money and documents out of the settlement on the evening of November 18th. After the mass tragedy, Mike Carter went back to Jonestown to help identify remains. As evidence was being collected, Mike Carter showed investigators tapes in the radio room indicating that they might be important to their investigation. This is the first link in our chain of evidence in regard to the tapes recovered in Jonestown.
Mike Carter: It was our oral history. So, there were current active tapes, you know, ones that were being used were kept on a shelf in the radio room. So, I pointed that out. I'm assuming it was a Guyanese defense force person that I pointed that out to that, you know, there's a lot of information here that should be preserved.
The Attention Span Recovery Project would like to thank our special guests, Mike Carter and Fielding McGehee, as well as our anonymous contributor. As always, we would like to remind you to do the research and think for yourself.
On this episode we will examine what is perhaps the most perplexing piece of evidence recovered from Jonestown, cataloged as Q875 and known to researchers as the November 19th tape. This approximately 10-minute-long recording has inspired and frustrated researchers and helped spawn many a conspiracy theory.
Anonymous Contributor: Q875 is an audio cassette tape collected from the Jonestown compound after the November 18th massacre. The state department collected hundreds of audio tapes that the peoples temple recorded. The audio on them ranges from Jim Jones’ sermons, phone conversations, peoples temple music, radio broadcasts, catharsis sessions, espionage and beyond. What makes Q875 stand out from the other tapes is that the evidence suggests that the tape was recorded in Jonestown roughly 24 hours after the massacre and contains four radio broadcasts telling of the airstrip shootings the day before.
In the beginning, all we knew about Q875 was that it was recorded during a window of time that everyone in Jonestown, minus two elderly people, are thought to be dead. Theories as to who made the tape and why range from CIA black ops agents to Jim Jones himself. An eyewitness who knew Jones and survived Jonestown wrote about the tape years after the mass tragedy, stating that the voices you can hear in the background are those of Jim Jones and his mistress Maria Katsaris. Yet another Peoples Temple survivor claims he was told by Green Berets that the tape was made accidentally during their secret invasion of the compound.
The Jonestown Institute, otherwise known as the Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and the Peoples Temple, is a website sponsored by the department of religious studies: SDSU. It has become the ultimate depository for Peoples Temple documents and tapes, as well as a place for the survivors to post their reflections and memoirs.
Chief editors of the site, Fielding McGehee and his wife, Rebecca Moore created the site as a place to gather information and encourage discussion. They've worked tirelessly over the years, digitizing the documents and tapes to ensure they're available to the public. Fielding. McGehee wrote an open letter decades ago, asking the world to investigate Q875 and help uncover the truth of its origins. There are more than a dozen articles written about the tape, exploring many possibilities as to its origin.
Fielding McGehee: We do have a discussion page on our site about Q875. The tape consists of four short radio broadcasts, broadcast news. It was obviously recorded off air as the news is being broadcast and it's only about what has been reported coming out of Jonestown within the last 24 to 48 hours, and it relates to the congressmen being shot and rumors of mass death. So, it is obviously after, November 18th and it is called the November 19th to tape. There are a a lot of extraneous sounds on the tape and people have had a hard time identifying them. We did have one sound engineer who analyzed the tape, and he believes that some of the sounds that he is hearing are the sounds of a Coke machine.
Q875: Accompany Congressman Ryan were television and news team…(Plunk! Coke Machine sound?)
Fielding McGehee: Like somebody is getting a Coke out of a Coke machine. What he believes is that the recording was made by a GDF soldier or soldiers that were in Port Kaituma waiting to go in and basically all the sounds that you're hearing are that of a bar. It explains the sound of the screen door being opened and closed.
Q875: (Screen Door sound?)
Fielding McGehee: Because you didn't have those kinds of things in Jonestown. It explains the sound of the mechanicals, like the Coke machine.
Q875: Accompany Congressman Ryan were television and news team…(Plunk! Coke Machine sound?)
Fielding McGehee: It explains why there is some laughter in the background.
Q875: (Unintelligible conversation, possible laughter?)
Fielding McGehee: Which is not something that you would associate with anybody having been in Jonestown on November 19th. Basically, every now and then somebody will come up and say, “Hey I have a theory about 875.”. And I say, I want to hear it. But in the course of discussing your theory, you essentially have to discuss and refute this article that was written by a guy named Joel Thomas for us about 10 years ago. It's on our website.
The theory that the tape was made in Port Kaituma by the GDF is compelling. Jonestown didn't have a vending machine. Nor was there a screen door in the radio room. But how could the tape have ended up with all the other tapes in Jonestown?
Fielding McGehee: Then how it got into Jonestown? There was no central organization of things kind of going in and out of Jonestown. There's absolutely no provenance on any of the tapes. You see pictures of the tapes being loaded in the radio room, that's where most of them came from. But there are also a couple of pictures of just tapes, kind of like lying in the heap. So again, it's one of those things that we do not have the person coming forward to say, “I made this tape.”, but we also, kind of go with Ockham’s Razor that the simplest explanation seems to be the best until somebody can come forward with a better explanation that again, covers all the basis.
Something about this theory didn't seem right. After everything the GDF had to go through just to get to Jonestown. How could that tape travel seven miles from Port Kaituma to Jonestown and end up with all the other tapes? Shortly after the release of Transmissions from Jonestown, the Attention Span Recovery Project began receiving tips about Q875, from an anonymous contributor.
In the beginning, this person would send clipped articles about the aftermath in Jonestown, the whereabouts of peoples temple archive material, and Jonestown’s onliest survivor Hyacinth Thrash. Often the articles would be accompanied by detailed messages about FBI files and tapes. The depth of knowledge and dedication to their research impressed us, though how these articles and cryptic messages all connected at first eluded us.
I asked Fielding McGehee what happened to all the evidence after it was collected in Jonestown.
Fielding McGehee: So, a lot of it never really went anywhere. In Guyana a lot of it didn't go anywhere. There was a lot of stuff that ended up sitting on the docks, the stuff that was coming in from customs and the stuff, material that was at Lamaha Gardens, just sort of, eventually kind of rotted away, or it was sold. A lot of it was looted. A lot of the documentation that the Guyana government collected went to a government building, which subsequently burned. About three or four years later, there was a fire of suspicious origin, let's put it that way. There was a fire of suspicious origin. It probably had less to do, if it was in fact arson, there were a lot more secrets that disappeared about the Burnham government than just Jonestown. In fact, there are people who say that, that was a Jonestown related fire, but there were so many other things that the Burnham government had to hide that we kind of reject that. Jonestown itself, a lot of the materials, eventually Jonestown sort of disappeared brick by brick board by board piece by piece and so, there's nothing there. In other words, it was abandoned. It's not like there are empty buildings there. There are folks who say that all the wood in Jonestown, all the boards in Jonestown are in Port Kaituma now, they're part of other buildings now.
As for San Francisco and Los Angeles, a lot of the stuff, a lot of the papers went to the California Historical Society. And a lot of the tapes, there were hundreds and hundreds of tapes and actually hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents that were burned in a fire. It’s known as the Stinson beach fire. This happened in early, it was either December 78 or January of 79. Former members of the temple just said, you know, some of this stuff just needs to go away , and, and there was a fire that went all night.
Listening to the tapes, I know who a lot of the voices are, and I know what all the context is. It isn't just me. I've got an incredible amount of help from survivors and from people who've transcribed tapes over the years, including yourself. But when somebody says something like when Jim Jones says something in the middle of a sermon, and it's a completely unfamiliar name to a lot of the folks who are doing the transcribing for us, I know who that person was when I marched in a demonstration for or against them.
So, we've got that kind of institutional knowledge that after we stop, I was just thinking about that this morning, I have no idea who is going to take over the management of the site. I have a hunch it's just going to be kind of frozen in amber at that moment, but it does give a certain urgency to me and to us to get as much done as we can. You know, our client at this point is history.
Thousands of people have researched Jonestown and Peoples Temple trying to solve the mysteries and debunk conspiracy theories. The people of Jonestown’s deaths were never properly investigated. Their tragic tale remains a legend to be expanded on and rewritten by those who take the time to ponder it. The post-mortem examination of evidence, now 40 years old, can only yield so many dusty secrets. About three weeks into our correspondence with the anonymous Jonestown researcher we received this message.
“I found the smoking gun. I know who made Q875. I'll give you a clue. It wasn't made in Jonestown.”.
Q162 Jim Jones: Oh yes. So don’t you count on it. He didn’t come after the poor anytime, no Skygod ever came. It had to be somebody that put-on hands, it had to be somebody like Harriet Tubman, it had to be somebody like a Patrick Henry, it had to be somebody that would put their hands. Oh yes! Oh, yes! I’ll finish when I get through. Just shift your body a little bit more, and I’ll finish when I get through. ‘Cause somebody gonna get saved in Philadelphia. Somebody is gonna get on the Freedom Train in Philadelphia.
So how did you discover Q875?
Anonymous Contributor: I discovered the November 19th mystery tape on a website called Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple years ago. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple website’s editor, Fielding McGehee was the first person to give an analysis of Q875 and over the years others have given their opinions of the tape including former Peoples Temple members. Some of the main speculations are that Jim Jones and Maria Katsaris, his mistress, made the tape in the Jonestown radio room while John Victor Stoen played nearby. Another theory is that the tape was made by a Guyanese soldier in Port Kaituma and brought to Jonestown. Professional conspiracy theorists would have you believe that the super-secret black ops CIA, MKUltra mind control goons recorded the tape after they killed everyone and their cleanup crew merely forgot the tape on the way out of the compound.
None of the dozen or so analysis of Q875 made any sense to me after spending many years collecting information and factual evidence of November 18th and 19th in Jonestown. If you've ever seen the death photos that David Hume Kennerly took of the dead bodies around the Jonestown pavilion and the radio room, it's hard to imagine a group of people and a child milling around making tapes of radio broadcasts. Why would the Guyanese soldiers be sitting in a Port Kaituma bar recording broadcasts off the radio and then drop the tape somewhere in Jonestown? It didn't make sense to me at all.
If someone recorded Q875 at the Peoples Temple Georgetown headquarters they would have had to have taken the tape Jonestown days after the massacre and deposited it there. This theory to me was the most plausible. Evidence shows that multiple Peoples Temple members were flown to Jonestown from Georgetown days after the massacre to identify bodies in the compound. The last one, which I'm not going to spend any time flushing out is that the CIA crew that was running the mind control experiment were responsible for the tape. We could spend hours going over that. I think my research and evidence will prove that no CIA team made Q875.
Finally solving the mystery of Q875 could forever change the way we perceive the timeline and historical narrative of what happened in Jonestown. So, how did you go about it?
Anonymous Contributor: Fielding McGehee said in his assessment that for us to prove Q875, that we have to definitively answer these five questions: Who made the tape? Where was the tape made? What were people doing as they made the tape? Why did anyone bothered to make the tape? Why did they leave the tape behind?
After I give my evidence and my assessment, I will be able to definitively answer all five of those questions.
The radio broadcasts on Q875 give us a general timeline of when the recording was created. When doing an analysis of the tape pay attention to the sounds heard in the background.
Anonymous Contributor: So, the first piece of evidence is the audio that is on the tape. What we can hear. the tape contains four news radio broadcasts alerting the public of the ambush upon Leo Ryan's party at the Port Kaituma airstrip.
Q875: Guyanese radio newscaster: —Medical evacuation aircraft flew out of Timehri airport this afternoon, eight wounded people, following Saturday afternoon’s shooting that left five Americans dead, including Congressman Leo Ryan. A United States Embassy spokesman said, the wounded persons would be flown to either Andrews Air Force Base or Howards Air Force Base in the Panama Canal.
Anonymous Contributor: We hear a Guyanese broadcaster giving information that indicates that the report is being made over the airwaves the evening of the 19th. He talks about a medical evac plane that had flown out a TImehri airport. Evidence shows that that did happen in the afternoon of the 19th. What we hear on the background? We hear a man's voice. We hear a chair squeaks. We hear birds.
As I isolated the sound of birds from the first segment of Q875, I noticed a rhythmic mechanical hum. A noise, that to me, sounds like the hum of an air conditioner.
Anonymous Contributor: I encourage listeners to listen to these carefully. I listened to them over and over and over through headphones, through different mediums and different sources. Let's take a listen to broadcast number two:
Q875: American woman newscaster: —today, her last words to her son warned him about the kind of people he might encounter at a religious commune in the remote jungles of Guyana.
Woman’s voice: (Oh, boy.)??????
Mrs. Ryan: The last thing I said to him was be very careful. This is Tuesday morning when he was leaving to go. Be very careful.
Anonymous Contributor: Broadcast number two we hear an American woman newscaster from ABC news. We also hear Leo Ryan's mother give a short little interview. What we hear in the background? We hear a child. We hear a woman's voice. We hear a dog growling. We hear a man say, “shut up.”, possibly? We hear a dog growl. We hear a man again say shush. This is what I heard.
Q875: Rushton: No, they are last reported at the airstrip.
(Background male voice “Shut up” or “Shoosh”???? Female voice “Yes”????)
Rushton: Uh, we believe they will be transported to Georgetown as soon as possible.
Newscaster: Tom Rushton said autopsies (background female voice “yes”) will be performed on the bodies before they’re brought back to the United States.
(Background male voice, “Shit”.)
Newscaster: Guyanese troops reportedly have arrived now in Jonestown
Anonymous Contributor: Okay and then broadcast number three. Let's take a listen to that.
Q875: Guyana broadcaster: Aircraft will be arriving at Timehri Airport within the hour (Screen door slamming????) relatives of residents of Jonestown. These relatives came into the country last week…
Anonymous Contributor: Once again we hear a Guyanese newscaster give a report on the airstrip shootings. What do we hear in the background? Birds, screen door slamming. Someone walking into the room and sneezing near the tape recorder and sniffling. A man speaks at the end. So, let’s take a listen to broadcast number four. Broadcast number four appears to have been broadcast in the late evening of the 19th. It’s an American broadcast and they do a profile on Leo Ryan.
Q875: American newscaster: —Here is a profile of the late congressman.
Reporter: A fellow congressman once described Mr. Ryan as part of the new breed on Capitol Hill…
Anonymous Contributor: The audio slowly goes into static. What can we hear in the background? We hear machine beeps. We hear two men speaking initially.
Q875: Voices in the background, one sounds like he says, “He was the executive of the settlement community. Right? He's the big wig.”.
Anonymous Contributor: One says “He’s in Georgetown with Richard.”.
Q875: He’s in Georgetown with Richard, right?
Anonymous Contributor: An African American man states, “He was the executive of the settlement community, right? He was the big wig.”.
Q875: Voices in the background, one sounds like he says, “He was the executive of the settlement community. Right? He's the big wig.”.
Anonymous Contributor: At the end of the segment, we hear a shortwave radio broadcast. After I listened to Q875 bunch of times and took notes on what I heard I thought it was important to find out how the FBI got the tape. I wanted to know who, when, I found documents in the FBI, RYMUR file.
RYMUR is the FBI code name given to the investigation into the murder of Leo Ryan. Totaling 2,750 serials and over 10,000 pages, the RYMUR files, like the audio archive serve as a primary source of information for researchers and scholars. Thanks to the efforts of the Jonestown Institute these files are available online at the alternative consideration’s website.
Anonymous Contributor: The first document that I found was stated December 14th, 1978. It is an interview with FBI special agent Robert Oglesby Jr with Richard Martin, who was the vice council of the United States assigned to Caracas Venezuela on temporary duty to Georgetown Guyana. Richard Martin, after the Jonestown massacre was sent to Georgetown Guyana on Thursday, November 23rd, 1978. He traveled from Georgetown Guyana to Jonestown Guyana for the purpose of securing items of interest to the United States Government. Martin advised that he gathered tapes, papers and other items he felt would be of interest and with the help of several American soldiers loaded these items into bags and left them at the, the helicopter pad at Jonestown. Martin further advised that on Friday, November 24th, 1978, he secured the help of several American soldiers and they went from house to house at Jonestown gathering additional tapes, papers, and personal identifications. Martin advised that all of the items that he had gathered on Thursday together with those found on Friday were then transported via the United States army helicopter to Georgetown Guyana.
Martin stated with the exception of two small packets of papers and one reel of tape, all the items were placed in a room in the United States consulate. This room was locked, and all the items are in the custody of Doug Ellice consul of the United States of America. The two small packets of papers, which Martin did not place in this room were turned over to ambassador John Burke.
In this document, it's a memorandum for the record. “I Richard Martin of vice council of the United States of America was temporarily assigned to the U S embassy Guyana on, November 19th, 1978, I was assigned responsibility for the preservation and protection of the personal States of the deceased American citizens and for the identification of the American citizens survivors there. in this capacity, I visited Jonestown Guyana on the 23rd of November 1978 and again, on November the 24th, 1978.
Vandalism and pilferage had been so extensive when I initially arrived at Jonestown that identification of individual personal effects was impossible. Residential buildings were only marked by numbers. I collected various items, which in my judgment were the property of deceased US citizens and transported them to the US consulate and Georgetown. These follows a brief description of the types of property collected and the locations were found:
Passports 64 in the office. Treasury checks found in the office. Costume jewelry, letters, photographs, files found in various offices and houses. Memos, notes, maps and diagrams, communications equipment, recording tapes. All of the above was in my custody from the time of my departure from Jonestown, November 24th, 1978 to the time of my arrival at the Georgetown consulate, where I turned over everything to consul Douglas V. Ellice Jr. “.
So, all of the evidence recovered in Jonestown was taken to the American consulate in Georgetown by the state department.
Anonymous Contributor: So, we see that the tape Q875 goes from Jonestown to the United States embassy offices in Georgetown under the care of consul Doug Ellice. I also found this document in the RYMUR files dated December 4th, 1978, Georgetown Guyana: “I Richard Martin vice council of the United States of America was temporarily assigned to the United States Embassy at Guyana on the 19th of November 1978. Among other items of property, which I collected at Jonestown on November 24th, 1978 was a tape recording. This recording was of the reel-to-reel type in what's found on a tape recorder, situated on a raised platform at the end of an open-air building known as the pavilion.”.
Q042: How very much I've loved you. How very much I've tried my best to give you the good life. But in spite of all that I've tried a handful of our people with their lives have made our lives impossible. There's no way to detach ourselves from what's happened today.
Anonymous Contributor: “The recorder was situated on a table of a platform and was not running when I first observed it. Approximately one fourth of the tape was on the take-up and the other three-fourths was on the rewind reel. The recorder was located less than two feet from a chair on the platform. I removed both reels from the recorder and placed them in a bag which I was carrying. On November 24th, 1978, when I had completed my duties in Jonestown, I returned to Georgetown. The tape was in my custody at least from the time I departed until I transferred it to John Burke, United States ambassador to Guyana on the evening of November 24th, 1978. The tape was played at the time and then locked in the ambassador's safe. On December 4th, 1978 at approximately 10:00 AM, the tape was removed from the ambassadors safe. I was able to identify it as the tape which I had removed from the pavilion both by the appearance of the reels and by the contents of the tape when it was played. At that time, the tape was transferred to the custody of federal Bureau of investigation, FBI agent redacted.”.
As many of you may have surmised the reel-to-reel tape taken out of the safe and given to the FBI was the death tape. Now the FBI's involvement with the evidence collected in Jonestown begins.
Anonymous Contributor: Going through more of the RYMUR files I found another document dated December 14th, 1978, Georgetown Guyana. From December 4th, 1978 through December 12th, 1978, special agents redacted and special agent Robert J Oglesby Jr. and redacted, reviewed material contained in 26 wooden boxes, various cardboard boxes, suitcases, footlockers and plastic bags. All of the above material and containers were in a locked room located in the United States consulate in Georgetown Guyana. These items were in the custody of Doug Ellice consul of the United States of America. After reviewing all of the above material, 11 wooden boxes, approximately two feet by two feet by three feet were set aside for the purpose of transporting material, which was the interest of the federal Bureau of investigation. These boxes contain records relating to the following activities of the Peoples Temple and Peoples Temple members, financial property records , activities in the United States of America, contacts with Guyana citizens, lists of Peoples Temple members, possible bondage restrictions of members including children, foreign contracts, FBI records, weapons, codes, miscellaneous court cases, miscellaneous sampling of Peoples Temple activities.
In addition to the above 4 of these 11 boxes contain video tapes, audio tapes, super 8 and 16-millimeter prints. Below is a listing of all video and audio recordings located by the above agents: 417 seven-inch reel audio recordings, 247 cassette audio recordings, 8 five-inch reel audio recordings, 14 micro cassette audio recordings, 1 two inch reel audio recording, 2 eight track cartridge audio recordings, 44 video cassettes, 19 super 8 movie reels, 4 super 8 sound cartridges, 1 ten inch super 8reel, 2 16 millimeter print reels and 1 plastic bag of miscellaneous audio tapes.
Okay, the next files that I found, I found several handwritten classifications of all the audio tapes. The FBI agents, when they listen to these tapes, they give each tape a number, assign it a number, and then they also give a description of the tape. For instance, Q867 is a 90-minute Memorex tape. Q868 is a one tracks 60-minute tape. Q875, the mystery tape in question is a Sanyo C12.
So, when we do a little investigating into the Sanyo C12, the 12 means 12 minutes. This particular tape was specifically made for telephone answering machines. After the FBI in Georgetown, along with the state department officials that were listening to the tapes and categorizing the tapes, after they did that we find this document where we see the movement of the tapes from the United States embassy in Georgetown. December 28, 1978, seven cases of documents shipped from Georgetown to San Francisco and four cases of tapes shipped from Georgetown to Washington, DC. January 19th, 1979, 15 cases of documents shipped from Georgetown to San Francisco. January 30th, 1979. Seven cases of tapes shipped from Georgetown to Washington DC. Also, we have a document where there's a signature of receiving of the tapes. They were received by the FBI as evidence on January 31st, 1979 we can see in this document to San Francisco. So that's where the tapes go to San Francisco. From Jonestown to Georgetown, from Georgetown to San Francisco, into the hands of the FBI. When they go to the San Francisco, that's the first time the FBI takes them into evidence. As far as the documentation of Q875 in the RYMUR files, that's it. That's all the documentation we have of it.
The FBI did not give any assessment to Q875. That's basically where the story stalls.
After the FBI completed their investigation into the deaths at the Port Kaituma airstrip, the tapes sat in a vault, mostly unlistened to. It wasn't until the public began filing FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests for the tapes that their contents were scrutinized.
Anonymous Contributor: So, what have we learned about the information in these FBI documents? Well, we know that there was a gentleman named Richard Martin who went to Jonestown, collected the tapes, took them back to Georgetown, to the United States Embassy and left them in the care of Doug Ellice. From there after being listened to by FBI agents and state department employees, they go into the hands of the FBI and that's where the story sat for years.
Every few years, new tapes and documents are released by the FBI thanks to the public making FOIA requests. Somewhat recently, two tapes were released of particular interest to the researching community.
Anonymous Contributor: The next document that I found in the FBI files was of particular interest. April 27th, 1979 and this is from San Francisco FBI office to director of the FBI priority. During the interview with US consul Douglas V. Ellice Georgetown, Guyana he revealed the existence of a tape recording made by him on November 18th, 1978. The recordings include incoming and outgoing telephone calls from the residents of Mr. Ellice. Tapes also contain audible radio transmissions in the background at the time of the interview. Ellice furnished Xerox copies of handwritten notes that he made the weekend of April 21st and 22nd, 1979. These notes, reflect time, sequence, and subject of each phone call.
The two tapes were given to the FBI and categorized as Q1289 and Q1290. So, these two tapes, Doug Ellice made in his home the day of November 18, 1978. This is the day of the massacre.
What we hear on Q1289 is Sharon Amos, a temple member at the Peoples Temple headquarters in Georgetown having a three-way conversation. On one end is Doug Ellice, who is recording the phone call. You can hear his wife Mei-chen and their young daughter occasionally and on the other end is Mike Carter in the radio room in Jonestown. Sharon is trying to track down one of Leo Ryan's aides, Jim Schollaert. Richard Dwyer who accompanied Leo Ryan to Jonestown is trying to reach Jim Schollaert regarding the extra planes needed to transport defectors now trying to escape Jonestown. Sharon Amos sounds calm considering in just a few hours, she would murder her three children. Doug Ellice attempts to track down Jim Schollaert and ensure the congressman's flight will leave on time. Totally unaware of what is about to happen on the airstrip in Port Kaituma.
Q1289 Sharon (Linda) Amos: Hello?
Mrs. Mei-chen Ellice: Oh, hello. Excuse me. Uh, hold on just a minute. Sharon? Uh, this is Mrs. Ellice, and my husband wants to speak with you.
Amos: Hello?
Ellice: Hello, Sharon?
Amos: Yes.
Ellice: Yeah, this is Doug.
Amos: Yeah.
Ellice: The Embassy just called me, said you wanted to talk to me.
Amos: Do you know where Jim Schollaert is? He wanted to come and talk to Dick Dwyer on the radio. I don’t know if it’s too late or not. I’ve been trying to get him all morning.
Ellice: Uh– Last I knew he was at the Embassy. But that was an hour ago.
Amos: Oh, I see.
Ellice: Uh– He wanted to talk to Dick Dwyer on the radio?
Amos: Uh-huh.
Ellice: Okay, well– What do you want me to do? Try to find him and tell him to go over to the house?
Amos: Well, it depends if he comes right, uh– see– it’s getting close to the time when they’re gonna be leaving, so lemme check. Hold on. [speaks to Mike Carter in Jonestown via the ham radio]
Amos: Is it too late for Jim Schollaert to talk to Dick Dwyer?
Carter: Uh, I think it’s gonna get too late by– by the time, uh, he [unintelligible] probably too late, ‘cause they’re gonna leave in 20 minutes.
Amos: Okay. I guess he can talk to him when he gets in then.
Carter: What’s that?
Amos: I guess he can talk to him when he comes in to the airport.
Carter: Yeah, [unintelligible string]
Amos: Okay. Thanks, Mike. Stand by.
Carter: Okay, roger.
Amos: Okay, it’s gonna be too late.
Ellice: Okay.
Amos: But I’ve been trying to reach him all morning. Would you tell him that because–
Ellice: Sure. And you haven’t heard anything yet about any– excuse me, I’m about to snee–
Amos: About what?
Ellice: Hold on– [attempts to suppress sneeze] Hold on a minute–
Amos: Okay.
Ellice: [sneezes] Excuse me.
Amos: You got a cold, huh?
Ellice: I had to sneeze. Yeah, I got a terrible cold. You haven’t heard anything yet about any delays? We can still count on them leaving at 2 o’clock?
Amos: They’ve got it all set to leave [unintelligible] leaving in 20 minutes, which gives them only an hour.
Ellice: Yeah. Okay, great. All righty. I’ll tell Jim that you’re looking for him.
[phone being dialed and ringing; unrelated conversations in the background]
Marine: Good afternoon. United States Embassy.
Ellice: Yeah, Doug Ellice. Is, uh, James Schollaert there? He was– he’s the uh, staffer on the Congressman’s trip.
Marine: No he’s not, Mr. Ellice.
Ellice: Okay, good. Thanks a lot. Can you hook me up to the ambassador’s office?
Marine: Okay. Sure can.
Ellice: Sir, this is Doug Ellice.
Burke: Oh, Doug, yeah. I was on the other line with Peter Londono.
Ellice: Oh. Okay– All right. The Peoples Temple just called me and they wanted to find Mr. Schollaert, because he apparently wanted to talk to Dick Dwyer. They wanted– Peoples Temple wanted Mr. Schollaert to know that they probably weren’t going to be able to put him through to Dick, because the group is rounding itself up now and getting ready to go down to the airstrip in another hour.
Burke: Oh, it sounds like they’ve– Well, I guess it’ll take– it’ll take a while. So maybe the 2 o’clock departure time is gonna hold, huh?
Ellice: Yes. They have– they have no information to indicate that it won’t.
Burke: Okay.
Ellice: Okay, good. Well, if I hear of any snags, I’ll of course let you know.
Burke: Okay.
[phone hangs up]
Mrs. Ellice: Hello?
Amos: Yes, is this Mei-chen?
Mrs. Ellice: Yes, Sharon.
Amos: Hi!
Mrs. Ellice: How are you? I recognize your voice now.
Amos: Oh, no. We’ve been talking to each other a lot, huh?
Mrs. Ellice: I’m sure you want to talk to Doug. Hold on one moment.
Amos: Okay, thank you.
Mrs. Ellice: Okay.
Ellice: It’s to our credit that my wife hasn’t started getting suspicious yet about all these phone calls you’re making.
Amos: Oh, I hope not.
Ellice: How you doing?
Amos: Okay. Well, uh, the reason I’m calling is they want to talk to you or Jim Schollaert on the d– uh, Dick Dwyer said he has to talk to you or Jim Schollaert before he leaves. And I can’t get a hold of Dick Schollaert– no, he’s not at the embassy, not at the hotel, so–
Ellice: Wait a minute. My daughter’s on the extension. [pause, commotion in background] Yes, please hang up. That was my three year old girl. Uh–
Amos: Oh, [unintelligible] see her sometime.
Ellice: [laughs] I’m looking forward to seeing yours sometime, too.
Amos: Well, you’ve got official business in mind, I know.
Ellice: [laughs] Anyway. Uh, well can you phone patch me to Dick, or–
[Sharon Amos speaking to Dick Dwyer in Jonestown via the ham radio]
Dick Dwyer: We’ve got about six people, uh, not quite sure how many but probably, I’d say, six people [unintelligible] back with us. Uh, in meantime, there’s not gonna be room on that airplane for anybody to come out and we’re probably gonna need another small airplane. Uh, or, uh–
Burke: Yes.
Ellice: Sir, I just got a call from Sharon Amos who just got a call from Dick Dwyer.
Burke: Right.
Ellice: Dick had a message for me. They’re bringing out six people in addition to their 18. That means they need another plane, and he wants me at the airport to meet. So, it sounds like they’re bringing somebody out.
At the beginning of Q1290 Doug Ellice is starting to get the feeling that something has gone very wrong in Jonestown. Leo Ryan's plane never left the airstrip, and he is picking up strange radio transmissions from Jonestown.
Q1290: Douglas Ellice: Sir, a very strange message– seemingly some sort of encryption. Hold on a second. Three people were asked to receive this and no one else. And when they were assembled, it was, “A lot of people have seen–”
Burke: Pardon?
Ellice: “A lot of people have seen Mr. Fraser. [pause] I think Mrs. Brownfield has offered to help.”
Burke: “A lot of people have seen Mr. Fraser. I think Mrs.–”
Ellice: [interrupting] Excuse me, sir.
[Shortwave radio in background]
Ellice: Mrs. Gilliam [phonetic], they’re talking about. Just a second.
Ellice: Sir, there seems to be more to this. Maybe I better call you in another minute or two.
Burke: Okay.
Ellice: If you don’t mind.
Female: Hello?
Unknown male 1: Hello, is Doug there?
Female: Yes, just a minute sir.
Unknown male 1: Thank you.
Ellice: Yes, sir. (Pause) Hello?
Unknown male 1: Hello, Doug?
Ellice: Yes.
Unknown male 1: Our latest information is that they still are on the ground up there.
Ellice: Okay, good. Thanks a lot. Try to keep me posted. There may be trouble up there.
Unknown male 1: Okay. Talk to you later.
Ellice: There may be some sort of problem up there.
[Phone hangs up. Phone being dialed and rings)
Burke: Yes.
Ellice: I’ll try again. Uh, “A lot of people have seen Mr. Fraser.”
Burke: Yeah.
Ellice: “I think Mrs. Brownfield has offered to help.”
Burke: [repeating back] –Brownfield has offered to help.
Ellice: “She’s three”– or perhaps it was, “free.”
Burke: Three or free.
Ellice: Right. “Get SB– ” or perhaps it was, “FB– to help and get all the other folks.” And then there was something about, “Hey, I’ve got an idea, how about Mrs. Gilliam?” And they said, “Yeah, get her too.” It’s some obvious sort of code and it sounds– sounds very, very strange. Just when these people were standing by to receive this message, they were told to clear the radio room and only have certain personnel there. They called up and said, “Yeah, we heard– GDF at Ogle has heard something about a problem at Port Kaituma.” So maybe something going on up there.
Burke: Hmm.
Ellice: SB could be a “Special Branch”. Mrs. Gilliam could be GDF. I don’t know, may- But it’s an obvious encryption. I’m not reading something into it, ‘cause they’ve been talking in the clear all day.
Burke: Yeah, yeah.
Ellice: This means something.
According to the Peoples Temple radio code book, Mr. Fraser is the code word for death. A lot of people have seen Mr. Frazer meant that people in Jonestown were already dying when this message was intercepted by the embassy. According to the same code book, Mrs. Brownfield is code for do whatever you can to even the score. The reference to SB could have been referring to Sandra Bradshaw. She was in charge of the San Francisco Peoples Temple.
1290: Joe Hartmann: Hi. Is Doug there?
Mrs. Ellice: Yes. Who’s calling, please?
Hartmann: Joe Hartmann.
Mrs. Ellice: All right. Uh, Joe, he said he’s uh– He can’t talk right now. He can’t talk right now. He’s busy on somethin’. Well, you want me to take a message for you?
Hartmann: All right. I just– All right. I just found out that the reason that the planes haven’t taken off–
Mrs. Ellice: Yeah–
Hartmann: –was because it was reported that there’s been some kind of a shooting.
Mrs. Ellice: Oh no!
Hartmann: Huh?
Mrs. Ellice: You sure?
Hartmann: I’m just telling you what I heard.
Clearly the state department was scrambling to understand what was happening on November 18th, 1978 in both Port Kaituma and in Jonestown. Over 900 American lives were coming to an end and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Not at this point anyway. Doug Ellice scanned the radio hoping to pick up something from one of the Peoples Temple radio rooms. But there was nothing but dead air.
The mystery tape Q875 was listed in the FBI files as being the only Sanyo C12 tape found in Jonestown. The Doug Ellice tapes, Q1290 and Q1289 were added to the FBI's collection later and were not originally cataloged.
Anonymous Contributor: After finding these documents I made a FOIA request for the physical descriptions of Q1289 and Q1290 and they are identical to Q875. Both are 12-minute Sanyo C12 answering machine cassette tapes.
When performing an audio analysis of 40-year-old copies of magnetic tape recordings, the muffled voices and noise artifacts can be difficult to discern. Theories as to what is actually going on in the background of these recordings are numerous. I encourage you to form your own opinions as to what can be heard on these tapes.
Anonymous Contributor: But what is of interest is important to note about this tape is Doug Ellice sneezing and sniffling into the phone and tells Sharon Amos that he has a terrible cold.
Q1289: Doug Ellice: Sure. And you haven’t heard anything yet about any– excuse me, I’m about to snee–
Sharon Amos: About what?
Ellice: Hold on– [attempts to suppress sneeze] Hold on a minute–
Amos: Okay.
Ellice: [sneezes] Excuse me.
Amos: You got a cold, huh?
Ellice: I had to sneeze. Yeah, I got a terrible cold.
Someone can be heard sneezing and sniffling in the background of the mystery tape although to my ears, it sounds like a woman.
Q875: (Feminine Sneeze)
Anonymous Contributor: Also, things in the background that are significant, at the end of the first call Doug Ellice, his three-year-old daughter, you can hear her in the background. You can hear a ham radio transmissions.
Q1290: Shortwave 1: [unintelligible] (female speaker) well– they’re working on it–
Ellice: They’re working on it.
Shortwave 2: (different speaker, but hard to tell which radio female is in Georgetown and which is in Jonestown) Oh, I see– I see. I thought you were– said [unintelligible string]
Shortwave 1: Well, they’re on their way to see him.
Ellice: They’re on their way to see Mr. Fraser.
I will now play a clip of radio noise, heard in the background of the Doug Ellice tapes.
Q1290 (Radio noise)
And now a clip of the radio noise heard in the background of the mystery tape, Q875.
Q875 (Radio noise)
In both recordings. You can also hear a door slam.
Anonymous Contributor: Also FOIA requested is the photographs from the FBI of the FBI agents and the embassy officials listening to the tapes. Doug Ellice, along with agent Oglesby.
In these photographs, you can see many different types of tapes and cassette players strewn about the room. Stacks of tapes, some with handwritten notes attached to them, sit next to Doug Ellice and Oglesby as they listen to the recordings with intense expressions on their faces. The enormous task of digging through mountains of Jonestown found audio footage is illustrated, as well as the disorganized methods of the investigation.
Anonymous Contributor: Who made the tape? I believe that Doug Ellice made Q875.
Could Doug Ellice have recorded Q875 and somehow the tape ended up in the hands of the FBI mixed in with all the others? Our anonymous contributor attempts to solve the mystery by answering the five questions posed by Fielding McGehee.
Anonymous Contributor: So, who made the tape? I believe that Doug Ellice, US consul to the United States made that tape in his home in Georgetown Guyana. Because, we know that he made these two other tapes the day before. We know that he was monitoring ham radio transmissions coming between Georgetown and Jonestown. So, we know that he was definitely making tapes. Why did anyone bother to make a tape? Why do I think Doug Ellice made the tape? I think that everything was, there was so little information people were trying to get information wherever they could. Same goes for the people in the household of Doug Ellice. Now we know from Doug Ellice’s two other phone call recording tapes that his wife was obviously there hands-on, helping him as this whole thing unfold.
Q1289: Reception: Good morning American embassy
Mei-chen Ellice: Hello this is Mrs. Ellice speaking; does he have a moment for me?
Reception: Yes of course my dear, please hold one moment.
Doug Ellice: Hello hon.
Mei-chen Ellice: Hi honey, is there anything I can do?
Doug Ellice: No sweetheart, everything is fine.
Anonymous Contributor: So, it's not unlikely that she was hitting record and listening to radio transmissions in the home gleaning for information. So that's why I think they made the tape and where was the tape made? Obviously, it was in the Ellice household. What were people doing as they made the tape? You can hear people on Q875 shuffling, moving about having calm conversations. You hear a child; you hear the mother. People also hear a dog growling, and you can hear Doug Ellice, multiple times shushing the dog.
Q875 (Dog Growling and is shushed)
Anonymous Contributor: On one of Doug Ellice's tapes that he recorded on the 18th, you can hear the child scold the dog.
Q1289 (Scolding a dog)
Anonymous contributor: I believe that the African American gentleman that you hear on Q875 in segment four, as it fades off into static, if you listen and you listen and you, listen, you listen closely, you can hear him conversing with someone else. You can pick up little bits of his conversation. Richard Martin, I have a photo, multiple photographs of Richard Martin from the U S embassy and he is indeed an African American gentleman. Why did they leave the tape behind in Jonestown? The FBI misidentified this tape as being found in Jonestown when indeed it wasn't. But they didn't know that when they got the tapes in San Francisco, they just took it on word that all the tapes came straight out of Jonestown.
How did this tape get mixed in with all the other Jonestown tapes? I believe because of these photographs I have of the FBI agents and Doug Ellice and other state department officials listening to the tapes, I believe that Doug Ellice probably brought his cassette recorder from his house to the embassy because we see various different tape-recording machines in the shot. I believe he brought it from his house, which still had Q875 in the deck and somehow it got mixed in and shuffled in with all the other tapes and shipped off to the FBI. So therefore, it was mislabeled as found in Jonestown. It wasn't made in Jonestown.
Is Doug Ellice, even aware of the Q875 mystery tape?
Anonymous Contributor: So, through third-party email, I was able to get in touch with Doug Ellice and laid him out this whole thing about this mysterious tape which he had no idea even existed more or less. He did nod to more than likely the scenario is that that he did create that tape and it did accidentally get into the FBI tapes. So that's where it's at. That's it. No more mystery tape. To think that Jim Jones made this tape 24 hours after he had murdered everyone with a few assorted of temple members gathered around the radio room, I mean, if you actually look at those photographs, I don't think anybody was going to stick around to do that. I doubt that elderly Hyacinth Thrash or Grover Davis would have gotten into that radio room and made those tapes. It just doesn't seem likely. I think the one speculation that this really knocks down, which I enjoy knocking down, is the CIA mind control goon squad that was there that killed everybody and accidentally left the tape behind. But we know somebody had the motivation and the means to make Q875 and why it was made.
This compelling theory may solve the mystery for some of you. There is no overstating, the amount of research it took to connect all the dots and trace the evidence thousands of miles. An ocean of time and disorganized FBI files made getting here a difficult journey. If nothing else, this possible conclusion to one of Jonestown’s greatest mysteries may be an indication that thanks to the passage of time and the patient gathering of documents and tapes we may be able to learn more about what really happened in Jonestown now than anyone could have in 1978.
End Transmission