On January 31, 1986, what had once been Stubblebine’s remote-viewing program (by then codenamed Center Lane) was officially transferred from Army INSCOM to DIA. Jack Vorona made administrative changes he felt were long overdue. He converted the job of branch chief and operations officer from a military to a civilian position. He allowed for the rotation of military officers who’d served previously to come back into the program. He reduced training time from two years to one. Viewers who had been trained by Ingo Swann would now train new recruits. Assisting Fred Atwater was Ed Dames, assigned the role of operations officer, which meant it was his job to supervise viewers and handle administrative affairs. In 1986 there were six viewers and three taskers (individuals assigned to monitor viewing sessions).
In July 1986 Angela Dellafiora joined the Special Access Program Sun Streak. Unlike the other members of the DIA’s psychic spy unit, she identified herself as psychic. Everyone else insisted they were not psychic; they were remote viewers. This immediately caused friction, Fred Atwater explained in 2015. “To begin with, she’d gone around the chain of command to get into the program. Went straight to General Stubblebine himself, and that is not allowed.” Fred Atwater believed “that is a violation of Army code of conduct. There are rules; people are expected to follow them.” When asked to elaborate, he said, “she ignored what is sacred to soldiers: chain of command.” In the military, if a soldier has a query, he or she is allowed to report only to a direct superior, who in turn decides whether that query moves higher up the chain. Angela Dellafiora did what is common practice almost everywhere in America except in the military: she went to the person she believed was in the strongest position to help her achieve her goal.
Paul Smith says what incensed him most was that Dellafiora called herself a psychic, which made him and every other soldier wince. “At Fort Meade we’d worked hard to establish ourselves as remote viewers,” says Smith, “to separate the process from the terrible stigma of the occult.” Dellafiora’s insistence she was psychic flew in the face of all that, he says. “She read tarot cards and did automatic writing,” he says, and “this was unacceptable” to a unit of military men and women. “I told her she had to lose the bad habits if she wanted to stick around,” Atwater recalled. Her worst offense? The concept that none of the soldiers could accept was that Angela Dellafiora still insisted she had a third eye.
In order to follow Sun Streak program protocols, Angela Dellafiora needed to be trained in the six stages of Coordinate Remote Viewing. Declassified documents demonstrate this training to be something of a farce: she apparently didn’t need to learn how to draw ideograms or identify gestalts or make clay models of things she perceived. When given a long-distance target to remotely view, Dellafiora closed her two eyes, opened her self-described third eye, and in a matter of minutes arrived at DIA’s target site. This made operations managers and taskers uncomfortable.
Starting in November 1986, operations officers Eugene Lessman and Fred Atwater took turns monitoring Dellafiora. Lessman went first. A former Special Forces soldier with two tours of duty in Vietnam, his disdain for the occult was as palpable as his hard-charging personality. Large and burly, with a signature handlebar mustache, he liked to talk about Vietnam. On his last mission in the war theater, he was ferrying a Viet Cong intelligence asset back to Da Nang when the man revealed himself to be a double agent and opened fire inside the helicopter. With the pilot dead and Lessman seriously wounded, the aircraft was crashing. Putting his quick-reaction training to use, Lessman killed the Viet Cong fighter and crash-landed the helicopter at the air base. “Lessman was happy to show his torso-full of bullet scars to anyone who asked about Vietnam,” Paul Smith recalls. Now he was tasking Angela Dellafiora on a remote-viewing session. He and the other soldiers had devised a plan to mold her into a good remote viewer. Privately, they called her a witch.
The remote-viewing room had been designed as a monotone environment, free of distraction. The walls were gray, the carpet was gray, and so were the desk and chairs. The room was wired for sound. The viewer sat in a relaxation chair, which was part chaise longue and part dental chair. Wires connected the viewer to equipment that tracked physiological data including respiration, temperature, and pulse. Across the hall in the monitoring room, the tasker sat in front of a rack of television monitors, microphones, and audio and video recording equipment. In this case, Dellafiora sat in the viewing room wearing headphones through which Lessman communicated from the monitoring room. As he worked this Global Beacon Target session, Lessman took notes that are now declassified.
“Start time, 10:00 a.m.,” wrote Lessman in the log. He spoke into the microphone. “This is a manmade object at 37˚24’ 31” N / 122˚10’ 41”. Begin your relaxation now. When you arrive at your sanctuary, you must tell me,” he instructed. “Sanctuary” was a Fort Meade term for a metaphorical place of safety, somewhere in the Matrix where a viewer was to travel first, not at Fort Meade and not at the actual target site. Lessman continued, “I will provide you the coordinates again from your sanctuary,” he said. “This will be your cue to go to the target and begin describing your impressions. Remember to relax your body completely from foot to head and prepare that thing you call a ‘third eye’ for the task at hand.” Lessman and the others had such disdain for Dellafiora’s third eye that they could only refer to it as “that thing you call a ‘third eye.’”
In the monitoring room Lessman opened a sealed envelope and looked at the target for the first time, a photograph that only he could see. He gave Dellafiora the coordinates again. The target was the Stanford Dish, located in the foothills near Stanford University. It was a massive, 150-foot-diameter radio telescope built by the Air Force to communicate with satellites. From the logs, Lessman learned that the dish was “built on top of a large, rounded hill with grass in wide abundance” and that it was “an antenna consisting of concentric circles in a vast array of metallic framework.” These kinds of descriptions were provided so that the tasker knew what to look for in the viewer’s details.
In 2017, if a person were to type the above coordinates into Google Maps (which did not exist in 1986), an image of the Stanford Dish would almost instantly appear. It took Dellafiora twelve minutes to arrive at her so-called sanctuary location, then another three minutes to arrive at the target site. By November 1986, Gene Lessman had been overseeing remote-viewing operations for seven months. Most viewers spent at least twenty minutes listening to music or meditating in the relaxation chair before they were ready to begin a viewing session. Getting to the sanctuary often took a viewer twenty or so minutes, then another fifteen or twenty to get to the target. Not only was Angela Dellafiora fast, she was really fast. She spent the next twenty-five minutes describing to Lessman what she saw at the Stanford Dish coordinates.
His notes read: “Source described a large open area, windy with green and brown colors associated with the land mass (true!!). There was a feeling of isolation at this site but it was at least visible by many people (true!!). The object consisted of a wide array of shapes with triangles and circles being the predominant shape (true!!). A general feeling of roundness, curving and pointed curves were also described (true!!). An opening or center portion of the structure appears to be of importance (true!!) with the concepts of transference of ‘things’ back and forth as prime purpose (true!!) and a concept of seeing without using eyes (true!!). There was an impression of heat but non-specific heat in that it did not burn or even give off warmth—radio waves? but rather tickled the body (probably true!!).”
In the official, declassified operations log, Lessman could not hide his awe. He’d been doing tasking operations for long enough to know that it generally took a viewer several noisy sessions to get close to receiving a good signal line. For example, in a recent session in which the target was the Great Pyramid at Giza, Remote Viewer 017 saw “liquid, fluid… a man-made structure, a thin gray bridge.” In another, in which the target was Madison Square Garden, Remote Viewer 023 sa
w “hospital corridor,” “stone columns,” and “an altar inside an Egyptian temple.” Most viewers training in Coordinate Remote Viewing protocols were way off-target. In hundreds of pages of declassified documents, there are a fair share of target descriptions that read like a drowning man grasping at straws.
Yet in her very first tasking session, Angela Dellafiora was getting majority signal and almost no noise. Lessman asked her to “get in closer to the object” and to describe the structure in more detail. Dellafiora began laughing—“loud giggling,” as Lessman noted in the log.
“You are happy,” he said.
“Grass, hay!” she cheered.
“Tell me about your happiness.”
“I moved away from the structure. I’m sorry,” she said.
“OK,” Lessman said.
“Round things make me crazy,” Dellafiora explained.
“Tell me its purpose,” Lessman directed.
“Its purpose is the opening. It’s the opening,” she said, and began giggling again.
“You are laughing,” he scolded.
“I feel something tickling me.”
“Tell me about that,” he said.
“I don’t know. The heat is under the roundness. Causing movement [at] me.”
Lessman noted in the log that Dellafiora’s voice began to “quiver” and her body began to shake. This was the kind of occult behavior, too reminiscent of witchcraft, that the military men in the group decided must be terminated.
“Return now to your sanctuary,” Lessman demanded, and ended the session. Still, he noted in the log that she’d done an excellent job. He graded the session as a 5 on a scale from 1 to 6.
Lessman reported the results to his superior, Fred Atwater. According to the operations log, in an effort to curtail Dellafiora’s occult habits—the quivering voice and shaking body—a new protocol was installed for her next session, as indicated in the operations log. For this one, the target site was the Eiffel Tower.
“Today we will be working on another Global Beacon target,” Lessman said through the microphone. “One difference today needs to be discussed. Very often you begin to shake and your voice begins to quiver.” For the integrity of Coordinate Remote Viewing protocols, said Lessman, “it needs to be controlled. If it occurs again you will hear me state ‘refocus.’ That will be a signal to stop reporting, reacquire the site and to fix the images in your mind. You will then hear me state ‘continue’ at which point you can continue to report.” Lessman repeated, “refocus.” This time it took Dellafiora three minutes to get to the sanctuary, then four minutes to get to the target site.
“OK, structure, structure, triangle, I see another triangle,” she said.
“Describe the structure,” he said.
The log indicates that Dellafiora’s voice started to quiver and her body began to shake.
“Refocus!” commanded Lessman.
Dellafiora went silent.
“Continue!” he said.
But the connection was lost. Dellafiora’s signal line went dead. “Nothing…” she said.
When shown these declassified documents in 2016, Dellafiora recalled the sessions and remembered that time in her professional life when the unit’s managers and taskers worked hard to gather extrasensory information according to the military’s rules. “My process is my process,” she says. “Trying to change it isn’t going to help. But still, I should have gotten the Eiffel Tower. How can you miss the Eiffel Tower? It’s huge.”
Dellafiora’s third Global Beacon session took place on November 24, 1986. She sat in the relaxation chair, and Gene Lessman read the coordinates to her from the monitoring room. “I have read you the coordinates,” he said. “I will read them again when you reach the sanctuary. Begin your relaxation now in preparation for your tasking. This is a manmade object.”
The logbook indicates that Dellafiora’s target was the Great Pyramid at Giza, a huge four-sided edifice containing numerous chambers and passageways. “This ancient tomb was built as the final resting place for the Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh, Khu’fu (2800 B.C.),” read the description in the log. “At one time the tomb contained fabulous treasures, most of which were stolen by grave robbers over the centuries. In recent history archeologists have uncovered several heretofore unknown chambers containing colorful hieroglyphics and a large amount of ancient artifacts including gold and jewel encrusted jewelry.”
It took Angela Dellafiora five minutes to get to the sanctuary, then another three minutes to get to the target site. And while some might argue that she simply had an amazing memory for coordinates and therefore knew this location was near Cairo, others might think she was divining information through unknown means. From the notes, we know that Lessman did not hide his surprise over the ease with which she reported what she saw and the specificity of details: “Source reported a rolling, breezy, soft warm area which closely correlates to the general geographic description of the site. Source further stated that at this site there are at least two structures (true!!) one of which is ‘huge’ in its dimensions (true!!). Inside the structure there are ‘pictures of animals, designs and faces on the wall of long hallways,’” a clear reference to the hieroglyphics on the walls inside the chamber. “Source reported that one of the overwhelming impressions of the site is the ‘preservation of history and culture’ and that the people on the walls of the site wore unusual clothing and were noted for their ‘culture and refinement as well as their life of luxury and ease,’ (true!!). The area, according to the source, has witnessed many wars and invasions in the area around the site.” For this session, Lessman gave Dellafiora a grade of 6.
It did not take long for Dellafiora to begin delivering eight-martini results. On average, she could get to the sanctuary in three minutes, then the target site three minutes after that. The taskers stopped trying to correct her “hypnagogic voice,” and instead let her report what she saw.
The following month branch chief Fred Atwater ran Dellafiora on what was called a dual target—two locations near one another, to be viewed in one session. This was a skill that was supposed to take more than a year of CRV training to acquire. The first target was a coordinate. In the monitoring room, Atwater looked at a photograph of the rustic home of Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States. Now restored, the home is a national historic monument located inside a tourist park near St. Louis, Missouri. The second target, 14.8 miles to the northeast, was the 630-foot stainless-steel monument called the Gateway Arch.
In the operations log Atwater wrote that at Grant’s house, “source began by describing a structure in a breezy, hilly area with a generally open feeling about it. This structure was correctly reported as being ‘square, sloping, monumental, fenced in by a short, low fence, divided room or perhaps the effect of stacked logs.’ The source correctly reported that the place ‘was associated with a man,’ and its purpose was to ‘look, to wander about and [to view] awards, medals and displays.’ Source correctly associated this structure with ‘an important person who wore a blue uniform and was associated with a terrible war.’”
Next, Atwater noted in the log, “Source was asked to switch locations and to move to the second target that was of interest to the tasker.” He reported that “Source correctly identified this as being ‘high, overwhelming, modern, two halves exactly like making a whole, a mirrored image,’ which very accurately describes the actual symmetry of the arch.” Atwater was impressed. He gave Dellafiora a score of 6 and wrote, “Based on the very concise description there can be no doubt that she was able to successfully acquire the proper sites and accurately describe the major components of the targets in such a manner that an analyst would have no difficulty in correlating these perceptions to the actual target.”
In an intelligence collection operation, the ability to access a site next to a site is key. For example, a viewer might be sent to a known military facility like Semipalatinsk in the Soviet Union, then asked if there was anything of interest nea
rby. This concept was the result of Kit Green’s first experiment that used coordinates to remotely view a target, in that case the summer cabin of Green’s colleague, a CIA clandestine officer. When Pat Price described the NSA’s top-secret Sugar Grove Station facility nearby, it was because this was the far more interesting target, Price said. Which is similar to what happened in Dellafiora’s next Global Beacon session, when she was given coordinates for the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.
The Devil’s Tower is a natural stone outcropping, tall, monolithic, and conical in shape. It has a flat top and striations running down the side. After arriving at this site and describing the Devil’s Tower accurately, “Source asked to move to something more sinister [nearby] and began describing some kind of underground facility,” wrote Atwater in the declassified log notes. At the time, Atwater was unaware of any underground facility nearby, but he was curious about what Dellafiora might be referring to, so he encouraged her to provide further details. She described what she saw: “special areas, railings, circular, things go in there to make things occur, domed shaped rooms, cold, testing, controlling, innovative, shiny, new with people working around.” The primary object in this facility, she said, was “man-made, hard, modern, flying, tossing, turning, fenced off with a sign I can’t read. Special area… Power.” After the session ended, Atwater did an internal Special Access Program search that showed him the locations of highly classified nuclear weapons facilities in Wyoming. “A subsequent check found that in the area there are several US Defense [underground] missile silos” classified top-secret, that are not far from the Devil’s Tower. Grade: 6.