EMIGRE TELLS OF RESEARCH IN SOVIET IN PARAPSYCHOLOGY FOR MILITARY USE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080033-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 5, 1998
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: June 19, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

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? Emigre Tells o?f Research in Soviet
In Parapsychology for Military Use
By FLORA LEWIS
Special to The
PARIS, June 18?An emigre Soviet
physicist says that the Soviet Union hits
been doing secret work in parapsycholo-
gy, for what appear to be military and
police purposes. '
The Soviet emigre. August Stern, who
now live tn. Paris, spent three years in
a secret Siberian laboratory in the late
1900's Wing*, find a physical basis for
psychic energy, or "psi particles," as they
are called. ? -
Moscow's interest in the subject was
demonstrated the case of Robert C.
Toth, a correttpOndeat,of The. Loll Angeles
Times, who Was interrogated this week
In Moscow 'hy thei tea., the security
police, and was deemed of having re-
ceived "stilt, *0900"; about parapsy-
chology. He WU llowed to leave for
home after proteins by * United States
Government.
(In Washington, articles said the in-
telligence community was aware of
Soviet research in parapsychology, but
added that American specialists did not
believe the Russians had made any
unusual discoveries. One official said
moturrartlytt211:
Nwy5The,
some Soviet work appeared aimed at
developing psychological warfare
methods.] '
The Toth incident had the , earmarks
of an entrapment, itt the VieW of some
diplomats. There is no sign that the 25.
page docutneet on parapsychology hand-
ed to him on the atreet just before he
was seized contained important informs-
r3Pn. However, *iv is a, record of soviet
sensitivity and August Stern's triton-star
tion Indicates that parapsychology is a
matter of coocoint to the authorities.
Mr. Stern is e son of Dr. Mikhail Stern.
indoerinolegist who was imprisoned
before, Wag fliOnooxi to leave the Soviet
Volon in. March. August Stern said he
was told befofte leaving the Soviet Union
two years ;go OW a,i aVec more secret
laboratory than the one he knew in Sibe-
ria had been set up in Moscow under
the direction of the iciO.IL
A French scientist and former intelli-
gence agent. Jacques Bergier, has written
a tonic nifying that extrasensory percep-
Continued en Page 20, Column 1
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Emigre Reports on Soviet Researd
Continued From Page 1
lion, one of the theories studied by parap-
gy, may be used in espionage.
ought control, sioveillance and as a
form of weapon.
Parapsychology covers four specific
fields of r*onphysical ,phenomena. They
are telepathy (transmission of thought
without use of the senses), extrasensory
perception, telekinesis (transmission of
Moticm without any evident use of physi-
cal energy) and clairvoyance (the ability
to see distant or future events without
physical intervention):
Most scientists remain skeptical that
such phenomena actually exist, but there
are researchers throughout the world
dedicated 10 proving and, if possible, ex-
plaining them.
Formal, officially subsidized Soviet re-
search in the held has gone on for years,
sornetdpies publicly vaunted and at ether
Skates denounced and even denied.
U.S. Navy Ws Interested In 1950's
At one time in the late 1950s and early
1980s, the United States Navy and the
Student Research Institute did e3?i.
mai* In telepathy to see whether it cOulgi
provide an undetectable means( nt 1901
munioating with. submarines. So too as
ill known; the experiments fUed. But
Pwrd of them reached Moscow and APPIP
ea!, prOveked 11/14h-1erg. iitt.falst in,wf
subject,
In 1975 some Soviet parapsychologists
were persecuted and the whole subject
was publicly attacked. Eduard Naamov,
a researcher with no evident connection
with the military or .police, was triedne
a charge of accepthig, a for 1
without permiselOo.'*ntl we
to two years in labor c
iftwe were 4ftanissed
and otherwise harassed!'At,tb
Much was made of the factInat tiehad
contacts with Western ParatteYebale$Iits_r'
Utter, on June LeOniti. k.
Brezlinev, the Soviet lender, urge# the,
United States to agree on a ban ni!' v.
search and development of new kimiWat
Weapons "more terrible" than anytIn
the world has known. Anieridan'atniS
Onto:A negotiators have tried to find out
horn their Soviet counterparts what he
had in mind, but they have not learned
anything more than that he meant some
kind of rays," according to United States
(IWO&
, Vasseillating Treatment Noted
At first, American intelligence thought
he might have been referring to laser
beams, or some way of focusing cosmic
rays, but they no longer believe this to
be the case. They Gay that they are baf-
fled by the reference.
There is no evidence that Mr.Brezhnev
soodotita PAlis
Robert C. Toth., Los Angeles Times
exit, In London yesterday.
,
was referring to something in the field
of perapsioholwi . But it is a possibility
has ooeurrn to some observers, es-
ly bectsusie of the vascillating treat-
?, propsychologists, the evident
vOyemsitit or the Joao. with the sub-
; Sad what some regard as a tradition-
interest in mysticism.
tiS Mittel detention a week ago,
,Toth was reported to have quoted
4 statement made by an employee
adesety Of Sciences wbo had been
the authorities to examine the
te n his possession. The state-
tleferred to "psi particles" and said
material is secret and shows the
of work done in some closed scien-
tific institutes of our state."
*Last year, the %xis, newspaper Le
Monde published a letter by a Russian
naMedVladimir Lvov denouncing a previ-
ous letter by a French professor, Henri
Gestalt, an denying that parapsycholo-
gy research we& officially supported in
the Soviet Union.
' Mr. Lvov was identified by Le Monde
as a "Soviet scientific writer in Lenin-
grad," but Western sources said they be-
lieved he was connected with the K.G.B.
The French professor had simply men-
tioned, in the course of a plea for support
of parapsychology research, that the Rus-
sians were engaged in it.
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rii iv, xti .10.11.,, ?S DA Y, JUNE 19, 1911
tin Parapsychology for Military Uses
The reply, titled "Myths and Realities
in the Soviet Union," and published on
Aug. 4, 1976, Mr. Lvov said:
"The truth is simple. There is no parap-
sychology as a legitimate and officially
recognized branch of Soviet science. No
institute or scientific research center in
the U. S. S. R. is occupied with telepathy,
psychokinesis, etc. But there are a few
groups of amateurs. , . who look into
the 'paranormal' with the aid of some
journalists without scruples of scientufic
exactitude."
Yet, soon after the trial 61 Mr. Naumov,
the Soviet parapsychologist, a report to
The Times of London said the Soviet
Academy of Pedagogical Sciences had de-
clared the study of psychic phenomena
a subject fit for scientific study, and
therefore not a permissable field for unof-
ficial researchers.
Mr. Stern's reminiscenses of the labora-
tory where he worked and the way it
was finally shut down only add to the
public record. The laboratory was in No--
vOrdbirsk's Science City, a complex be-
longing to the Siberian branch of the
Academy of Sciences. It was In a separate
building, and the door could be opened
only by a coded lock with the code
changed every week. It was known as
"Special Department No. and WO re
(erred to as a branch of .the Institute
of Automation and Electrometry.
Headed by a Navy Officer
The head was Vilely Perov, a navy offi-
cer. who opened it in 1966, Mr. Stern
said, He recalled that Mr. Perov :Mewed
deference to two visitors who came in
the early days to check on theilistalla,
tion. Mr. Stem believed the visitors to
he K.O.S. men.
Worker' were recruited from around the
country until there were about 60 persons
at the laboratory. The scientists among
them were given virtually unlimited funds
for elaborate equipment, "It cost many
Millions," Mr. Stern said. His own work
was in theoretical rehYSICS. MEI view was
that there might he an orderly system
in which all kinds of energy could be
charted, shriller to Mendeleyev's periodic
table of qh .fanicai elements. As a result
o fthe periodic table, which originally left
some ePaeS? -unknown elements
system.
If such a chart could be discovered
for energy, Mr: Stern thought, it, toe,
might he found to have blank spaces that
might lead to physical identification of
particles to explain the mystery of psy-
chic energy, the "psi particles."
'Ile worked for two years and found
nothing. Other experiments t the labora-
tory involved applying electric shocks to
mwly-born kittens, to see .whether their
mothers, three flora upetairs, registered
any reaction through, some mental con-
nection; television surveillance of people
in a room to see whether they responded
to attempts by others several rooms away
to send them telepathic orders; studies
involving monkeys and electromagnetic
fields.
There were also experiments with
photon waves, in which Irina' eyes were
used as a more sensitive measuring in-
strument than a machine. One Involved
putting .baktaria on two sides of a glass
plate to see .whether a fatal disease could
be transtrifttSd through the glass. It was
reasoned % that-if this eentor be done, it
would slit* that photons?light particles
?were accounted for some, inexplicable
forms of ecfmnunicaOon,
Suddenly, in 1960, the laboratory was
shut clown. Ma Stern said he did not
know the reason ? did not think it
was really the to lack of success or
e trience, as official-
ly
suggested at the , but ?a change
of attitude or 'ewer balance In tbe Krem-
lin,
Project Was Canceled
He "07,441 back in Moscow by then. He
heard that the milltaty, and particularly
the navy', Was conducting parapsychology
research in,I4iningrad.
A friejid of his, a Leningrad scientist
named fleries4l Iltergeyev, told hint he
was receiving p0.414ort and funds to
*Pett snow laboratory and offered him
* )04.. But t Prcilectlft t'inceled'
Later, friends told.Stera that the
work done lit . 111.0 planned
in Leningrad bad beet combined in a new
laboratory inMosdow Older the auspices
of the K.G.B H.nev$c tattled any more
about it
?By illet time he left in lOr*, he was
told that all perapeichoMgy work hold
been curtailed ' except for the secret
K4.11.4elboratory. He said he had heard
feelers that something "important, very
dangerous" had been discovered, but he
commented:
"1 never believed it. How can the K.O.B.
do effective research? They need real
scientists."
his experience in Naftali:kink had con-
vinced him that many researchers with
official sponsorship were poorly qualified
or even quacks and their claims could
not be substantiated. His own research
papers were confiscated before be env',
grated.
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