6. Copernican heliocentrism: NASA says Aristarchus of Samos was the first known person to propose that the Sun was the center of the universe, which he did in the third century BC.
7. “Spidey sense”: Eric Beidel, “More than a Feeling: ONR Investigates ‘Spidey Sense’ for Sailors and Marines,” Office of Naval Research, Corporate Strategic Communications, March 27, 2014.
8. “preempt snipers, IED emplacers”: Joseph Channing, “U.S. Navy Program to Study How Troops Use Intuition,” New York Times, March 27, 2012. Note: Richburg sensed that a man had planted a bomb and evacuated the area before the explosion. “The bomb definitely would have killed some people,” said Maj. John Stark, a liaison officer to the Iraqi army.
9. the stigma of ESP and PK: The British journalist Jon Ronson’s satirical book, The Men Who Stare at Goats (2005), and the movie of the same name (2009) enhanced negative perception of remote viewing.
10. “sensemaking”: Office of Naval Research Warfighter Performance Department, Exhibit Fact Sheet: Combat Hunter Computer-Based Trainer; ONR Exhibit Fact Sheet: Virtual Observation Platform: Enhanced Perceptual Training. Sensemaking is also called anticipatory thinking.
11. followed McMoneagle’s lead: Kress, ”Parapsychology in Intelligence,” Studies in Intelligence 21 (Winter 1977): 8.
12. Power Dreaming session: The Power Dreaming tour can be seen on YouTube. Power Dreaming software, developed by Naval Hospital Bremerton and ICF International, is designed to help sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder deal with emotional stressors by creating a sense of control within a virtual reality setting. The Power Dreaming creed reminds the warrior trainee of their code: “There is profound honor in confronting the pain the mind must endure that is born of a warrior’s sacrifice.”
13. Can humans alter: E-mail correspondence with Kit Green: “one can also clearly argue that even the resulting electrical, and adjacent modulation of tissues even not physically connected to a network are thus influenced by ‘ephaptic’ currents… are matter… even the electrons.”
14. qigong “unproven as medicine”: Roger Jahnke et al., “A Comprehensive Review of Health Benefits of Qigong and Tai Chi,” National Center for Biotechnology, National Institutes of Health, July–August, 2010.
15. Scientific skeptics: Peter Huston, “China, Chi, and Chicanery: Examining Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chi Theory,” Skeptical Inquirer 19, no. 5 (September–October 1995).
16. Dictionary’s author: Robert T. Carroll, “Transcendental Meditation,” The Skeptic’s Dictionary, available online. The “one study” Carroll cites is listed as Alberto Perez-De-Abeniz and Jeremy Holmes, “Meditation: Concepts, Effects and Uses in Therapy,” International Journal of Psychotherapy 5, no. 1 (March 2000): 10, 49.
17. “soldiers [to] communicate by thought alone”: Jacobsen, The Pentagon’s Brain, 311-312; “Statement of Dr. Eric Eisenstadt, Defense Sciences Office (DSO), Brain Machine Interface,” DARPATech ’99 Conference.
18. “tell machines”: Eko Armunanto, “Artificial telepathy to create Pentagon’s telepathic soldiers,” Digital Journal, May 10, 2013.
19. says program director Michael D’Zmura: “Scientists to study synthetic telepathy,” Phys.org, August 13, 2008.
20. “brainwave control device”: Edmond M. Dewan, “Occipital Alpha Rhythm Eye Position and Lens Accommodation,” Nature 214, (June 3, 1967): 975–977.
21. “Man’s Brain Waves Can ‘Talk’”: Howard Simons, “Man’s Brain Waves Can ‘Talk’ Overcoming Speech Barriers,” Washington Post, October 21, 1964.
22. similar studies are under way: Correspondence with Andrea Stocco; R. Rao, et. al., “A Direct Brain-to-Brain Interface in Humans,” PLUS One, November 5, 2014.
23. “Evolution has spent”: Deborah Bach, “UW team links two human brains for question-and-answer experiment,” UW Today, September 23, 2015.
24. “involved technology, not ESP”: Interview with Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone.
25. Dr. Pascual-Leone said: “Direct brain-to-brain communication demonstrated in human subjects,” Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Press Release, September 3, 2014.
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Scientists and the Skeptics
1. 100-Year Starship project: Interviews with Hal Puthoff, Eric Davis; Sharon Weinberger, “100 Year Starship: An interstellar leap for mankind?,” BBC Future (BBC.com), March 22, 2012.
2. fighting claims by skeptics: Interview with Lawrence Krauss, astrophysicist, who labeled Puthoff a “fringe scientist.”
3. whether it can be harnessed: This section is from interviews with Puthoff, as well as his essay “Physics and Metaphysics as Co-emergent Phenomena,” published as a chapter in S. Savva, ed., Life and Mind, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, BC, Canada, 2006.
4. “the ‘Holy Grail’ of energy research”: H. E. Puthoff, “SETI, the velocity-of-light limitation, and the Alcubierre warp drive: An integrating overview,” Physics Essays 9 (1996): 156; H. E. Puthoff, “Space propulsion: Can empty space itself provide a solution?” Ad Astra 9 (1997): 42; H. E. Puthoff, “Can the vacuum be engineered for spaceflight applications? Overview of theory and experiments,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12 (1998): 295; H. E. Puthoff, “Engineering the zero-point field and polarizable vacuum for interstellar flight,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 55 (2002): 137.
5. a trip to Mars: William B. Scott, “To the Stars: Zero-point energy emerges from realm of science fiction, may be key to deep-space travel,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 1, 2004.
6. NASA’s current figure: “Mars Program Planning Group Frequently Asked Questions,” nasa.gov.
7. Krauss called Puthoff a “crackpot”: Interview with Lawrence Krauss. It’s worth noting that Krauss himself has plenty of critics. In Scientific American, in a November 20, 2015, article titled “Is Lawrence Krauss a Physicist, or Just a Bad Philosopher?” John Horgan interviewed physicist George Ellis (who co-wrote with Stephen Hawking the classic work The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time) about Krauss’s work: “What he is presenting is not tested science,” said Ellis. “It’s a philosophical speculation, which he apparently believes is so compelling he does not have to give any specification of evidence that would confirm it is true.”
8. “pre-scientific concept of a cosmic energy”: H. E. Puthoff, “Physics and Metaphysics as Co-emergent Phenomena,” in Savva, Life and Mind; H. E. Puthoff, “Source of vacuum electromagnetic zero-point energy,” Physical Review A, Vol. 40 (1989): 4857.
9. In pursuit of this theory: Interview with Puthoff; interview with Davis. Davis has been at the lab since he completed a Teleportation Study for the Defense Department. Of his work, he says: “All of my work for Hal since late 2004 has been on further developing the Einstein general relativistic theory and the quantum field theory (per the physics of the quantum vacuum) for faster-than-light space propulsion via warp drives and traversable wormholes. This research portfolio also includes the study of time machines, alternatives to black holes, quantum vacuum zero-point fluctuations and their manifestations and impact on the universe, and the impact of quantum entanglement and teleportation on the structure of space-time (and eventually its role on consciousness). So the physics of consciousness and psychic phenomena are super interesting to me, though low on my research priorities because my faster-than-light interstellar flight studies are very high priority right now due to my connections to NASA and the DoD.”
10. Tsien’s primary role: “Tsien Hsue-shen, 2007 Person of the Year,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 7, 2008.
11. New Scientist named Tsien: Top Ten Influential Space Thinkers, New Scientist, September 5, 2007.
12. Kaku explains quantum entanglement: Brent Baughman, “Scientists Take Quantum Steps Toward Teleportation,” NPR, All Things Considered, August 1, 2010.
13. “the nature of this profound phenomenon”: “The Experiment That Will Allow Humans to ‘See’ Quantum Entanglement,” MIT Technology Review, February 17, 2016.
14. He discussed the data: Graff, remarks at the Quantum Retrocausation III symposium at the University of California, San Diego, June 15–16, 2016; interview with Graff. Each day an Associated Press photograph appears on page A6 in Graff’s local paper, the Reading Eagle. On the top half of that page the paper runs “News across the Nation,” and on the bottom half runs “News across the World.” In the lower right-hand corner is the photograph. Graff confirmed with the editor that the photo has nothing to do with either local or world news; it’s arbitrarily selected from the AP pool.
15. “There is an underlying reality”: Interview with Graff.
16. an active military and intelligence science adviser: Interview with Green; Biographical Sketch of Committee Members, National Academies Press.
17. examine the future of military science and brain research: Green et al.,“Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies of the Committee on Military and Intelligence Methodology for Emergent Neurophysiological and Cognitive/Neural Research in the Next Two Decades,” (2008) 15–51.
18. asked to join a classified science advisory board: Interview with Green. Clapper, a retired general, served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the last four years of the remote-viewing program.
19. Hillary Clinton spoke of UAPs: Al Vicens, “Hillary Clinton Is Serious About UFOs,” Mother Jones, March 25, 2016. Clinton told Jimmy Kimmel, “There’s a new name—it’s ‘unexplained aerial phenomenon’. UAP, that’s the latest nomenclature.”
20. when working with Uri Geller: Interview with Green; interview with Vallée. There are some issues involving when, exactly, this happened. The LLNL physicist Ron Hawke says it occurred in late 1974; Vallée (not present, but privy to info) writes about it in his journal in March 1975.
21. “Common injuries”: Green has publicly referred to his pro bono work in only one place, as one line in his biography at the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA) website.
22. run by Garry Nolan: Information about the Nolan Lab and Garry Nolan is available at the Stanford University website. Nolan is presently the Rachford and Carlota A. Harris Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
23. “I believe in a personal God”: Alexander Carpenter, “Martin Gardner on Philosophical Theism, Adventists and Price,” Spectrum, October 17, 2008. This interview with Gardner is available online courtesy of Cambridge University Press (spectrummagazine.org).
24. “God is the Great Magician”: Martin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, 184.
25. hoax involved a federal crime: Interview with Adam Higginbotham; Higginbotham, “The Disillusionist: The Unbelievable Skepticism of James Randi,” New York Times Magazine, November 7, 2014.
26. “I felt like a phony”: Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom, An Honest Liar documentary.
27. “Never!” he shouted: Interview with James Randi; Geller’s ashes: Michael J. Mooney, “The God of Skeptics,” Miami New Times, August 27, 2009.
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Psychic and the Astronaut
1. Netanyahu said: TV Interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Ukrainian TV. This is footage in Geller’s private collection.
2. suggested as its central thesis: Vikram Jayanti, The Secret Life of Uri Geller—Psychic Spy? BBC Two documentary.
3. I record interviews: Interviews with Uri Geller, Hanna Geller, Shipi Shtrang.
4. Geller’s ESP and PK abilities: Interview with Amnon Rubinstein in Tel Aviv. Rubinstein was a member of the Knesset, the legislative branch of the Israeli government, between 1977 and 2002.
5. a violent time in Israel: Diaa Hadid, “American Graduate Student Killed in Stabbing Rampage Near Tel Aviv,” New York Times, March 8, 2016; Oren Liebermann, “American fatally stabbed in Israel terror attack that wounds ten others,” CNN, March 9, 2016.
6. Netanyahu was quoted as saying: Isabel Kershner, “Israelis Find New Tunnel from Gaza into Israel,” New York Times, April 18, 2016.
7. “My gut tells me”: Interview with Dan Williams. In my 2016 interview with map dowser Louis Matacia, the former Army surveyor who famously taught Marines how to dowse for Viet Cong tunnels during the Vietnam War, Matacia told me that in 2005, he’d gone to Israel to help security forces dowse for tunnels along the southern border with Gaza. I confirmed this with a former Air Force colonel named Ron Blackburn, who was also on the mission. Terrorist organizations like Hamas regularly dig tunnels from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, and now ISIS is reportedly doing the same thing in Syria.
8. Mitchell explains: Interview with Mitchell.
9. map on the Moon: United States Geological Survey map, 2-LS-1/EVA-2, Apollo 14 Image Library, Landing Site Maps (hq.nasa.gov). Looking at this map, on the Moon, Mitchell said: “No, I think we’re coming out of that swale, that valley. As a matter of fact, it’s on this map. This darkness in here [east of the crater labeled ‘720’ in the USGS map] is what we were calling (the eastern wall of) that valley. That was a very good depression. And that’s where Al’s saying it’s up the hill. See, there’s another one over here, and then we really started up the flank of Cone Crater.” From “Climbing Cone Ridge - Where Are We?”, Corrected Transcript and Commentary, by Eric M. Jones, NASA, 1995.
10. “I’m in the final stages of my life”: Interview with Mitchell.
LIST OF INTERVIEWS AND WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE
Colonel John B. Alexander, Ph.D. (retired): soldier, scientist; former Green Beret and Special Forces commander, U.S. Army; former director, Advanced Human Technology Office, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM); former director of nonlethal weapons, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Louis Andre: former research director for the Directorate for Intelligence Production, Defense Intelligence Agency
Captain Fred “Skip” Atwater (retired): former operations manager, 902nd Military Intelligence Group, Detachment-G [remote viewing], U.S. Army, INSCOM
Michael Bigelow: Historian, U.S. Army, INSCOM
Hugh Bowden: Head of Department, Department of Classics, Kings College London, London, UK
Deepak Chopra: author, physician; former chief of staff, New England Memorial Hospital, director, the Chopra Center
Eric W. Davis: astrophysicist; scientific consultant, NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Program; consultant, Department of Defense; member, Association of Former Intelligence Officers; fellow, British Interplanetary Society
Brigadier General James L. Dozier (retired): U.S. Army, Deputy Chief of Staff, NATO Southern Command
Don Eyles: engineer; Apollo computer guidance systems, NASA, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA
Irving Finkel: Assistant Keeper of the Ancient Records [Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian script, languages, and cultures], British Museum, London, UK
Angela Dellafiora Ford: civilian intelligence analyst U.S. Army, INSCOM, and Defense Intelligence Agency (retired); remote viewer
Fernand Gauvin: civilian counterintelligence officer, U.S. Army (retired); branch chief, Sun Streak Program, Defense Intelligence Agency
Uri Geller: telepath; research subject: CIA, Department of Defense, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories
Dale E. Graff: physicist, aeronautical engineer; former chief of the Advanced Missile Systems Forecast Section Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, U.S. Air Force; former director of Advanced Concepts Office, Directorate of Science and Technology, Defense Intelligence Agency; former director of Star Gate Program, Department of Defense
Christopher “Kit” Green: physician, neurophysiologist, CIA (retired); former chairman of the National Academy of Sciences; former chairman of the board, Army Science and Technology Committee; founding member, Defense Intelligence Agency Technology Insight–Gauge, Evaluate, and Review (TIGER) Committee
Brian D. Josephson: physicist, Nobel Laureate (1973); Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Serge Kernbach: technologist; director, Research
Center of Advanced Robotics and Environmental Science, Stuttgart, Germany; member, Academy of Natural Sciences, Germany
Robert Knight: photographer
Lawrence M. Krauss: theoretical physicist and cosmologist
Louis J. Matacia: dowser; topographical surveyor, U.S. Army (retired)
Chief Warrant Officer Joseph McMoneagle (retired): remote viewer; former senior projects officer, Signals Intelligence and Electronic Warfare, U.S. Army, INSCOM
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McNear (retired): former counterintelligence officer U.S. Army, remote viewer
Richard Allen Miller: physicist; former consultant, Office of Naval Intelligence
Captain Edgar Mitchell (retired): Apollo 14 astronaut, aeronautical engineer; founder, Institute of Noetic Science, Petaluma, CA
Garry Nolan: geneticist, immunologist, biotechnologist; founder and chief scientist, Nolan Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone: professor of neurology and associate dean for Clinical and Translational Research, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA
Harold Puthoff: physicist, former scientist, NSA; former chief scientist, Biofield Measurements Program [Remote Viewing], Stanford, Research Institute, Stanford, CA; former consultant, CIA; chief scientist, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, TX
James Randi: Canadian-American retired stage magician; scientific skeptic
Amnon Rubinstein: law scholar, politician, Israeli government official; Minister of Communications, Minister of Science and Technology and Space
Jack Sarfatti: theoretical physicist; consultant, 100 Year Starship project, DARPA
Caleb A. Scharf: astrobiologist; director of the Astrobiology Center, Columbia University, NY
Harrison Schmitt: Apollo 17 astronaut, geologist; U.S. senator, New Mexico
Stephan A. Schwartz: research scientist; former special assistant for research and analysis to the Chief of Naval Operations, former consultant to the Oceanographer of the Navy