What do white nationalists, Antifa, and orgasm-inducing electromagnet weapons have in common? Despite how it sounds, this isn't the start of a bad joke, it’s the result of one reporter’s truly unexpected Freedom of Information Act (FIA) request.

Muckrock, a non-profit group that helps people file FIA requests, was recently looking to dig up some information about the Washington State Fusion Center's investigations into Antifa and white nationalists. The agency responded to reporter Curtis Waltman with an email containing a collection of files, one of which had a particularly interesting title: “EM effects on human body.zip”. It turned out, Waltman had been sent a bunch of documents about “psycho-electronic” weapons and “Remote Brain Mapping” devices.

One document explains how the psycho-electronic weapon can read thoughts, control dreams, and even transmit human voices into the skull of a living person. Far out. More terrifying effects include “wildly racing heart without cause” and “wild flailing” followed by “violent itching inside eyelids” and “forced orgasms.” Not so far out.

The remote mind control devices allude to using mobile phone networks and other means of communication to zap thoughts into people’s brains. This could “impose subconscious thoughts” and “images in the brain bypassing the eyes”. It even features a helicopter capable of beaming down mind control rays 

Ok, so, what the hell is going on?

The short answer is... no one is quite sure. Muckrock suggests that the most likely explanation appears to be a mix-up. Perhaps the files were some personal research of one of the staffers at the center or perhaps the files contained some keyword that meant they were sent over in the FIA request by accident.

You can also put a break on the conspiracy theories. It is widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have experimented with mind-control in the past. Between 1953 and 1964, over 50 human experiments took place, many of which involved administering drugs to US citizens without their consent and under no medical supervision.

However, these records were almost certainly not created by or for the government, as many of them appear to be credited to private individuals or website domains.

It does remain unclear the agency hold the documents in their bank of data. However, let's be clear, you probably don’t need to lose any sleep over the prospect of Neo-nazi groups battling it out with Antifa using mind-control weapons. Not just yet, at least.