Phenomenological, Diagnostic, and Forensic Aspects of Gangstalking and Targeted Individuals

Phenomenology of Targeted Individuals

Gangstalking is a persecutory belief system that is characterized by the belief that one is being followed, monitored, and harassed by groups of people, often through the coordinated efforts of the government, law enforcement agencies, and hired citizens or even family members participating in stalking by proxy. Although such alleged harassment can take the form of conventional stalking techniques, gangstalking claims often include not only being followed but additional victimization by street theater (seemingly benign goings-on staged for intimidation purposes), directed energy weapons (e.g., microwaves and other forms of low-frequency radiation), and psychotronic warfare or mind control (e.g., implanted microchips, tracking devices, and voice-to-skull technologies causing victims to hear voices).^4,6

In contrast to other persecutory belief systems that are named and characterized by mental health professionals, such as the Capgras delusion⁷ or the Truman Show delusion,⁸ gangstalking is the term used by those holding the belief. The distress described by such perceived victimization arises not from individual acts of persecution per se, which are often benign on their own, but from the accumulation of many such acts, perpetrated by many people over an extended period.

Those who believe they are the victims of gangstalking commonly refer to themselves as targeted individuals (abbreviated TIs). They often report being victims of surveillance (e.g., by cameras or people following them in cars), cyberbullying, and cybertorture (e.g., as evidenced by phishing attempts and receipt of spam email or text messages). Interpersonally, they perceive malice and hostility in ordinary acts, such as strangers talking on cell phones or clearing their throat as they pass on the street, a glance that lingers too long, or others standing too close at a grocery store. When TIs confront would-be persecutors in the community, their interlocutors deny any knowledge of gangstalking or that they were engaging in harassment of any kind; for example, they might explain that they were merely clearing their throat because of a cough or cold. Such plausible deniability is invariably frustrating to TIs.

The ease with which individual instances of alleged persecution can be explained away adds another layer of vexation and resentment to those who believe they are victims of gangstalking, because the salience of the belief system does not arise primarily from properties inherent in these events in isolation but rather from the cumulative weight of so many seemingly ordinary and even trivial occurrences. The perceived malice of gangstalking is an emergent property of the system not reducible to any single action.⁹ TIs are often perplexed as to why they have been singled out for abusive treatment, which serves as an additional source of distress as they comb their memory for potential conflicts or unintended slights that could have precipitated their plight. TIs are also often uncertain about the intended goal of the persecution, hypothesizing that it is designed to discredit them, to cause them to develop a psychiatric illness, or to drive them to suicide.

Gangstalking is notable in that it is one of the first persecutory belief systems to be disseminated, contested, and constructed online, similar to Morgellons syndrome, a variant of delusional parasitosis that has been propagated on the internet.¹⁰ Adherents of the gangstalking belief system share a common and unique lexicon to describe their experiences. Although TIs occasionally assemble in person for support, they more typically congregate online in Internet communities, which has the effect of supporting and reinforcing their belief system.¹¹ Specialized jargon serves to both describe the experiences of TIs and also to signal membership within the group and promote affiliation. For example, TIs employ the abbreviation V2K, referring to voice-to-skull communication, to describe experiences of voice-hearing. They use the term perp to describe their perceived persecutors who are believed to be perpetrating the gangstalking activity. The abbreviation DEWs, in reference to directed energy weapons, describes technologies that are believed to harm TIs surreptitiously at a distance using electromagnetic energy.

Lustig et al.⁵ performed a linguistic analysis of discourse within the Internet’s largest online gangstalking forum. They identified important themes in the gangstalking community using a technique known as keyword analysis that involves identifying words that occur with a statistically higher frequency when compared with a reference body of general language use. Keyword analysis of gangstalking discourse revealed a preoccupation with the widespread extent of the conspiracy. In particular, the use of words such as government, police, law, and state implicate the participation of authority figures and state actors in the persecution. For this reason, TIs are often reluctant to seek help from the authorities, based on the belief that such figures are complicit and that appealing to them for help will only serve to multiply their difficulties.

Epistemic themes are central to Internet discourse on gangstalking. These pertain to concerns about being believed versus being disbelieved and labeled mentally ill. Forum contributors are in many instances acutely aware that their claims strain credibility and that many people are skeptical of their beliefs. They express concerns about the need to gather compelling evidence documenting their persecution. In an effort to conclusively demonstrate that their persecution is real and not an artifact of their mind, some TIs post video evidence to YouTube and other online platforms. In another study, Lustig et al.¹² conducted a multimodal discourse analysis on a corpus of 50 YouTube videos posted by TIs that purported to demonstrate irrefutable evidence of their harassment. This study found that the videos did not in fact contain compelling evidence of harassment. Instead, they primarily consisted of TIs recording people going about their quotidian activities and in some instances openly accusing them of engaging in malicious behavior. Ironically, but unsurprisingly, in some instances the acts of documentation and confrontation elicited the very hostility that the TIs had set out to prove.

Differential Diagnosis of Gangstalking

Any evaluation of a stalking claim should begin with an assessment of its potential veracity. Stalking by multiple perpetrators is not unusual; it has been reported to comprise over a third of stalking cases and is more likely than cases of individual stalking to be associated with attacks or other criminal behavior.¹³ Cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and workplace harassment coordinated by groups of people (i.e., mobbing) are also unfortunate realities in the Internet era, with several organized efforts, including the surveillance, harassment, hacking, and doxxing of individuals by corporations like eBay and the German company Wirecard making headline news in recent years.^14,15

Although many of the trademark themes of gangstalking, such as mass surveillance and mind control, the use of DEWs and V2K on civilians, and the elaborate staging of street theater strain credibility, they are not literal impossibilities. In fact, DEWs have been under development for years (e.g., Active Denial System, Silent Guardian, Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio (MEDUSA)), including V2K technology, such as Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) systems and the Voice of God weapon.^16,–,20 Secret programs like COINTEL-PRO and MK-ULTRA remind us that the U.S. government has historically engaged in surveillance campaigns and once aspired to develop mind control techniques in the name of national security, just as incidents involving the Moscow Signal in the 1950s and Havana Syndrome more recently suggest that foreign governments might be doing the same.²¹

Still, although some of the technologies and practices claimed by TIs might be at least theoretically possible, there is a difference between what is possible, what is probable, and what is actually happening to an individual. There is no doubt that government agencies surveil their citizens at times and that social media companies constantly invade our privacy and mine our data, but that does not mean that clandestine harassment is occurring on the massive scale typically claimed by TIs. Meanwhile, it is known that people experience persecutory delusions as well as delusion-like beliefs (DLBs), with rates of paranoia found to be as high as one-third of the nonclinical population.²² It should therefore come as no surprise that studies analyzing retrospective psychiatric assessments of gangstalking accounts have consistently concluded that they represent paranoid delusions.^23,24 These judgments have been largely based on the improbable or seemingly bizarre nature of claims made online or in response to surveys, whereas comparative analyses of nongroup stalking complaints have been overwhelmingly deemed to be credible.^25,26

Although the evidence in support of delusional beliefs is often based on anomalous experiences and an associated faith in subjectivity,^27,28 TIs defend gangstalking claims with both subjective experience (e.g., bodily sensations taken as evidence of DEW injuries; jumping to conclusions because of pareidolia (perceiving patterns in random visual stimuli) or apophenia (identifying patterns or correlations in random events or data)), as well as objective evidence in the form of testimonials by other online and news coverage of phenomena like Havana Syndrome. Gangstalking beliefs can therefore also be understood as idiosyncratic, self-referential paranoid concerns that are reinforced by culturally sanctioned, shared conspiracy theory beliefs about global phenomena.^6,27,29,30 Together with the fact that TIs often treat counter-evidence as evidence (e.g., lack of proof is considered evidence of a cover-up, refutation is regarded as a sign of collaboration, and acknowledgment of mental illness is treated as an effect rather than a cause), this can render gangstalking beliefs especially resistant to attempts at therapeutic intervention. Accordingly, self-help support groups for gangstalking victims, whether in person or online, can be harmful by validating delusional beliefs and steering TIs away from potential relief through psychiatric care.³⁰

Some authors have noted that gangstalking represents a kind of technophobia and cultural expression of distress that is a consequence of modern life in an increasingly technological world.^31,32 Another related possibility is that, like Morgellons syndrome, gangstalking has become an increasingly popular cultural meme that has the power to instill fear, provoke hypervigilance, and give rise to self-referential paranoia as a result of mass sociogenic illness (MSI).^6,33 Formerly known as mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, MSI can be understood as a collective stress response mediated by suggestibility, rather than being a psychiatric disorder per se, and has been argued to explain a recent rise in cases of self-diagnosed Tourette’s disorder and dissociative identity disorder³⁴ as well as phenomena like Havana Syndrome.³⁵ In the case of TIs, exposure to media coverage has the potential to cause people to search for evidence of threats in their own lives and find them.⁶ Such media exposure includes stories about gangstalking, DEWs, and the likes of Havana Syndrome; online testimonials by other TIs and purported gangstalker confessions; online communities and organizations dedicated to supporting gangstalking victims; a proposed congressional bill that would have banned psychotronic weapons³⁶; and a cottage industry of clothing and devices that claim to block electromagnetic radiation. In other words, shared conspiracy theory beliefs about gangstalking may not only legitimize and reinforce preexisting gangstalking fears but cause them de novo through a mechanism of social contagion.

TIs, Violence, and Risk Assessment

In 2018, Sarteschi reported on the cases of four perpetrators who committed acts of violence instigated by their gangstalking delusions³⁷; since that publication, numerous additional incidents have occurred, all of them involving men (see Table 1).^37,–,51 Because of a dearth of systematic research, little else is known about the demographic characteristics of TIs who perpetrate violent acts at this time. With greater awareness of the phenomenon, future efforts could be directed at determining the prevalence of gangstalking claims as well as the behavioral impact of belief reinforcement from online sources among those who have committed violent crimes in response to perceived persecutory threats.

Conducting a prospective violence risk assessment for a TI requires a thorough and nuanced understanding of the TI’s belief system and its origins. It should be noted that serious violence is rare among those who perceive themselves to be victims of gangstalking, and it is unlikely that belief alone increases the risk of violence. Instead, as with conspiracy theory beliefs more broadly, distress, self-referential consequentiality, and the perception of an acute threat without other avenues to mitigate that threat best predict the need to respond with action.²⁸ Indeed, Sheridan et al. (Ref. 25, p 2521) reported that nearly a third of TIs were “determined to fight back” in relation to their perceived victimization, with approximately 16 percent of them endorsing violence as a necessary means of doing so. The greatest risk of violence was associated with those who believed they were victims of invasive attacks on their bodies (e.g., mind control, V2K transmissions, implanted devices, physical ailments).

Violent crime associated with gangstalking often involves leakage: the tendency to alert others about their concerns, their desire for relief or justice, and plans for premeditated violence.⁵² For TIs, this often takes the form of posting to social media, writing manifestos, filing police reports, or attempting to utilize the legal system through lawsuits. As with other types of violence, like mass shootings, leakage offers a critical opportunity to intervene before a TI carries out an attack. Approaches such as restraining orders or protective orders (potentially including temporarily prohibiting firearm possession through an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) or Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO), if available in the jurisdiction),^53,54 or involuntary psychiatric hospitalization because of danger to others, and attempting to treat psychosis with antipsychotic medications and other therapeutic interventions may be considered.

Forensic Evaluation of TIs

In cases where intervention is not implemented or is unsuccessful, a TI may commit an act of violence. In the subsequent criminal case, if the allegations of the purported TI regarding his or her victimization are determined to be true, as in, for example, a case of retaliation after experiencing actual cyberbullying, involvement of forensic mental health professionals is less likely. If the TI provides a difficult-to-believe explanation of his or her actions to law enforcement or defense counsel, forensic evaluation may be requested to assess competency to stand trial. At a later stage of the process, the question of criminal responsibility (sanity) may also be raised. Thus, the forensic evaluation of a TI in the criminal justice arena typically focuses on determining whether the evaluee has nonpsychotic DLBs⁵⁵ or an authentic psychotic condition characterized by actual delusions.

Given the volume of online testimonials validating gangstalking as a real phenomenon, evaluating delusionality inevitably requires a careful examination of the precise relationship, or directionality, between an individual’s self-professed gangstalking experiences and the larger body of shared conspiracy theory beliefs about gangstalking occurring on a global scale. The available evidence reviewed earlier indicates that, unlike with similar socially originated and shared DLB systems about the state of the world held by conspiracy theorists,²⁷ sovereign citizens,^56,–,59 QAnon adherents,⁶⁰ cult members,⁶¹ and incels,⁶² who are not typically psychotic, idiosyncratic and self-referential gangstalking beliefs among TIs who come to the attention of the legal system can often be attributed to paranoia stemming from an underlying mental disorder, such as delusional disorder or schizophrenia, despite being validated and reinforced by social mechanisms. In some cases, however, personal gangstalking beliefs that arise after or as a result of exposure to general information on gangstalking might be better attributed to MSI.⁶

Conclusions

Gangstalking is a modern cultural expression of concerns about being surveilled, harassed, or otherwise persecuted by groups of people that include vaguely defined strangers, law enforcement agencies, and government entities. The methods of harassment alleged by TIs typically involve technologically advanced methods on a scale that defies credibility.

Although persecutory delusions involving technology are hardly a new phenomenon, their validation, reinforcement, and propagation via the Internet makes gangstalking a distinct entity that presents a novel challenge to assessment with a differential diagnosis that includes reality-based victimization, persecutory delusions, paranoia fueled by shared conspiracy theory beliefs, and MSI. In the forensic arena, differentiating between these possibilities requires a careful evaluation of individual cases by law enforcement, forensic investigators, and clinical evaluators who are knowledgeable about and culturally sensitive to gangstalking as an increasingly popular cultural meme and the body of information and misinformation that supports it. Diagnostic precision benefits from looking beyond psychiatric models of psychopathology to incorporate perspectives from research on conspiracy theories, DLBs propagated and reinforced through the Internet, and cultural or sociogenic mechanisms of somatic and mental distress.⁵⁵ Further research and debate about these phenomena is needed to refine the mental health field’s ability to distinguish between idiosyncratic delusions in the setting of psychosis and shared DLBs belief systems that arise from social mechanisms, including misinformation and MSI,^29,63,–,65 as well as to understand their relationship to criminal responsibility and the types of interventions needed to reduce belief conviction or mitigate violent risk.^66,67

Although TIs purport to be victims and are at risk of suicide,^6,68 they do occasionally perpetrate violence against others. Independent of explanatory mechanisms but consistent with the literature on delusional psychosis, gangstalking beliefs are associated with a risk of violence that is proportional to a TI’s self-referential perceptions of threat and bodily control (i.e., threat and control-override).⁶⁹ In other words, TIs are most likely to resort to violence in the name of self-defense when other avenues of relief have been thwarted or exhausted. Elucidating an individual’s perception of such threats, and hope of salvation, is therefore crucial for violence risk assessment in cases of gangstalking. Leakage of intent is fairly common and may provide an opportunity to intervene to mitigate risk prior to the TI committing a violent act.

Once a violent crime has been committed, evaluations of competency and the potential for an insanity defense will depend on careful scrutiny of the cause of gangstalking beliefs, including the extent to which they are adopted and adapted from, and encouraged by, external sources of information and misinformation. Although there is a longstanding tradition of versatility in the use of sociogenic illness (i.e., hysteria) for prosecution and defense strategies in some courts internationally,⁷⁰ that tradition has been relatively absent in the United States. It is therefore likely that a forensic evaluator’s variable attribution of gangstalking beliefs to psychosis or sociogenic illness will challenge American judges’ and juries’ perceptions of culpability in cases involving gangstalking. Such distinctions will be necessary, however, to guide effective treatment interventions and pragmatic sentencing informed by consequentialism as opposed to merely retributive justice.^55,71