‘Our Minds Have Become One,’ Shaken President Says
WASHINGTON—Appearing frightened and confused by his unexplained new powers, President Barack Obama reportedly pulled members of the White House staff aside Wednesday to inform them of his recently discovered telepathic connection with an Afghanistan-based military drone.
The president, who said he began receiving the unusually vivid visions in April, explained that the grainy, black-and-white bombing runs against senior leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda that he now experiences on a near-daily basis appeared to be images from the live video feed of CIA Predator Drone #AA32. According to the visibly shaken commander-in-chief, he can neither control nor anticipate when the chilling scenes will appear.
“It just comes over me and there’s nothing I can do about it—without warning, I’ll feel dizzy and lightheaded, and then all of a sudden, I’m circling high above a mountain range,” said Obama, adding that the powerful, dreamlike images include distant cars and buildings exploding, along with the unmistakable chatter of CIA controllers on the ground. “Then later, when I’m being debriefed on our latest drone strike, I’ll recognize the footage as the exact same scene from my visions. At first, it only happened at night when I was asleep, and I’d wake up drenched in sweat. But after a while, it started happening when I was awake, too, at any hour of the day. I wish I could make them stop, but I can’t.”
“It seems that whatever the drone sees, I see,” he added, trembling. “Our minds have melded into one.”
The president confirmed roughly three dozen telepathic episodes, visions he described as often depicting rural villages overlaid with digital readouts of the unmanned aerial vehicle’s speed, altitude, and navigation vectors, as well as the targeting system’s crosshairs. Obama said that the images, which are always preceded by a sudden flash of blue light, initially lasted only seconds at a time but had recently begun to include entire hours-long reconnaissance missions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Several White House aides claiming to have witnessed the president receiving one of his Predator visions confirmed that Obama typically grows pale and stares off into the distance as he begins to see through the lens of the UAV. Staff members also noted that the president’s body typically stiffens and he becomes completely unresponsive, his eyes reportedly rolling back into his head and remaining there until the mysterious connection ends.
Additionally, one anonymous White House source described a recent startling incident during which the president, who was working in the Oval Office late at night, suddenly began rocking back and forth and reciting a stream of GPS coordinates in a flat monotone before eventually collapsing forward onto the Resolute desk.
“The first time I saw the president have a vision was during a lunch meeting to follow up on the progress of the Iran nuclear accord,” said Secretary of State John Kerry, adding that as the two discussed the findings of U.N. inspections, the president abruptly stopped speaking mid-sentence, dropped his fork to the floor, and closed his eyes as he entered a deep trance. “The president was just sitting there, completely silent, until he snapped out of it several minutes later and whispered that we had just taken out a top-level Taliban commander and six of his subordinates, and inflicted limited collateral damage on a nearby school.”
“When [National Security Advisor] Susan Rice interrupted the meeting several moments later to inform him of the strike, he cut her off and said ‘I know,’” Kerry continued.
Obama reported that, over time, he has begun to experience physical sensations he believes may be related to the connections he experiences, including pounding headaches and immense fatigue on the days when the drone has participated in multiple missions. The president also recalled a specific episode last week in which he suffered a painful burning sensation in his fingertips, only to learn later that the drone had taken on anti-aircraft fire that same afternoon.
“Wait, I’m getting one now; it’s acquiring the target outside Jalalabad,” said Obama before descending into a low, unfluctuating tone of voice during a meeting Wednesday with reporters. “Tracking target movement speed. Twenty knots. Twenty-two knots. Twenty knots. Target acquired. Missiles armed.”
“Ready to fire. Ready to fire. Ready to fire. Ready to fire. Ready to fire,” the president added.
