Val Ross: After the FBI raid, what it was like to return to work there — as a Scientology spy

[FBI agents raid Scientology on the morning of July 8, 1977]

I am certain I am not the only one who woke up with this feeling, that Scientology had co-opted my soul, that I was not a good person, and that everything bad that was happening in my life was something I deserved to have happen.

It’s odd that Scientology can take your mind, twist it to make you agree that it’s a good idea do bad things to other people then make you feel you deserve anything bad that happens to you because of the bad things you did at their command. I try to wrap my brain around how I justified my actions but I guess I did so by allowing myself to be beat up both mentally and physically by my husband and terrorized by Scientology at the same time. And even while realizing that Scientology had co-opted my soul, I was radicalized enough to be willing to take a bullet for them.

Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship understands that more time is spent avoiding the blows than getting hit. And the mental abuse is much worse than the physical abuse. Those mental scars, the ones no one can see, are the ones I have to deal with for life.

On the morning of July 10, 1977, two days after the FBI had raided Scientology’s buildings in Los Angeles and Washington DC, I dressed and headed back to work at the agency.

I was petrified. I was pretty sure I would walk in the door and have someone with cuffs waiting for me there. I was positive that when I walked out the door that morning, it would be the last time I would see the light of day. I had written a letter that I had hidden in my bag. It was stamped and addressed to my parents. I intended to give that letter to whoever arrested me for mailing, never doubting that they would have read it first. I knew I deserved that and was ready to accept my fate. In that letter, I told my parents the truth.

I walked in the door, and… It was business as usual. Only it wasn’t. Because, there were no documents for me to steal. The only thing the GO required me to do now was listen and see what was being said about Scientology. I burned the emergency letter I had written to my parents that night, and continued to go to work as usual.

July 10 to October 28, 1977 were some of the best days of my work life there. I had some stress-free hours. I wasn’t hiding anything from anyone. No outside forces expected me to do anything.

Not one word was whispered about the raid in the FBI offices within my earshot. It may have been talked about behind closed doors, but not a single thing was said where I could hear it. In that office, it was as though it had never happened. And I was certainly not looked upon as a suspect. No one acted any differently than they had when I left Thursday afternoon and I was treated exactly the same.

My off-work life, which I still considered my real job, had evolved into chaos. It was chaos in the basement at the Manor, but also elsewhere. The rumors were rampant: Were they going to indict? Did they have a leg to stand on?

Because I was pregnant and still with the FBI, I was amazingly invisible at the Manor. I heard a few of the conversations I probably shouldn’t have heard at that point. Most of them were just scraps of conversation, but words like “Special Counsel” and “indictment” became more common by the day.

Diana Hubbard was gone. Overnight she had disappeared. I was told that she was in the studio recording an album with Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea. She actually did record an album, Life Times, which was released in 1979, produced by Jimmie Spheeris and featuring Chick and Stanley.

I happened to walk by Mary Sue’s open doors one night and heard her whispering urgently into the phone holding back tears to someone I guessed was Ron (I never did get confirmation if that was true) asking him “what about you, are you going to be OK?” “No, I’ve hidden it, no she’s not here.” I felt guilty enough at that point to walk quietly to her office and close the door. She looked up at me as I closed the door and kind of gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look.

About two weeks after the raid, there was a huge celebration at the Manor when the government was ordered to return all the documents they had taken, and all of a sudden, we were supposed to tell everyone about the raid and how we had won against the bullies. We no longer had to go take newspapers off stands, we were supposed to show everyone we knew what bullies the government was. Even then some of this was suppressed. The first time I saw an actual photo of the agents breaking down the door was March 19, 2024.

When the court then rescinded the order relinquishing the documents in August, calls to raid newspaper stands once again became common and I did my early morning runs before heading to work at the FBI.

One morning in mid-September, I was on my way to the office. I was exhausted from early morning paper runs, trying to get through the day. and not watching where I was
walking, and I slipped on some oil on the sidewalk in downtown LA.

Those days, a pregnant girl in LA was kind of an anomaly. I was 5-10 and by mid-September, I weighed 145 lbs. I finally had enough of a baby belly at 7 1/2 months along that people were cautiously asking me if I was pregnant. When I fell, I went down hard. I was immediately surrounded by dozens of people trying to help me up. “Are you OK?” “What can we do?” “Do you need a doctor?”

I didn’t mention in my last story, but when Mark hit me, I didn’t make any noise, I didn’t want to give the baby an engram. Now here I am in the middle of a street in downtown LA trying to not give my baby an engram and keep silent, and dozens of people are saying all sorts of nice things to me. I had become so accustomed to rudeness, accusations, and unkindness that my exhausted brain had no frame of reference to react to helpful strangers. I started to cry.

They helped me get up. I wasn’t hurt. Well I did have a bruise on my butt, but when didn’t I have a dozen or so bruises on my body? One guy who worked in the office came by just as they were helping me up and he insisted on walking me into the office. He too kept asking me if I needed to call a doctor. I finally convinced everyone in the office that labor wasn’t imminent and that I was OK to sit at my desk and work.

Now here’s reality. For the whole time I worked at the FBI I was a plant. I was a spy. I was the bad guy. But they were always nice, friendly and genuinely happy to have me around. On my last day, October 28, 1977, they threw me a surprise going away party and baby shower. These people I was spying on did that for me. It was the only baby shower I got for either of my pregnancies. It was also the only time during those years that I was praised for my work ethic and thanked for the job I did. I thanked them kindly, even cried, but I was so embarrassed in that moment to be who I was. I did not deserve what they did for me.

During that time, Mark was being himself. But he had some distractions as well. I would spend as many evenings as I could at the Manor to avoid him. His twin sisters were at Delphi (or “some summer school thing in Oregon” as I described it to my parents) and his mother and two of his brothers were in town. His favorite diss became “fat ugly pig.” I’m fairly certain this is when he started having affairs.

The drought of ‘76-77 was in full swing. My car had no air conditioning and I had to choose between leaving the windows up to not breathe the inverted smog on the way home or rolling them down and hope I got going fast enough in rush hour to get a little breeze. 1977 was a November December January cycle for El Niño and the Santa Anas were bad that year, so there was no relief in sight. I’d come home from work and take off all my clothes and lay under the window air conditioner for long enough to get my body temperature down, then dress quickly so Mark didn’t have to be disgusted by my fat body….i was still below 150 lbs. at 5’10” at that point.

On October 29, 1977, the day my mom came into town, Mary Sue officially gave me maternity leave. I didn’t have to “write up my hat” because I was working for the FBI and that was over. My baby was due “any day now,” so I got to spend the time with my mother before the baby came. No early morning runs to the news stand, nothing.

Those were great times because Mark didn’t dare touch me while my mother was staying with us. Although “any day now” turned into three weeks past due, then the end of November, and it was actually quite nice to live like a human being for a few weeks.

My mom flew out the day I went into labor. You’ve read the story of how the baby was born the day after my mom left and the silent birth and all.

The day after my daughter was born, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner. Then I actually got to spend a couple of days with her.

I sort of understand why Scientology is so adamant about not allowing people to have children. If a person has any sense of morality and responsibility, when they become a parent, their whole worldview changes. That little person to take care of is a huge deal. Despite Hubbard’s teachings that children are adults in little bodies, it is obvious when you have that helpless child in your arms that they need your care and attention. Hubbard never did convince me that my children could make decisions on their own as toddlers, or even teenagers.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Mark totaled my car. He didn’t get in ethics trouble. The guy driving the other vehicle wasn’t supposed to be driving, he had just had surgery and he ran a red light. He paid us $10,000 to settle out of court. We became the proud (well Mark was proud, I was embarrassed) owners of a dark blue 1978 Peugeot 504SL which, with taxes and tags left us about $1,500 of the settlement. That money immediately went to pay for courses for Mark in Scientology, so I guess overall a brand new car was a better buy than what we spent the rest of the money on.

Monday I went back on post. But I was not in Sea Org. My boss was a mother who understood. I got to keep her with me. We set up a new front for me. I was driving Mark’s mom’s car for a few months while we worked through the details of our new car.

My parents had bought me a blue Selectric typewriter as a gift and my mom was there when it arrived while we were waiting for the baby to be born. I advertised in papers and took in typing during the day, I actually made really good money at it. At night, I became the GO celebrity liaison. That was some of the most fun I had in my entire Scientology tenure.

It’s odd writing about this. I have to fight myself because we were drilled so hard that it was traitorous to speak out and heroic to keep silent. That is the reason Scientology has gotten away with so much for so long. The threats and the shame are big motivators to keep silent. It’s past time to break that pattern.

— Valerie Ross

---

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com.

---

Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series…

Up the Bridge: A journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news