Buzz
From 1972 to 1995, the CIA and other U.S. government agencies enlisted dozens of young individuals to explore an uncharted realm: the human mind. Officially launched in 1990 but supposedly starting in 1972, Project Stargate focused on several investigations into the paranormal, carried out by the CIA and its partners such as the DIA and INSCOM.
Following the conclusion of Project Stargate, a new program emerged: Project Farsight. As of 2017, Project Farsight continues to be an active operation within the CIA.
However, with the declassification of Stargate, we've uncovered some truly bizarre details. Here are 10 of the most jaw-dropping documents from the project.
10. The Navajo Necklace
Stargate documents frequently contain handwritten notes from remote viewing sessions, often accompanied by simple sketches and diagrams. Known as clairvoyance, remote viewing refers to the ability to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to 'see' or 'sense' distant objects, people, or locations.
Although most records of remote viewing experiments lack substantial written content, they provide a fascinating glimpse into the strange experiences of Project Stargate's remote viewers. Along with clairvoyant insights into events like the Tunguska explosion and the Rendlesham UFO encounter, one particularly mysterious session centers around an ancient Navajo necklace.
In one Project Stargate remote viewing trial, Subject 052 was given a set of geographical coordinates and basic instructions. The task was for Subject 052 to accurately describe a specific object—a silver Navajo necklace stored at a remote location.
Subject 052 described a vivid and intricate scene unfolding before her: unfamiliar architecture framed a left-handed craftsman who was meticulously creating a beautiful 'gold' or 'steel' chain.
9. Humans on Titan and Aliens in Alaska
In November 1986, a remote viewing subject tasked with observing Saturn’s moon Titan reported encountering a base on its surface. Upon entering the base, she was shocked to discover that the operators were indistinguishable from human beings. She described observing two young, healthy human males operating a control panel under the supervision of an attractive female.
In the same report, the subject recounted two additional sessions, this time on Earth. When directed to Mount Hayes in Alaska, the remote viewer observed two 'entities' working outside a structure. Inside the structure, she encountered a human-like technician engaged with a peculiar machine.
The technician noticed the remote viewer and invited her to examine the device. What she witnessed next was even more bizarre—upon looking at a location in the southern hemisphere, she saw a robotic, non-human creature and a hairless, pale humanoid entity that seemed aware of her presence.
8. Parapsychology in the USSR
Since the conclusion of World War II, the CIA has maintained a keen interest in its Russian counterparts. It’s no surprise, then, that a document titled 'Parapsychology in the USSR' is part of the 12,000-page CREST archive. The document reveals that Russian researchers were no closer to uncovering the mysteries of psi than anyone else before the industrial revolution, but everything shifted after the 1917 October Revolution.
Between 1922 and 1928, numerous research papers on paranormal topics were published by Russian universities. However, it wasn’t until the alleged telepathic attacks on the USS Nautilus that the Soviet Union escalated their paranormal research program.
Soon after, Russian psi researchers became both a significant challenge and a source of envy for their CIA counterparts. Even though parapsychology was never officially acknowledged as a scientific discipline in the USSR, by 1967, more than 30 academic institutions in Russia were focused on studying psi phenomena, with annual budgets exceeding 13 million rubles.
7. The Grill Flame Project Report
Project Grill Flame, one of the initial efforts during the early days of Project Stargate, aimed to investigate potential military uses for psi technology. While officially led by the US Army and INSCOM, the release of the Stargate files confirmed that Project Grill Flame had been supported by the CIA from the start.
One of the CIA’s most renowned test subjects was Joe McMoneagle, a young army officer who went on to complete numerous remote viewing missions for the agency. Upon the conclusion of the project in October 1983, the Grill Flame Project Report recommended an extensive investigation of various psi phenomena to evaluate their potential tactical advantages.
6. Mars Exploration
By 1984, army remote viewer Joe McMoneagle had reached the highest ranks within the CIA’s remote viewing program. Among countless missions aimed at combating communism, terrorism, and influencing foreign political shifts, McMoneagle was assigned one mission that stood out as completely unique from the rest.
While staying with long-time CIA-connected remote viewer Robert Monroe at his Virginia property, Monroe received an instruction from the CIA regarding a new remote viewing mission. A small envelope was delivered, which Robert kept in his shirt pocket without opening.
Inside Monroe’s custom-built sensory deprivation tank, Joe concentrated on the sealed envelope tucked in Robert’s pocket. Unbeknownst to both Monroe and McMoneagle, the small card inside the envelope contained timespace coordinates pointing to a distant location: the planet Mars, 1 million years BC.
Here’s what Joe witnessed:
A towering sandy pyramid, so immense it defies comprehension (later estimated at around 20 kilometers or 12 miles high), rises from a vast depression in the Martian surface. Violent storms rage across the sky, signaling a cataclysmic event. Traveling back in time feels like a drastic transformation. The sandy pyramid now glimmers with a metallic sheen, and the shadows of gigantic, slender beings can be seen. These beings claim to be an ancient civilization, facing extinction unless those who left to find another world return.
Although his handler provided Joe with several other coordinates to examine before he lost focus, the primary target area was eventually identified as the Cydonia region of Mars. In 1976, the Viking 1 spacecraft captured the first images of two strange geological features on this barren Martian landscape: the Face on Mars and an enigmatic mountain that closely resembles a massive pyramid.
5. An Evaluation Of Remote Viewing: Research And Applications
In 1972, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was brought on as an external contractor, becoming the CIA’s consistent partner until the conclusion of the Stargate project. Over the years, SRI produced numerous classified documents that were later included in the Project Stargate FOIA release.
In their official 1995 evaluation of remote viewing’s potential use for information warfare, the SRI concluded that remote viewing was unlikely to be “of any use in intelligence gathering.” However, eerily, this conclusion wasn’t based on debunking psi phenomena but on the “suspected characteristics of the phenomenon.”
The SRI, like many institutions before it, discovered that the human mind cannot be contained, labeled, or commercialized. Lacking sufficient funding, the Stargate program was eventually shut down within months.
4. The Uri Geller Experiments
Few figures spark as much debate as Uri Geller, with skeptics and believers alike often clashing in the comments sections of YouTube videos. No other alleged psychic seems to have been both so frequently vindicated and debunked.
In reality, nearly all of Geller’s claimed supernatural feats can be reproduced using stage magic. Geller, who asserts that he is an alien consciousness sent from deep space, maintains that he performs his tricks solely through his mind.
There are a few reasons to take his story seriously. For one, Geller not only amassed wealth by making eerily accurate financial choices but also assisted multiple companies in resource scouting.
When the Project Stargate documents were made public, it was revealed that Geller had collaborated with the CIA in the 1970s through the SRI program. While some speculate that Geller may have led Mossad’s psychological warfare operations, it is known that the CIA continued to be sufficiently intrigued by Geller to send one of their remote viewers to observe him in September 1990.
3. Oklahoma City Bombing
As with many of America’s most infamous acts of terrorism, there is widespread doubt about the official account of the Oklahoma City bombing. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols carried out a deadly attack on a federal building in downtown Oklahoma City, claiming 168 lives.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the bombing, Jayna Davis’s The Third Terrorist raised the possibility that Iraqi terrorists, with the backing of Iran, were responsible for organizing the attack.
Although Davis’s book was referenced as part of a Congressional investigation into the bombing, her theory might have been forgotten if not for the chilling Project Stargate document it later uncovered.
On April 20, 1995, the CIA received unsolicited intelligence from renowned psi-sensitive agent Joe McMoneagle regarding the domestic terrorism incident that took place the previous day. McMoneagle reported that five individuals, not two, were involved in the bombing, three of whom were Arabic. Most disturbingly, Joe pinpointed Iraq as the likely origin of these foreign Islamic terrorists.
The most peculiar part of McMoneagle’s brief was his firm belief that someone named “Carl” would be connected to the bombing. Unfortunately for proponents of remote viewing, none of the known domestic terrorists or their associates bore the name Carl, nor was it likely that any of the three “Arabic” suspects were named Carl.
However, Carl Spengler, an on-call doctor at a nearby hospital, was the first person to arrive at the scene of the bombing—being the first to witness the devastation in the aftermath of the attack.
2. An Experimental Psychic Probe Of The Planet Jupiter
Swann was granted a unique opportunity during his time with the CIA. In 1973, he and fellow remote viewer Harold Sherman were tasked with exploring Jupiter. While Swann's session was being closely observed by CIA personnel in a lab at SRI in California, Sherman conducted his remote viewing session from his specially designed sensory deprivation tank at his home, hundreds of miles away in a different time zone.
When Swann and Sherman compared their experiences over the phone afterward, they were both astonished to find that their remote viewing sessions included identical major details, despite the fact that no close-up photographs of Jupiter had been taken at that time.
Both Swann and Sherman correctly identified the Great Red Spot and the massive dark cloud trailing behind it. They also described endless fields of suspended crystals sparkling among the swirling clouds of Jupiter.
The crystals reflected sunlight as well as the brilliant flashes from massive electric storms on Jupiter’s surface. Swann estimated that the planet's surface was located around 193,000 kilometers (120,000 miles) below the clouds, which themselves consisted of multiple layers.
1. A Dynamic Psychokinesis Experiment With Ingo Swann
Ingo Swann, a renowned psi-sensitive who worked with the CIA, was a remote viewer known for exhibiting other psi abilities, including psychokinesis.
While most of the Project Stargate experiments focused on remote viewing due to its perceived tactical advantages, the CIA also occasionally delved into the mind's capacity to influence physical matter, a phenomenon known as psychokinesis.
In February 1976, the CIA brought Swann to Maimonides Medical Center, one of their affiliates, to test whether this psi-sensitive individual could influence the results of a random number generator using psychokinesis. The report concluded that the experiment was successful.
