Well one thing I can confirm is that the US government does offer researchers who are involved in ultra secret projects a chance to "disappear" your not even allowed to tell your own family that your gone.
I assume if your home life is crappy enough and yet you some how maintain enough of a genius level IQ this could appeal to some.
I know I turned down a weird offer after taking a 3 day long test for the government. The conversation went something like this.
Strange caller "We would like to offer you a research position."
Me *thinking this is some weird ass joke* "Would I get my own Cray XMP." *Cray XMP being the fastest computer money could buy at the time.*
Strange caller "Yes." no hesitation in the mans voice.
Me "What would I have to do?"
Strange caller "You would have to leave your family and not tell them where you are going and what you are doing you would have no contact with them."
Me " I can't do that.... I mean I just can't." *at this point I was completely shaken.*
Had I known where my life was headed at the time, I might have accepted the offer, I mean not that my life is utter crap right now or anything but I can't help but wonder what kind of research I would have been doing the access to the information involved.
I was never contacted again, but I could consider it these days lol
Ripley's Believe it or not... lol
holy crap, i would have asked the guy "What specific research is done in said position?"
The guy managed to scare me over the phone, thats no easy task. I imagine he would have told me absolutely nothing. What ever it was with me asking for a nice computer and getting I can only guess that it would have involved some of the stuff we take for advantage as being public now. Stealth, Lasers, and what ever else Reagan wanted in his whole Star Wars Defense Initiative thing. Maybe working on some of the stuff that even now is still secret?
When it comes to Government contracts during that period of time the sky was the limit, if you ever want to see a crazy movie about the stuff check out "The Men who stare at goats." that was a weird project that from what I understand is still working? From what I understand the part of the project that managed to survive was something called "remote viewing".
The whole Psy-ops stuff is a little creepy to me.
Edit: I mean to be perfectly honest, I think it was a person who worked for the Government but I have zero proof, no information that could be confirmed. The whole thing could easily be chalked up to a prank phone call. The only thing that made me think it was real was the timing of the call just a few days after taking a massive test.
I wait for the knock at my door now to take me away... lol