21. Semipalatinsk Test Site: Star Gate Collection, CIA: “Space Nuclear Facility test capability at the Baikal-1 and IGR sites Semipalatinsk-21, Kazakhstan,” n.p., n.d.
22. URDF-3: The Soviets called their site Baikal-1. It would be more than twenty years before U.S. intelligence learned that the site was in fact an underground facility used for nuclear propulsion capabilities. Like its sister site at Jackass Flats, at the Nevada Test Site, Baikal-1 was where the Soviets were working on nuclear propulsion to take men to Mars.
23. Puthoff listened and took notes: Puthoff first discussed his participation in the session in the Intelligencer article. For a comprehensive account, see Kress, “An Analysis of a Remote-Viewing Experiment of URDF-3,” December 4, 1975.
24. Price told Kress: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Kress, 12; “An Analysis of a Remote-Viewing Experiment of URDF-3,” 4, 28.
25. “The rigor of the research became a serious issue”: Ibid., 11.
26. “Disinformation Section of the KGB”: Ibid., 24.
27. “‘conversion’ experiences”: Ibid., 7.
28. “I began to doubt my own objectivity”: Kress, “Parapsychology in Intelligence,” 14.
29. “extrasensory perception does exist as a real phenomenon”: Author FOIA, CIA: “C/AOB/OTS: Memorandum for the Record: Subject: “Parapsychology/Remote Viewing,” April 20, 1975; J. A. Ball, “An Overview of Extrasensory Perception: Report to CIA.” January 27, 1975.
30. “considered questionable”: Kress, “Parapsychology in Intelligence,” 15.
Chapter Eleven: The Unconscious
1. brain warfare: CIA (digital collection):“Summary of Remarks by Mr. Allen W. Dulles at the National Alumni Conference of the Graduate Council of Princeton University,” Hot Springs, VA, April 10, 1953.
2. “mind projection”: Author FOIA, CIA: “Some Reflections on Parapsychological Phenomena and the Intelligence Community” (concerning the Swann-Geller phenomena), Draft January 23, 1973, n.p.
3. “carefully controlled experiments with Geller”: Author FOIA, CIA: “Memorandum for C/IP&A/ORD,” January 24, 1973.
4. “concealed in a tooth”: Dr. Joseph Hanlon, “Uri Geller and Science,” New Scientist, October 17, 1974; author FOIA, CIA: Subject, “More Geller Business,” February 28, 1973.
5. the magician James Randi speculated: Author FOIA, CIA: Subject: “Special Management Guidelines for the SRI Paranormal Project,” January 15, 1974.
6. “the most important consequence of the Geller craze”: John Palmer, “An Evaluative Report on the Current Status of Parapsychology,” Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, U.S. Army, May 1986, 195. This report covered twenty years of parapsychology.
7. what happened on November 23, 1973: This radio interview is not locatable by BBC 2, so the story as it appears here is from Geller’s retelling in his 1975 memoir. The CIA refers to the radio program in documents, including in a summation of the press coverage about Geller, “Geller and New Scientist,” and “Geller, Dimbleby Talk-In, press conference BBC Lime Grove (London).”
8. the newspaper printed a tabulation: “Gellermania,” Sunday People, November 1973.
9. From defense officials to religious leaders: Geller, My Story, 51.
10. “the rational and the irrational”: Sagan, Broca’s Brain, 72.
11. relationships between physics… and the unconscious: Wolfgang Pauli and C. G. Jung, “Atom and Archetype: the Pauli/Jung Letters.”
12. “a magnetic program card was erased”: R. S. Hawke, “Outline of Acoustic Emission Experiments Performed With a Person Reputed to Have Paranormal Metal Bending Abilities,” Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, University of California, Livermore, California, January 11, 1979.
13. He confronted Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ: Interview with Green. There is still some debate over when this happened: some say fall 1974, others, winter 1975. See also Vallée, Forbidden Science 2, 291.
14. holograms: Author FOIA, CIA: “Dr. Steven A. Benton, circa 1968, and Lloyd Cross, circa 1972”; “lasers: Charles H. Townes, 1960”; “UAV, Insectothoper,” 1972.
15. some kind of omen or message: Interview with Kit Green, Hal Puthoff, and Jacques Vallée. In 2016, Geller said he was not aware of this until much later.
16. “To achieve better security”: Author FOIA, CIA: “OTS/SDB: Notes on Interviews with F. P. E. L. C. J. K. G., and V.C.,” January 1975; Kress, “Parapsychology in Intelligence,” 15.
17. all kinds of rumors: I discussed the Pat Price death with everyone who was there during this time frame, including Green, Puthoff, and Vallée.
18. “use psychokinesis to stop the human heart”: John D. LaMothe, Controlled Offensive Behavior—USSR (U), Medical Intelligence Office, Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, Defense Intelligence Agency, July 1972, 40.
19. appear to have been a heart attack: Church Committee Hearings, testimony of former CIA toxicologist Mary Embree. In its defense, the CIA insisted that it was only keeping up with what the Soviets were working on.
20. “raid against the offices of the Church of Scientology”: Vallée, Forbidden Science 2, 392.
Chapter Twelve: Submarines
1. ELF was the only known bandwidth: Its use as a submarine transmission system had first been proposed by DARPA scientist Nick Christofilos in 1958. The highly classified project was called Project Sanguine; see also Jacobsen, The Pentagon’s Brain, 67–71.
2. communication in a postnuclear strike environment: Dr. Jack P. Ruina, Oral History with Finn Aaserud. American Institute of Physics, August 8, 1991.
3. rabbits: Dale E. Graff, Paraphysics R&D—Warsaw Pact, 11–12.
4. Schwartz proposed an experiment: Interview with Schwartz.
5. Navy had spent: White House Record Office, Gerald R. Ford, Presidential Library, House of Representatives, Report No. 94-1305, 94th Congress, 2d Session, Title I—Procurement, June 25, 1976, 56–62.
6. avoid drawing attention: R. Targ, E. C. May, H. E. Puthoff, D. Galin, and R. Ornstein, “Sensing of Remote EM Sources (Physiological Correlates),” SRI International, Final Report on Naval Electronics Systems Command Project, April 1978; see also Ronald M. McRae, Mind Wars, 5.
7. “ELF and Mind Control”: John L. Wilhelm, “Psychic Spying? The CIA, the Pentagon and the Russians Probe the Military Potential of Parapsychology,” Washington Post, August 7, 1977, B-1.
8. Koslov lamented: Ibid., B-5.
9. beamed these signals: Author FOIA, CIA: “Project Pandora, Final Report.” Applied Physics Laboratory, Silver Spring, MD, November 1966.
10. had their offices: Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows, 97.
11. Colby wrote to the ambassador: Star Gate Collection, CIA: “Memorandum, From Director Colby, To: [redacted],” November 26, 1975.
12. getting more potent: Yuli Vorontsov, Soviet chargé d’affaires in Washington, D.C., gave Hyland a note stating that he would take steps for the possible reduction of the EM signal. No further U.S.-Soviet negotiations on MUTS occurred, according to Robert Gates.
13. filed a formal protest: Gates, 97.
14. “Russians were using microwave beams”: Paul Brodeur, The Zapping of America, 213.
15. also died of cancer: Obituaries for Charles Bohlen, ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1957, who had already died of pancreatic cancer on January 1, 1974, age sixty-nine; and Llewellyn Thomas, ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1962 and again from 1967 to 1969, who died of cancer on February 6, 1972, age sixty-seven.
16. classified and unclassified Defense Department contracts: Allan Frey, “Effects of Microwaves and Radio Frequency Energy on the Central Nervous System,” Clearinghouse for Federal and Scientific Information, U.S. Department of Commerce, September 17, 1969. For more information on Frey, see “The Work of Allan H. Frey” at the website of the Cellular Phone Task Force organization (cellphonetaskforce.org).
17. “complex electrochemical systems”: Allan H. Frey, “Electromagnetic field interacti
ons with biological systems,” National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health, News and Features, 272. “In a study published in 1975 in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Frey reported that microwaves could induce ‘leakage’ in the barrier between the circulatory system and the brain. Breaching the blood-brain barrier is a serious matter. It means that bacteria, viruses and toxins from the blood can enter the brain. It means the brain’s environment, which needs to be extremely stable for nerve cells to function properly, can be perturbed in other dangerous ways.”
18. “This assumption is wrong”: Frey, “Effects of Microwaves,” 3.
19. atrocious translations: Ibid., 3.
20. the pulse rate of a microwave beam: Robert O. Becker, The Body Electric, 319.
21. microwave weapons for the Defense Department: Obituary, Dr. Robert O. Becker, Watertown Daily Times, May 29, 2008.
22. “he considered such work immoral”: Dennis Hackett, “Sinister Signals on the Radio,” New Scientist, September 1984.
23. “using embassy employees as test subjects”: Becker, The Body Electric, 310.
24. “facilitate hallucinations and altered states”: E. C. Wortz et al., “Novel Biophysical Information Transfer Mechanisms (NBIT),” January 14, 1976, AiResearch Manufacturing Company of California, 48.
25. “secret parapsychology laboratory”: Ibid., 18.
26. “the reality of thought transference”: Ibid., 3.
27. Six months earlier: Interview with Stephan Schwartz.
28. “They said that I could have her”: “The Realm of the Will,” Explore 1, no. 3 (May 2005): 204. 196 Puthoff said yes, absolutely: Interview with Puthoff; interview with Graff; Star Gate Collection, CIA, “Long-Distance Remote Viewing from a Submersible,” 33, n.d.
29. Leonard Nimoy’s film crew: A film of the Mobius Group event is available on YouTube, “In Search of,” minute 6:23.
30. fail-safe protocols: Star Gate Collection, CIA, “Long-Distance Remote Viewing,” 36–42.
31. Graff’s report: Ibid. See also Puthoff, Targ, May, Swann: “Advanced Threat: Technique Assessment. Final Report, October 1978”; Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America’s Psychic Spies, 207.
32. Bush told Mitchell: Interview with Ed Mitchell.
Chapter Thirteen: Paraphysics
1. officially running: Author FOIA, CIA: Untitled timeline, “Secret: Date/Event/Comments,” from September 1977 through January 31, 1986. See also “Memorandum for the Record,” Grill Flame Briefing, December 27, 1979, in which David S. Brandwein, director of the Office of Technical Services at the CIA, discusses how the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was encouraged by the CIA to carry out “the development of our program and [its] applications.”
2. “Nobody wanted the job”: Interview with Graff; DIA wanted the final monograph to be labeled Secret, not Top Secret, which meant that it could be shared more broadly across the Department of Defense.
3. “We had machine translators”: Dale E. Graff, Paraphysics R&D—Warsaw Pact, 29; Interview with Graff.
4. summarized the activities: Ibid., 42. Graff paid particular attention to novel electromagnetic theories. Soviet military scientist Dr. A. V. Kogan proposed that psychic functioning was the result of “low velocity of current propagation along body nerve fibers as possibly acting like a matching antennae for detecting very long wavelengths.” An alternative theory was that “naturally low EM frequencies in the brain conceive or react with natural frequencies in the environment.”
5. remembers Graff: Interviews with Graff.
6. “discuss what happened”: Interview with Dale Graff, interview with Barbara Graff.
7. “She’d sketched a map”: Author FOIA, CIA: Rosemary Smith’s map can be seen in a draft of a report, “Project Sun Streak: Psychoenergetics,” #10L3162-1, 20 (n.p.).
8. “She marked a spot”: Interview with Graff.
9. declassified Staff Meeting Minutes memo: Dale Graff papers, “DDO Staff Meeting Minutes #86—Parapsychology,” March 28, 1979.
10. Jimmy Carter publicly confirmed: “Psychic helped locate downed U.S. plane, ex-President says,” Reuters, September 21, 1995.
11. electrical signals inside the human body: Interview with Graff; Paul H. Smith, Reading the Enemy’s Mind, 101.
12. worked like a shell game: General Allen featured on PBS, “Open Vault,” February 21, 1987.
13. estimated start-up cost: “Report of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to the Congress on the FY 1981 Budget, FY 1982 Authorization Request and FY 1981–1985 Defense Programs,” January 29, 1980, 85–90. The study on mobile ICBMs started in 1971.
14. letter arrived in the mail: Dale Graff papers, “From the Director of Central Intelligence, Washington, DC 20505, To Dale E. Graff, Advanced Research Branch, Department of the Air Force, Headquarters Foreign Technology Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio 45433, December 31, 1980.”
15. classified program called psychoenergetics: “Grill Flame Project Report,” Defense Intelligence Agency Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, October 19, 1983, 1. This was the first comprehensive overview to discuss the origins of the program as well as its initial DIA-led goals.
16. “speculative and unsubstantiated”: Author FOIA, CIA: “An Overview of Extrasensory Perception,” January 27, 1975.
Chapter Fourteen: Psychic Soldiers
1. to visit Army facilities: Interview with Atwater; see also Atwater, Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul, 51.
2. covert infiltration techniques: Author FOIA, DIA: “Subject: Briefing Request, Major Robert E. Keenan, Chief OPSEC Spt. Division,” May 15, 1978.
3. OPSEC vulnerability estimates: Interview with Atwater; interview with Graff.
4. “unique form of surveillance”: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Major Murray B. Watt, “INSCOM Project Grill Flame Progress Report #1,” February 21, 1979.
5. an interest in ESP and PK: Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America’s Psychic Spies, 14.
6. “There was evidence”: Major General Edmund R. Thompson (retired), interviewed on The Real X-Files, Independent Channel 4, British Equinox, August 27, 1995, minutes 5–6.
7. budget request form: Interview with Skip Atwater; Atwater, “Counterspy” (available online: skipatwater.com), keyword “Opening Stargate.”
8. Most of the interviewees: Interview with McMoneagle. NPIC was created in 1961 and also combined DoD assets.
9. From his perspective: Interview with McMoneagle; also see McMoneagle, The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy, 59.
10. report to a sterile room: Star Gate Collection, CIA: “Memorandum for the Record, Subject: INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1, Period Covered, October 1978–February 1979,” February 21, 1979, 16.
11. something along the lines of: Interview with McMoneagle; also see McMoneagle, The Stargate Chronicles, 71.
12. The film showed: Puthoff Papers; CIA declassified film footage, as seen in “The Case of ESP,” NOVA, WGBH, Boston, 1984.
13. he sat alone with Puthoff: Interview with Puthoff; interview with McMoneagle.
14. Others in his unit: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Kress, “Parapsychology in Intelligence,” 16.
15. a terrifying situation: Interview with McMoneagle; McMoneagle, The Stargate Chronicles, 49.
16. “near-death experience”: Interview with McMoneagle.
17. McMoneagle signed on: Star Gate Collection, CIA: “Grill Flame Project Report,” Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, October 19, 1983, 6.
18. chosen for the team: Interviews with Atwater, Graff, McMoneagle. Hartleigh Trent helped run a cold-weather survival school for the Navy SEALs in Maine.
19. lots of downtime: Interview with Angela Dellafiora.
20. NSC gave an official request: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Subject: Transcript Remote Viewing (RV) Sessions C 54 and C 55, Summary
Analysis, n.p., n.d.
21. Army memos indicated: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Subject: “Briefing to the Commander, IAGRA-OPO,” Signed Major Robert E Keenan, May 15, 1978.
22. “It smells like a gas plant”: Ibid., 3–5.
23. “Very much like shark fins”: Ibid., 6.
24. “part of a submarine… huge”: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Subject: Transcript Remote Viewing (RV) Session C 55, 3–5.
25. “This coffin-like thing… it’s a weapon”: Ibid., 10.
26. National Security Council for review: “Soviet anti-submarine warfare,” Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Office of Staff Secretary; Series: Presidential Files; Folder: 9/11/79; Container 129.
27. KH-9 spy satellite photographs: National Reconnaissance Office, “KH-9 Panoramic Camera Image of Typhoon Class Submarine at Severodvinsk, Mission 1217-4” (www. nro.gov).
28. one hundred photographs: Author FOIA, CIA: Photos “Iran WAC 428B, Tehran. Interior room of the US Embassy after militants seized the embassy and took 60 hostages,” November 8, 1979.
29. Joint Chiefs determined: “Memorandum for LTC Watt, Subject Interim Evaluation, Grill Flame Project,” March 10, 1980, signed by LTC Lenahan.
30. viewers worked to track movements: Star Gate Collection, CIA: “GRILL FLAME Evaluation in Support of Iranian Hostage Situation,” March 16, 1981; “Summary of Iranian Remote Viewing Sessions CD-06 and CD-16, Shiraz, Qom.”
31. “fire and death”: Telephone interview with Fern Gauvin.
32. “Admin note 0300 Hours in Iran”: Star Gate Collection, CIA: Transcript, Remote Viewing (RV) Session CCC84, 24 April 1980.
33. McMoneagle recalls what happened: Interviews with McMoneagle, Atwater, Graff, Gauvin.
34. So did Fern Gauvin: Interview with Gauvin.
35. Khomeini held a press conference: Rouhullah al-Mousawi al-Khomeini, “The Failure of the U.S. Army in Tabas,” April 25, 1980 [Ordibehesht 5, 1359 AHS/ Jamadi ath-Thani 9, 1400 A].