Stargate Project (U.S. Army unit)

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Paranormal Stargate Project was a secret U.S. Army unit established in 1977<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> at Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Stanford Research Institute (a California contractor), to investigate the potential for psychic phenomena in military and domestic intelligence applications. The project, and its precursors and sister projects, originally went by various code namesTemplate:Snd based on the relevant agencies operating the program. "Gondola Wish", "Stargate", "GRILL FLAME" (INSCOM), "CENTER LANE" (DIA), "Project CF", "SUN STREAK" (CIA), and "SCANATE" (CIA)Template:Snd until 1991, when they were consolidated and renamed as the "Stargate Project".

The Stargate Project's work primarily involved remote viewing, the purported ability to psychically "see" events, sites, or information from a great distance.<ref name="Marks 2000">Marks, David. (2000). The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd ed.). Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. pp. 71–96. Template:ISBN.</ref> The project was overseen until 1987 by Lt. Frederick Holmes "Skip" Atwater (born 1947<ref>"I'm where I am right now at 77 years old...", January 2, 2025 Shawn Ryan Show, Episode #154 transcript Template:Webarchive.</ref>), an aide and "psychic headhunter" to Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine, and later president of the Monroe Institute.<ref>Atwater, F. Holmes (2001), Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul: Living with Guidance; Hampton Roads Publishing Company.</ref> The unit was small-scale, comprising about 15 to 20 individuals, and was run out of "an old, leaky wooden barracks".<ref name="Weeks">Template:Cite news</ref>

The Stargate Project was terminated and declassified in 1995 after a CIA-commissioned review claimed that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. Although statistically significant effects were observed in laboratory experiments, the reviewers were uncertain whether this was the result of errors, and the information provided by the program was vague and included irrelevant and erroneous data.<ref name="Mumford">Template:Cite report</ref>Template:Rp The program was featured in the 2004 book and 2009 film The Men Who Stare at Goats,<ref>Heard, Alex (10 April 2010), "Close your eyes and remote view this review" Template:Webarchive, Union-Tribune San Diego, Union-Tribune Publishing Co. [Book review of The Men Who Stare at Goats]: "This so-called "remote viewing" operation continued for years, and came to be known as Star Gate."</ref><ref>Clarke, David (2014), Britain's X-traordinary Files, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 112: "The existence of the Star Gate project was not officially acknowledged until 1995... then became the subject of investigations by journalists Jon Ronson [etc]... Ronson's 2004 book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, was subsequently adapted into a 2009 movie..."</ref><ref>Shermer, Michael (November 2009), “Staring at Men Who Stare at Goats” Template:Webarchive @ Michaelshermer.com: "... the U.S. Army had invested $20 million in a highly secret psychic spy program called Star Gate. ... In The Men Who Stare at Goats Jon Ronson tells the story of this program, how it started, the bizarre twists and turns it took, and how its legacy carries on today."</ref><ref>Krippner, Stanley and Harris L. Friedman (2010), Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential Or Human Illusion? Template:Webarchive, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger/Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 154: "The story of Stargate was ... featured in a film based on the book The Men Who Stare at Goats, by British investigative journalist Jon Ronson (2004)".</ref> although neither mentions it by name.

Background

According to Joseph McMoneagle, the CIA and DIA reacted to reports that the Soviets were actively researching parapsychology by approving and funding their own research programs. McMoneagle wrote that reviews for these programs were made semi-annually at the Senate and House select committee level. According to McMoneagle, standard operating procedure for remote viewing was that the results were kept secret from the "viewer" so that failures would not damage the viewer's confidence and skill.<ref name="McMoneagle 2006">Template:Cite book</ref>

McMoneagle defines remote viewing as an attempt to sense unknown information about places or events, and said that it is normally performed to detect current events, but during military and domestic intelligence applications viewers claimed to sense things in the future, experiencing precognition.<ref name="McMoneagle 1998">Template:Cite book</ref>

History

1970s

In 1970, United States intelligence sources believed that the Soviet Union was spending 60 million roubles 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.<ref name="FAS">Template:Cite web</ref> Remote viewing research began in 1972 at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California.<ref name="FAS" /><ref name="may">Template:Cite journal</ref> Proponents (Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff) of the research said that a minimum accuracy rate of 65% required by the clients was often exceeded in the later experiments.<ref name="FAS" />

Physicists Targ and Puthoff began testing psychics for SRI in 1972, including Israeli Uri Geller, who would later become an international celebrity. Their apparently successful results garnered interest within the U.S. Department of Defense. Ray Hyman, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, was asked by Air Force psychologist Lt. Col. Austin W. Kibler (1930–2008)Template:Snd then director of Behavioral Research for ARPATemplate:Snd to 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.<ref>Interview, Ray Hyman, in An Honest Liar, a 2014 documentary film by Left Turn Films; Pure Mutt Productions; Part 2. Filmworks. (The quoted remarks commence at 21 min 45 s.)</ref>

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.<ref name="Jacobsen2017">Template:Cite book</ref>

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".<ref name=FAS /> Army Intelligence then formalized this in mid-1978 as an operational program Grill Flame, based in buildings 2560 and 2561 at Fort Meade in Maryland (INSCOM "Detachment G").<ref name=FAS />

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 National Research Council. 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).<ref name = FAS />

George Stephanopoulos, in his 2024 book The Situation Room, mentions the project in discussing a May 8, 1980, Situation Room briefing for President Carter, after Carter's failed hostage rescue mission in Iran on April 24, 1980.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In a 2005 GQ magazine interview, Carter said CIA director Stansfield Turner told him the agency once contacted a California woman who claimed to have psychic powers to help locate a missing plane.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

1990s

In 1991, most of the contracting for the program was transferred from SRI to Science Applications International Corporation (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), and it was given its final name, STARGATE.<ref name = FAS />

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.<ref name="Mumford" />Template:Rp The CIA subsequently cancelled and declassified the program.<ref name = FAS />

In 1995 the project was transferred to the CIA and a retrospective evaluation of the results was done. The appointed panel consisted primarily of Jessica Utts, Meena Shah and Ray Hyman. Utts and Hyman were appointed because, in addition to their extensive scientific credentials, they represented both sides of the paranormal controversy, although the AIR considered both of them 'fair and open-minded scientists'.<ref name="Mumford" /> 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, one of the main researchers on the Stargate Project, considering this joint research likely to make her "less than [im]partial".<ref name="Marks 2000"/>

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.<ref>Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena Template:Webarchive by Ray Hyman.</ref> 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.<ref>"The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality" Template:Webarchive by Ray Hyman; Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 20.2, Mar/Apr 1996.</ref>

The review concluded:

Joe Nickell 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.<ref>"Remotely Viewed? The Charlie Jordan Case" Template:Webarchive by Joe Nickell; Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 11.1, Mar 2001.</ref>

According to the AIR review, no remote viewing report ever provided actionable information for any intelligence operation.<ref name="Time"/><ref name="Mumford"/>Template:Rp

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, Maryland, which would soon close.<ref name="Time">Template:Cite web</ref>

David Marks in his book The Psychology of the Psychic (2000) discussed the flaws in the Stargate Project in detail.<ref name="Marks 2000"/> Marks wrote that there were six negative design features of the experiments. The possibility of cues or sensory leakage 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.<ref name="Marks 2000"/>

Some members of the project expressed surprise at these findings, such as Dale Graff, who recalled his bafflement at the announcement that the project was a failure when in his experience as one of the investigators it had seemed to him to be producing definite successes. He commented that it was not surprising that no information from the project had ever resulted in military or intelligence action being taken, as the military and intelligence authorities had never really taken the project seriously and were reluctant to take action based only on Stargate data.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In January 2017, the CIA published records online of the Stargate Project as part of the CREST archive.<ref name="CIA FOIA">Template:Cite web</ref>

Methodology

According to Joseph McMoneagle, the Stargate Project created a set of protocols designed to make the research of clairvoyance and out-of-body experiences more scientific, and to minimize as much as possible session noise and inaccuracy. He wrote that the term "remote viewing" emerged as shorthand to describe this more structured approach to clairvoyance. McMoneagle said Project Stargate would only receive a mission after all other intelligence attempts, methods, or approaches had already been exhausted.Template:RTemplate:Rp

McMoneagle claims that at peak manpower there were over 22 active military and civilian remote viewers providing data, and people leaving the project were not replaced so that when the project closed in 1995 this number had dwindled down to three, one of which was using tarot cards. According to McMoneagle, "The Army never had a truly open attitude toward psychic functioning", hence, the use of the term "giggle factor".<ref name="McMoneagle 1997">Template:Cite book</ref> and the saying, "I wouldn't want to be found dead next to a psychic".Template:R

Civilian personnel

Hal Puthoff

In the 1970s, CIA and DIA granted funds to Harold E. Puthoff to investigate paranormal abilities, collaborating with Russell Targ in a study of the purported psychic abilities of Uri Geller, Ingo Swann, Pat Price, Joseph McMoneagle, and others as part of the Stargate Project,<ref name="Popkin">Template:Cite news</ref> of which Puthoff became a director.<ref name="Pilkington">Template:Cite news</ref>

As with Ingo Swann and Pat Price, Puthoff attributed much of his personal remote viewing skills to his involvement with Scientology 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 saidTemplate:By who? to have identified spies, located Soviet weapons and technologies, such as a nuclear submarine in 1979 and helped find lost SCUD missiles in the first Gulf War and plutonium in North Korea in 1994.<ref name="Miami Herald">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Fv

Russell Targ

Russell Targ

Template:Main In the 1970s, Russell Targ began working with Harold Puthoff on the Stargate Project, while working with him as a researcher at Stanford Research Institute.<ref name="jordan">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Puthoff">Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref name="Marks 2000"/>

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 Stargate transcripts. Marks found this suspicious, commenting "this refusal suggests that something must be wrong with the data or with the methods of data selection."<ref name="Marks 2000"/>

Ingo Swann

Template:Main Originally tested in the "Phase One" were OOBE-Beacon "RV" experiments at the American Society for Psychical Research,<ref name="outerplaces.com">Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Unreliable source? under research director Karlis Osis.Template:Cn A former OT VII Scientologist,<ref name="wiseoldgoat.com">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Self-published inline 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 his book.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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).<ref name="chelseanow.com">Template:Cite news</ref> 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 on remote viewing, aliens, and ETs.<ref name="cia.gov">Template:Cite news</ref>

Pat Price

A former Burbank, California, police officer and former Scientologist who participated in a number of Cold War era remote viewing experiments, including the US government-sponsored projects SCANATE 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.<ref>Pat Price URL:https://www.scientolipedia.org/info/Pat_Price Template:Webarchive (Scientolipedia)</ref> 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.<ref name=multiple1>Sources:

• Schnabel, Jim (1997) Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies Dell, 1997 , Template:ISBN
• 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

</ref>

Military personnel

Lieutenant General James Clapper

The project leaderTemplate:Failed verification in the 1990s was Lt. Gen. Clapper who later would serve as the Director of National Intelligence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Albert Stubblebine

Major General Albert Stubblebine

Template:Main A key sponsor of the research internally at Fort Meade, 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 Template:Em Uri Geller, 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 (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 primarily out of Fort Bragg, with Stargate. After some controversy involving these experiments, including alleged security violations from uncleared civilian psychics working in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs), Stubblebine was placed on retirement. His successor as the INSCOM commander was Maj. Gen. Harry Soyster, who had a reputation as a much more conservative and conventional intelligence officer. Soyster was not amenable to continuing paranormal experiments and the Army's participation in Project Stargate ended during his tenure.Template:R

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, Template:ISBN), Morehouse claims to have worked on hundreds of remote viewing assignments, from searching for a Soviet jet that crashed in the jungle carrying an atomic bomb, to tracking suspected double agents.<ref name="Publishers Weekly">Template:Cite web</ref>

Joseph McMoneagle

Template:Main 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.Template:R

Ed Dames

Dames' role was intended to be as session monitor and analyst as an aid to Fred Atwater<ref name="pleyades">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Self-published inline rather than a remote viewer, Dames received no 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, UFOs, and aliens. He has been a frequent guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio shows.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Archives of the Impossible

The Archives of the Impossible (AOTI) of Rice University at Houston, Texas is a special collection founded in 2014 by Jeffrey J. Kripal, a professor of religion.<ref name="KPRC-TV AOTI 2024-10-28" /><ref name="Clarke Oxford AOTI 2025-05-27" /> AOTI is based at the Woodson Research Center (WRC) and materials are housed in the Fondren Library.<ref name="Clarke Oxford AOTI 2025-05-27" /><ref name="Billeaud Anderson AOTI July 2022" /> AOTI holds declassified research material of the Stargate Project.<ref name="Billeaud Anderson AOTI July 2022" /><ref name="Askey AOTI 2025-10-20" /> Christopher Senn was identified as organizing the Stargate Project collection for Rice University.<ref name="Routledge et al 2022 Religion" />Template:Rp The collection was donated by Edwin May, the U.S. Army's program director from 1985 to 1995.<ref name="Billeaud Anderson AOTI July 2022" /><ref name="Askey AOTI 2025-10-20" /> In Routledge's Handbook of Religion and Secrecy by Hugh Urban and Paul Christopher Johnson, Kripal and Senn detailed that May's donation to AOTI encompassed thousands of pages of declassified materials.<ref name="Routledge et al 2022 Religion" />Template:Rp Editor Derek Askey of the The Sun in 2025 detailed his visit to AOTI, and his examination of materials from the government's Stargate Project.<ref name="Askey AOTI 2025-10-20" /> The Stargate Project materials donated by May span from 1972 to 1995.<ref name="Billeaud Anderson AOTI July 2022" />

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Caroll, Robert Todd (2012). "Remote Viewing". In the Skeptic's Dictionary. John Wiley & Sons. Template:ISBN.
• Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. Template:ISBN.
• 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, Template:ISBN. Morehouse was a psychic in the program.
• Ronson, Jon (2004). The Men Who Stare at Goats. Picador. Template:ISBN. Written to accompany the TV series Crazy Rulers of the World. The US military budget cuts after the Vietnam war and how it all began.
• Template:Cite book
• Smith, Paul (2004). Reading the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate: America's Psychic Espionage Program, Forge Books. Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite journal

External links

• Report from 1995 about the program from American Institutes for Research
• Declassified analytical report (1983) related to the project
• Declassified documents about the project on the website of the CIA
• Shawn Ryan Show, Episode #154 Transcript