Stargate Project was a secret
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
unit established in 1978 at
Fort Meade
Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation located in Maryland, that includes the Defense Information School, the Defense Media Activity, the United States Army Field Band, and the headquarters of United States Cyber Command, the N ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, by the
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...
(DIA) and
SRI International
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...
(a California contractor) to investigate the potential for
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
phenomena in military and domestic intelligence applications. The Project, and its precursors and sister projects, originally went by various
code name
A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
s'Gondola Wish', 'Stargate', 'Grill Flame', 'Center Lane', 'Project CF', 'Sun Streak', 'Scanate' until 1991 when they were consolidated and rechristened as "Stargate Project".
Stargate Project's work primarily involved
remote viewing
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden ...
, the purported ability to psychically "see" events, sites, or
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
from a great distance.
[Marks, David. (2000). ''The Psychology of the Psychic'' (2nd Edition). Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. pp. 71–96. ] The project was overseen until 1987 by Lt. Frederick Holmes "Skip" Atwater, an aide and "psychic headhunter" to Maj. Gen.
Albert Stubblebine, and later president of the
Monroe Institute
Robert Allan Monroe (October 30, 1915 – March 17, 1995) was a radio broadcasting executive who became known for his research into altered consciousness and for founding The Monroe Institute. His 1971 book ''Journeys Out of the Body'' is credi ...
. The unit was small scale, comprising about 15 to 20 individuals, and was run out of "an old, leaky wooden barracks".
The Stargate Project was terminated and declassified in 1995 after a
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
report concluded that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. Information provided by the program was vague and included irrelevant and erroneous data, and there were suspicions of inter-judge reliability.
The program was featured in the
2004 book and
2009 film
The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films. Also in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of that year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nomin ...
, both titled ''The Men Who Stare at Goats'', although neither mentions it by name.
Background
Information in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
on psychic research in some foreign countries was poorly detailed, based mostly on rumor or innuendo from second-hand or tertiary reporting, attributed to both reliable and unreliable
disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...
sources from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
The CIA and DIA decided they should investigate and know as much about it as possible. Various programs were approved yearly and re-funded accordingly. Reviews were made semi-annually at the Senate and House
select committee Select committee may refer to:
*Select committee (parliamentary system), a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues
*Select or special committee (United States Congress)
*Select ...
level. Work results were reviewed, and remote viewing was attempted with the results being kept secret from the "viewer". It was thought that if the viewer was shown they were incorrect it would damage the viewer's confidence and skill. This was standard operating procedure throughout the years of military and domestic remote viewing programs. Feedback to the remote viewer of any kind was rare; it was kept classified and secret.
Remote viewing attempts to sense unknown information about places or events. Normally it is performed to detect current events, but during military and domestic intelligence applications viewers claimed to sense things in the future, experiencing
precognition
Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.
There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
.
History
1970s
In 1970 United States intelligence sources believed that the Soviet Union was spending 60 million
rouble
The ruble (American English) or rouble (Commonwealth English) (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is the currency unit of Belarus and Russia. Historically, it was the currency of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union.
, currencies named ''rub ...
s annually on "
psychotronic" research. In response to claims that the Soviet program had produced results, the CIA initiated funding for a new program known as SCANATE ("scan by coordinate") in the same year.
Remote viewing
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden ...
research began in 1972 at the
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...
(SRI) in
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; ...
.
Proponents (
Russell Targ
Russell Targ (born April 11, 1934) is an American physicist, parapsychologist and author who is best known for his work on remote viewing.
Targ joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in 1972 where he and Harold E. Puthoff coined the term "rem ...
and
Harold Puthoff
Harold E. Puthoff (born June 20, 1936) is an American parapsychologist and electrical engineer. In the 2010s, he co-founded the company To the Stars with Tom DeLonge.
Biography
Puthoff was born in Chicago, Illinois. He receive his BA and MSc i ...
) of the research said that a minimum accuracy rate of 65% required by the clients was often exceeded in the later experiments.
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
s
Russell Targ
Russell Targ (born April 11, 1934) is an American physicist, parapsychologist and author who is best known for his work on remote viewing.
Targ joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in 1972 where he and Harold E. Puthoff coined the term "rem ...
and
Harold Puthoff
Harold E. Puthoff (born June 20, 1936) is an American parapsychologist and electrical engineer. In the 2010s, he co-founded the company To the Stars with Tom DeLonge.
Biography
Puthoff was born in Chicago, Illinois. He receive his BA and MSc i ...
began testing psychics for SRI in 1972, including one who would later become an international celebrity, Israeli
Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other ill ...
. Their apparently successful results garnered interest within the
U.S. Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
.
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...
, professor of psychology at the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
, was asked by Air Force psychologist Lt. Col. Austin W. Kibler (1930–2008)then Director of Behavioral Research for
ARPAto go to SRI and investigate. He was to specifically evaluate Geller. Hyman's report to the government was that Geller was a "complete fraud" and as a consequence Targ and Puthoff lost their government contract to work further with him. The result was a publicity tour for Geller, Targ, and Puthoff to seek private funding for further research work on Geller.
One of the project's successes was the location of a lost Soviet spy plane in 1976 by Rosemary Smith, a young administrative assistant recruited by project director Dale Graff.
In 1977 the Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) Systems Exploitation Detachment (SED) started the Gondola Wish program to "evaluate potential adversary applications of remote viewing."
Army Intelligence then formalized this in mid-1978 as an operational program Grill Flame , based in buildings 2560 and 2561 at
Fort Meade
Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation located in Maryland, that includes the Defense Information School, the Defense Media Activity, the United States Army Field Band, and the headquarters of United States Cyber Command, the N ...
, in Maryland (
INSCOM
The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) is a direct reporting unit that conducts Military intelligence, intelligence, security, and Information Operations (United States), information operations for United States Army c ...
"Detachment G").
1980s
In early 1979 the research at SRI was integrated into 'Grill Flame', which was redesignated INSCOM 'Center Lane' Project (ICLP) in 1983. In 1984 the existence of the program was reported by
Jack Anderson, and in that year it was unfavorably received by the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
National Research Council National Research Council may refer to:
* National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development
* National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome
* National Research Council (United States), part of ...
. In late 1985 the Army funding was terminated, but the program was redesignated 'Sun Streak' and funded by the DIA's Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate (office code DT-S).
1990s
In 1991 most of the contracting for the program was transferred from SRI to
Science Applications International Corporation
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Inc. is an American technology company headquartered in Reston, Virginia that provides government services and information technology support.
History
The original SAIC was created in 196 ...
(SAIC), with Edwin May controlling 70% of the contractor funds and 85% of the data. Its security was altered from
Special Access Program (SAP) to Limited Dissemination (
LIMDIS
Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...
), and it was given its final name, STARGATE.
Closure (1995)
In 1995 the defense appropriations bill directed that the program be transferred from DIA to CIA oversight. The CIA commissioned a report by
the American Institutes for Research (AIR) that found that remote viewing had not been proved to work by a psychic mechanism, and said it had not been used operationally.
The CIA subsequently cancelled and declassified the program.
In 1995 the project was transferred to the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
and a retrospective evaluation of the results was done. The appointed panel consisted primarily of
Jessica Utts
Jessica Utts (born 1952) is a parapsychologist and statistics professor at the University of California, Irvine. She is known for her textbooks on statistics and her investigation into remote viewing.Robert Todd Carroll. (2003). '' The Skeptic's ...
and
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...
. Hyman had produced an unflattering report on Uri Geller and SRI for the government two decades earlier, but the psychologist
David Marks found Utts' appointment to the review panel "puzzling" given that she had published papers with Edwin May, considering this joint research likely to make her "less than
martial".
A report by Utts claimed the results were evidence of psychic functioning; however, Hyman in his report argued Utts's conclusion that ESP had been proven to exist, especially precognition, was premature and the findings had not been independently replicated. Hyman came to the conclusion:
Psychologists, such as myself, who study subjective validation find nothing striking or surprising in the reported matching of reports against targets in the Stargate data. The overwhelming amount of data generated by the viewers is vague, general, and way off target. The few apparent hits are just what we would expect if nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation are operating.
A later report by AIR came to a negative conclusion.
Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal.
Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is als ...
has written:
Other evaluators – two psychologists from AIR – assessed the potential intelligence-gathering usefulness of remote viewing. They concluded that the alleged psychic technique was of dubious value and lacked the concreteness and reliability necessary for it to be used as a basis for making decisions or taking action. The final report found "reason to suspect" that in "some well publicised cases of dramatic hits" the remote viewers might have had "substantially more background information" than might otherwise be apparent.
According to AIR, which performed a review of the project, no remote viewing report ever provided actionable information for any intelligence operation.
Based upon the collected findings, which recommended a higher level of critical research and tighter controls, the CIA terminated the 20 million dollar project, citing a lack of documented evidence that the program had any value to the intelligence community. ''Time'' magazine stated in 1995 three full-time psychics were still working on a $500,000-a-year budget out of
Fort Meade
Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation located in Maryland, that includes the Defense Information School, the Defense Media Activity, the United States Army Field Band, and the headquarters of United States Cyber Command, the N ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, which would soon close.
David Marks in his book ''
The Psychology of the Psychic
''The Psychology of the Psychic'' is a skeptical analysis of some of the most publicized cases of parapsychological research by psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann. The first edition, published in 1980, highlights some of the best-know ...
'' (2000) discussed the flaws in the Stargate Project in detail.
Marks wrote that there were six negative design features of the experiments. The possibility of cues or
sensory leakage Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to information that transferred to a person by conventional means (other than psi) during an experiment into ESP.Robert Todd Carroll. (2014)"Sensory Leakage in The Skeptic's Dictionary.
For example, where the ...
was not ruled out, no
independent replication, some experiments were conducted in secret, making peer-review impossible. Marks noted that the judge Edwin May was also the principal investigator for the project and this was problematic, making a huge conflict of interest with collusion, cuing and fraud being possible. Marks concluded the project was nothing more than a "subjective delusion" and after two decades of research it had failed to provide any scientific evidence for the legitimacy of remote viewing.
The Stargate Project was terminated in 1995 following an independent review which concluded:
In January 2017, the CIA published records online of the Stargate Project as part of the CREST archive.
Methodology
The Stargate Project created a set of protocols designed to make the research of
clairvoyance and
out-of-body experiences
An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although this term is more commonly use ...
more
scientific
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
, and to minimize as much as possible session noise and inaccuracy. The term "
remote viewing
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden ...
" emerged as shorthand to describe this more structured approach to clairvoyance. Project Stargate would only receive a mission after all other intelligence attempts, methods, or approaches had already been exhausted.
It was reported that at peak manpower there were over 22 active military and civilian remote viewers providing data. People leaving the project were not replaced. When the project closed in 1995 this number had dwindled down to three. One was using tarot cards. According to
Joseph McMoneagle
Joseph McMoneagle (born January 10, 1946) is a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer. He was involved in remote viewing (RV) operations and experiments conducted by U.S. Army Intelligence and the Stanford Research Institute. He was among the fi ...
, "The Army ''never'' had a truly open attitude toward psychic functioning". Hence, the use of the term "giggle factor"
and the saying, "I wouldn't want to be found dead next to a psychic."
Civilian personnel
Hal Puthoff
In the 1970s,
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
and
DIA granted funds to
Harold E. Puthoff to investigate
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
abilities, collaborating with
Russell Targ
Russell Targ (born April 11, 1934) is an American physicist, parapsychologist and author who is best known for his work on remote viewing.
Targ joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in 1972 where he and Harold E. Puthoff coined the term "rem ...
in a study of the purported
psychic abilities
This is a list of alleged psychic abilities that have been attributed to real-world people. Many of these abilities pertain to variations of extrasensory perception or the ''sixth sense''. Superhuman abilities from fiction are not included.
Psyc ...
of
Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other ill ...
,
Ingo Swann
Ingo Douglas Swann (14 September 1933, Telluride, Colorado – 31 January 2013, New York City) was an American psychic, artist, and writer known for being the co-creator, along with Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff,''Mind-Reach: Scientists ...
,
Pat Price,
Joseph McMoneagle
Joseph McMoneagle (born January 10, 1946) is a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer. He was involved in remote viewing (RV) operations and experiments conducted by U.S. Army Intelligence and the Stanford Research Institute. He was among the fi ...
and others, as part of the Stargate Project,
of which Puthoff became a director.
As with Ingo Swann and Pat Price, Puthoff attributed much of his personal remote viewing skills to his involvement with
Scientology
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data indi ...
whereby he had attained, at that time, the highest level. All three eventually left Scientology in the late 1970s.
Puthoff worked as the principal investigator of the project. His team of psychics is said to have identified spies, located Soviet weapons and technologies, such as a nuclear submarine in 1979 and helped find lost
SCUD missiles
A Scud missile is one of a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was exported widely to both Second and Third World countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name attached to the mis ...
in the first
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
and plutonium in
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
in 1994.
Russell Targ
In the 1970s, Russell Targ began working with Harold Puthoff on Stargate Project, while working with him as a researcher at
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...
.
Edwin May
Edwin C. May joined the Stargate Project in 1975 as a consultant and was working full-time in 1976. The original project was part of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory managed by May. With more funding in 1991 May took the project to the Palo Alto offices at SAIC. This would last until 1995 when the CIA closed the project.
May worked as the principal investigator, judge and the star gatekeeper for the project. Marks says this was a serious weakness for the experiments as May had conflict of interest and could have done whatever he wanted with the data. Marks has written that May refused to release the names of the "oversight committee" and refused permission for him to give an independent judging of the star gate transcripts. Marks found this suspicious, commenting "this refusal suggests that something must be wrong with the data or with the methods of data selection."
Ingo Swann
Originally tested in the "Phase One" were OOBE-Beacon "RV" experiments at the
American Society for Psychical Research
The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. It maintains offices and a library, in New York City, which are open to both members and the gener ...
,
under research director
Karlis Osis
Karlis Osis (26 December 1917 – 26 December 1997) was a Latvian-born parapsychologist who specialised in exploring deathbed phenomena and life after death.
Biography
Karlis' first research, conducted in the 1940s, was inspired by the wo ...
. A former
OT VII Scientologist,
who alleged to have coined the term 'remote viewing' as a derivation of protocols originally developed by
René Warcollier, a French chemical engineer in the early 20th century, documented in the book ''Mind to Mind, Classics in Consciousness Series Books'' by (). Swann's achievement was to break free from the conventional mold of casual experimentation and candidate burn out, and develop a viable set of protocols that put clairvoyance within a framework named "Coordinate Remote Viewing" (CRV).
In a 1995 letter Edwin C. May wrote he had not used Swann for two years because there were rumors of him briefing a high level person at
SAIC and the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
on remote viewing and aliens, ETs.
Pat Price
A former Burbank, California, police officer and former Scientologist who participated in a number of
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
era
remote viewing
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden ...
experiments, including the US government-sponsored projects
SCANATE
Stargate Project was a secret U.S. Army unit established in 1978 at Fort George G. Meade, Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and SRI International (a California contractor) to investigate the potential for psychic phe ...
and the Stargate Project. Price joined the program after a chance encounter with fellow Scientologists (at the time) Harold Puthoff and Ingo Swann near SRI.
[Pat Price URL:http://www.scientolipedia.org/info/Pat_Price (Scientolipedia)] Working with maps and photographs provided to him by the CIA, Price claimed to have been able to retrieve information from facilities behind Soviet lines. He is probably best known for his sketches of cranes and gantries which appeared to conform to CIA intelligence photographs. At the time, the CIA took his claims seriously.
[Sources:
* Schnabel, Jim (1997) ''Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies'' Dell, 1997 ,
* Richelson, Jeffrey T ''The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology''
* Mandelbaum, W. Adam ''The Psychic Battlefield: A History of the Military-Occult Complex''
* Picknett, Lynn, Prince Clive ''The Stargate Conspiracy''
* Chalker, Bill ''Hair of the Alien: DNA and Other Forensic Evidence of Alien Abductions''
* Constantine, Alex ''Psychic Dictatorship in the USA''
]
Military personnel
Major General Albert Stubblebine
A key sponsor of the research internally at
Fort Meade
Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation located in Maryland, that includes the Defense Information School, the Defense Media Activity, the United States Army Field Band, and the headquarters of United States Cyber Command, the N ...
, Maryland, Maj. Gen. Stubblebine was convinced of the reality of a wide variety of psychic phenomena. He required that all of his battalion commanders learn how to bend spoons a la
Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other ill ...
, and he himself attempted several psychic feats, even attempting to walk through walls. In the early 1980s he was responsible for the
United States Army Intelligence and Security Command
The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) is a direct reporting unit that conducts intelligence, security, and information operations for United States Army commanders, partners in the Intelligence Community, and nationa ...
(INSCOM), during which time the remote viewing project in the US Army began. Some commentators have confused a "Project Jedi", allegedly run by
Special Forces
Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
primarily out of
Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within Cum ...
, with Stargate. After some controversy involving these experiments, including alleged security violations from uncleared civilian psychics working in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs), Major General Stubblebine was placed on retirement. His successor as the INSCOM commander was Major General
Harry Soyster
Harry Edward Soyster (born 6 June 1935) is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General.
Overview
Soyster served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). Upon promotion to the rank of L ...
, who had a reputation as a much more conservative and conventional intelligence officer. MG Soyster was not amenable to continuing paranormal experiments and the Army's participation in Project Stargate ended during his tenure.
David Morehouse
In his book, ''Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA's Stargate Program : The True Story of a Soldier's Espionage and Awakening'' (2000, St. Martin's Press, ), Morehouse claims to have worked on hundreds of
Remote Viewing
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden ...
assignments, from searching for a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
jet that crashed in the jungle carrying an
atomic bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
, to tracking suspected
double agents.
Joseph McMoneagle
McMoneagle claims he had a remarkable memory of very early childhood events. He grew up surrounded by alcoholism, abuse and poverty. As a child, he had visions at night when scared, and began to hone his psychic abilities in his teens for his own protection when he hitchhiked. He enlisted to get away. McMoneagle became an experimental remote viewer while serving in U.S. Army Intelligence.
Ed Dames
Dames was one of the first five Army students trained by Ingo Swann through Stage 3 in coordinate remote viewing. Because Dames' role was intended to be as session monitor and analyst as an aid to Fred Atwater
rather than a remote viewer, Dames received no further formal remote viewing training. After his assignment to the remote viewing unit at the end of January 1986, he was used to "run" remote viewers (as monitor) and provide training and practice sessions to viewer personnel. He soon established a reputation for pushing CRV to extremes, with target sessions on
Atlantis,
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
,
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
s, and aliens. He is a frequent guest on the ''
Coast to Coast AM'' radio shows.
See also
*
The Men Who Stare at Goats
''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004) is a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring ...
References
Further reading
*
*
Caroll, Robert Todd (2012)
"Remote Viewing" In the ''
Skeptic's Dictionary
''The Skeptic's Dictionary'' is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 wi ...
''. John Wiley & Sons. .
*
Hines, Terence (2003). ''Pseudoscience and the Paranormal''. Prometheus Books. .
*
Hyman, Ray (1996). "Evaluation of the Military's Twenty-year Program on Psychic Spying". ''Skeptical Inquirer'' 20: 21–26.
* Morehouse, David (1996). ''Psychic Warrior'', St. Martin's Paperbacks, . Morehouse was a psychic in the program.
*
Ronson, Jon (2004). ''
The Men Who Stare at Goats
''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004) is a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring ...
''. Picador. . Written to accompany the TV series ''
Crazy Rulers of the World
''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004) is a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the United States Army, U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to k ...
''. The US military budget cuts after the Vietnam war and how it all began.
*
* Smith, Paul (2004). ''Reading the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate: America's Psychic Espionage Program'', Forge Books.
*
{{Authority control
1978 establishments in Maryland
American secret government programs
Central Intelligence Agency operations
Cold War tactics
Defense Intelligence Agency
Espionage projects
Human subject research in the United States
Pseudoscience
Remote viewing