In the spring of 2026, the book „The Brooklyn Project“ was published in German language by NuoVerlag in Leipzig. The author is Frank Höfer, owner of a film production company called Nuo Filmgesellschaft in Leipzig, who previously produced and edited various documentary films. The sources cited by Höfer regarding the Brooklyn Project are based exclusively on E-Mail correspondence—made available by the U.S. Department of Justice (several releases, largest chunk was published in January 30, 2026) —between Epstein and leading neuroscientists, consciousness researchers, linguists, AI experts, and geneticists—many of whom have close ties to the infamous U.S. Silicon Valley, a futuristic U.S. government facility. They shed light on a very specific inner circle of U.S. power, in whose orbit Donald Trump and others also move. The book analyzes the shift made by a large portion of U.S. research (MIT, Harvard, and Silicon Valley) toward the use of possibilities that AI offers for the control of humans and modern society, with the aim of laying the foundation for “transhumanism.”
Many of the possibilities outlined in the book—which were primarily financed by the convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein and became a magnet for many members of the current U.S. elite surrounding Trump—had already been experimented with and tested in the 1950s and 1960s by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the infamous MK-Ultra project. At that time, psychedelics were used to brainwash prisoners, who were subsequently interrogated. Höfer’s book reveals in a chilling manner the moral abyss of the Epstein-funded project, which is now being continued by Peter Thiel and other consciousness researchers in Silicon Valley.
MK Ultra was a secret research project launched by U.S. intelligence agencies during the Korean War that, among other things, conducted human experiments with mind-altering drugs, to explore the fundamentals and possibilities of mind control. According to Wikipedia, one of the goals was to develop a truth serum. In some respects, the work also overlapped with research conducted by other U.S. programs on biological weapons. It ran from 1953 into the 1970s against the backdrop of the Cold War. The program continues to face severe criticism to this day due to human rights violations. Among other things, MK Ultra involved thousands of human experiments on unsuspecting test subjects, predominantly patients in hospitals and psychiatric facilities or prison inmates. The experiments were generally conducted without their knowledge or consent. Test subjects were often administered psychedelics (primarily LSD) or other substances (such as chemicals or pathogens) and were then isolated, verbally humiliated, sexually abused, and otherwise tortured. Other experimental methods included, for example, sensory deprivation, subliminal messages, hypnosis, electroshock therapy, and surgical procedures such as lobotomies. Numerous individuals suffered severe physical and psychological damage as a result of the experiments, in some cases even resulting in death. According to Stephen Kinzer (american journalist, author, historian), the CIA described the project as “a continuation of the work begun in Japanese prisoner-of -war camps during World War II and in Nazi concentration camps to subjugate and control the human mind.”
Kinzer wrote that the use of mescaline in MK ULTRA on unsuspecting test subjects was a practice that Nazi doctors had begun at the Dachau concentration camp. The experiments took place at 44 universities, 12 hospitals, 3 prisons, and 15 unspecified “research facilities.”
The name of Peter Thiel appears several times in connection with the Brooklyn Project. He is among those who were able to transform such ideas into operational reality. Being a German -American entrepreneur, Peter Thiel was one of the project’s key figures, who is interested in human beings as objects that can be altered. As entrepreneur, investor, and political networker, -he was co-founder of PayPal and former major investor in “Facebook,”_ he became one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures. According to Höfer: “Peter Thiel’s interests extend into the realms of life extension, surveillance, military control, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the question of how far biological limitations can still be accepted at all. He is investing in a new definition of what it means to be human(!)” Example: Palantir. “Palantir is no ordinary software company. Höfer writes. “ It is an attempt to make the world readable and operationally accessible as a data space. Movements, networks, risks, hostilities; patterns: Everything is to become visible. (….) Anyone who takes Palantir seriously realizes: They’re not just building software here. Here, a specific vision of humanity is being put into practice. A vision in which the soul, inner life, mystery, or dignity no longer play an epistemological role. The only thing that matters is what can be extracted, correlated, and controlled.” Humanity as a readable system. As information-processing architecture. As a transitional form. Höfer comments on this: “It is no coincidence that Thiel is fascinated by life extension, biological optimization, and transhumanist possibilities. Anyone who thinks this way sees humanity not as the measure, but as the problem. There is an E-Mail from 2014 between Epstein and Thiel regarding an informal meeting, which states: “You can invite anyone to the ranch—Hoffmann, Marc Zuckerberg—or suggest anyone else you might find interesting. Even from politics or Hollywood.”
Following Epstein’s death (2019 in his prison cell), according to Höfer, one could say that Peter Thiel is continuing his elite project; Thiel is closely connected to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. And so the author—who himself is deeply fascinated by AI—writes that the Brooklyn Project was funded by private investors, whereas the Manhattan (Atomic) Project was government-funded.
To provide a criterion for evaluating the facts presented here, we should cite Pope Leo XIV’s most recent encyclical on human dignity, in which he critically examines the “boundaries” of AI.
Pope Leo XIV devastating Critique against AI
Pope Francis’ criticizes Artificial Intelligence as a “technocratic paradigm” in our globalized world. This, according to Leo XIV has spread rapidly in recent years, fueled in part by the “expansion of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, nanotechnology, robotics and biotechnology. In themselves the innovations can greatly serve integral human development and the care of our common home. What is required in answer to this is a new spiritual, ethical and political framework – an “anthropological vision that guides technological progress” (he writes in his encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas”).
The pope underlines that “it is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however is, that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of ‘intelligence’ to that of human beings. These systems merely imitate (!) certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligence does not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, does not feel joy or pain, does not mature enough through relationships and does not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor does it have moral conscience, since it can’t judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. It may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but it does not understand what it produces, for it lacks the affective relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when tools are described as capable of “learning”, their way of doing is so different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth.”
The pope insists that one must examine “how” that system (of AI) is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it. He calls for “disarming” the AI: “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical of commercial dominance. To ‘disarm’ means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefor making it human -friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.” This could be seen like a reference to the dangers implied in the “Silicon Valley” research of people like Alex Karp, Peter Thiel and others.
Brave New World with J. Epstein—His „Brooklyn Project“
In this context, one should analyze the new book about the “Brooklyn Project” launched by Jeffrey Epstein. In an interview Höfer—now a filmmaker and formerly employed by state broadcasting—describes how he came across this project on YouTube. In February 2026, the Epstein files were released; Epstein, who in 2019 was a convicted sex offender, was also a mathematician and influential financier who was a regular in the circles of the U.S. elite. Among the documents are e-mails from Epstein to „consciousness researcher“ Joshua Bach, Ben Goertzel, Hal Abelson, Peter Thiel from Silicon Valley, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Larry Summers (former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury). As Höfer points out, this network traces back to the leading MIT mathematician Marvin Minsky, who in 2007 presented a six-year AI project. Minsky contacted Ben Goertzel and discussed the AI project with Epstein at the time, describing it as being as significant as the Manhattan Project ( research into the atomic bomb) had once been. Research topics included, among other things, how to halt aging or initiate life extension, and how to modify DNA(!) in such a way as to make “designer babies” possible. According to Höfer, this is not about some grand vision for humanity, but rather about designing projects that would be useful to the ruling U.S. elite as tools for mind control, detached from any ethical, legal, or socially relevant considerations. In other words, Epstein stood ready as a financier, aside other financiers, such as former Finance Minister Larry Summers, to support these projects. He wanted to focus on “post-apocalyptic science”—which means the deliberate modification of animal and human DNA. There were “Billionaires’ Dinners” for example, at the institute of Mark Nowak (an Austrian evolutionary biologist).
This is how the institutional framework for the Brooklyn Project was established. A key question for this circle was: How can we map the human mind? Together with David Hanson, also the field of robotics was explored. Epstein provided funding to an inner circle that was subject to a special ritual: a vow of silence and a kind of brotherhood. According to Höfer, Epstein met with the biggest names in Silicon Valley (including Peter Thiel) and donated billions to various Brooklyn projects. Epstein sought out people with special abilities, such as telepathy and was in contact with parapsychologists and those who studied the phenomenon of “savants-syndrom.” At that time, through Deepak Chopra—an Indian-born U.S. author, physician, and advocate of mind-body medicine—Epstein gained access to the innermost circle of a man considered the doyen of “savant-syndrom“-research: Darolt A. Treffert. For Epstein and his colleagues, “savant-syndrom” individuals were a living proof of the existence of a hidden potential. They viewed the savant’s brain as a system in which the usual safety mechanisms and filters had failed, thereby revealing an immense, almost superhuman computational power. „Savants“ possessed knowledge of the periodic table, prime numbers, the solar system, and the geography of the entire globe, without ever having read about it. According to Höfer: “These were frontier areas (…) People saw in the figure of the „savant“ the prototype of a future human being (…) “It was an attempt to technologically tunnel under the boundary between man and God—a search for absolute transcendence (… ) People believed in a genetic memory. Cases of brain damage were collected, and there was talk of instances where people, following a horrific brain injury, suddenly possessed an absolute memory.(..) If nature could create a genius through an accident, then technology had to make this process controllable,” Höfer writes.
Peter Thiel thus emerges in the context of the Brooklyn Project. He is among those who were able to transform such ideas into a tangible future and was one of the most important proponents, as well as interested in humans as “objects” that can be altered. Thus, Peter Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur, investor, and political networker who, as a co-founder of PayPal and former major investor in “Facebook,” became one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures. According to Höfer: “Peter Thiel’s interests extend into the realms of life extension, surveillance, military control, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the question of how far biological limitations can still be accepted at all. He is investing in a new definition of what it means to be human(!)”
Example: Palantir. Höfer writes:“Palantir is no ordinary software company. It is an attempt to make the As an 11world readable and operationally accessible as a data space. Movements, networks, risks, hostilities; patterns: Everything is meant to become visible. (….) Anyone who takes Palantir seriously realizes: They’re not just building software here. Here, a specific vision of humanity is being put into practice. A vision in which the soul, inner life, mystery, or dignity no longer play an epistemological role. The only thing that matters is what can be extracted, correlated, and controlled.” Humanity as a readable system; as information-processing architecture. As a transitional form,.” He further emphasized that “it is no coincidence that Thiel is fascinated by life extension, biological optimization, and transhumanist possibilities. Anyone who thinks this way, sees humanity not as the standard, but as the problem.” There is an e-mail from 2014 between Epstein and Thiel regarding an informal meeting, which states: “You can invite anyone to the ranch—Hoffmann, Zuckerberg—or suggest anyone else you might find interesting. Even from politics or Hollywood.”
