CNTH?: ON THE STRATEGIC POTENTIAL OF ESP

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• Publication Date: January 1, 1982
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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3
 Approved For Release 2000/08/O+1PaEl14CI
88RO01700360003-3
Ctt?: On the Strategic
Potential of ESP
By Dr. Roger A. Beaumont
INTEREST IN the military potential.
of ESP-extrasensory percep-
tion-has grown in recent years.
Some of it stems from the search
for reliable and jamming-free
modes of communication. A popu-
lar wave of interest in ESP
stemmed from a boom in the occult
and supernatural phenomena in the
late 1960s and early 1970s, a time
when ESP research in Eastern Eu-
rope and the Soviet Union also
attracted popular attention. Claims
of success in using ESP in military
operations, however, appeared af-.
ter the First World War'.
In spite of all such assertions, a
basic question remains unan-
swered: does ESP actually work?
While many have thought so-and
think so-some scientists in the
West have feared that the mounting
fascination with ESP, in league
with the resurgence in the occult
and mysticism, threatens science.
itself. Moreover, such nagging
'doubt about psychic phenomena is
Approved For Reliea&26b0/0V?f
-RDg
strategic. studies, as well as three
Dr. Roger A. Beaumont is a profes-
sor of history at Texas A&M Uni-
versity and has authored more than
40 articles on military history and
SIGNAL, JANUARY, 1982
0 03
not evident in Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union. The Russians
have long recognized that if ESP
were an actual effect and could be
harnessed, it would have great stra-
tegic potential.
Are such systems really possi-
ble? Many have thought so for
some time2. In this respect, it may
be useful to look closely at the
differences in approach in ESP re-
search in the West, on the one
hand, and in the Soviet block coun-
tries on the other. In the latter,
parapsychology is not considered
to be a separate research disci-
pline. Instead, articles on "bio-
communications" (telepathy) ap-
pear in traditional scientific jour-
nals, salted in among what Western
scientists view as orthodox re-
search. The attention of many in
the West was aroused in the 1970s,
as Soviet authorities brought a
heavy hand down on news cover-
age of ESP research in Russia3.
Western Research
In the West, psychic research
has long been tainted. by sensation-
alism and some charlatanism.
Since the late 19th century, many
8~00~%VA&Ar3the mystical have
jd ~.1
AT 1_ ..a.6 39
 Approved For Release 2000/08/0LJCNCLA& R001700360003-3
'sought links with the supernatural
-through such means as Ouija
boards and seances: The dramatic
and the absurd overtones of the
popular culture aspect of ESP has
led even the more conservative ele-
ments of the popular press to treat
ESP as a novelty. Also confusing is
the fact that the various types of
apparent ESP-telekinesis (the
projection of force), telepathy
(mental transmission), clairvoy-
ance (the sensing of remote images)
and precognition (foreknowl-
edge)-have been lumped together
as related phenomena. Major cen-
ters of ESP research in the West, at
Utrecht, London and Duke Uni-
versity, have come under suspicion
from many scientists. As a result,
researchers, like J. B. Rhine, re-
cently deceased, have labored to
prove an effect. which the Soviets
accept and attempt to explain-and
control.
While the enfolding of "biocom-
munications" within their central-
ized research system may reflect
Soviet concern that ESP drifts too
close to religion, their closing of
public access to ESP research
might be a parallel to what hap-
pened in the United States and
Britain during World War II after
work on an atomic bomb began'.
When it was still visible, Russian
research seemed to be trying to
reconcile individual ESP experi-.
ence with transmission and recep-
tion of low-peer low-frequency
electromagnetic waves. similar to
the kind used to transmit radio,
television and radar signalss. Much
of the work on "biocommunica-
tions" dealt with the electrical
dynamics of organisms, even back
in the. 1950s, when, in the United
States, the idea that animals and
plants and individual cells could be
influenced by electromagnetic radi;.
ation other than heat was rejected
in biological research.
Soviet Research
Since the 1930s, biologists and
parapsychologists in the Soviet
Union have traced out in ever
greater detail a telepathic transmit-
ter-receiver ESP model, based on
the concept that people with strong
abilities as either transmitters or
receivers can communicate by
sending basic symbols or sensa-
tions (but not detailed or precise
verbal thoughts or images) at great
distance, thus, constituting a "cy-
bernetic system with all its proper-
ties"6-based on very-long-wave
transmission. Nevertheless, the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE)
of 1974 states flatly in the article on
"Parapsychology" that while ESP
is a phenomenon, it is not related to
a variant of long-wave electromag-
netic transmission. Since the GSE
is known to be a vehicle for official
policy and is rather Orwellian in
nature, the refutation, which con-
trasts with much extant in Soviet
ESP research, is interesting.
While transmission of data over
great distances by ESP was exam-'
fined in the West from the 1920s on,
it was rejected at first, since it was
in violation of scientific laws which
were believed to govern radio
transmission and which decreed
that there was a falling-off of power
relative to the square of the dis-
tance between transmitter and re-
ceiver. Later, when unexpected
long-range transmission of weak
signals due to atmospheric effects
was discovered, a theory of analo-
gous enhancement and relay
through psi-sensitive individuals of
ESP "signals" came to the forej
while other research pointed to the
effects of electromagnetic radiation
on the body8.
Research into the biological ef-
fects of electromagnetic'waves is,
of course, not an exclusive pre-
serve of Soviet science. It has been
known for almost a century, for
example, that magnetic fields in-
duce a sensation of light in the
human eye, even in darkness9. In
the late 1960s, a Russian-born
American physicist noted magnetic
resonance effects in matter con-
taining particles with gyromagnetic
properties, observing that "absorp-
tion of electromagnetic energy can
cause transitions from lower to
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While such evidence of overlap
between parapsychology and biolo-
gy, physics and chemistry falls
short of the certainty needed for
firm scientific conclusion, the un-
certainty poses a problem for de-
fense policy makers. It is especially
frustrating, considering the history.
of ESP which is strewn with hoax-
es and wishful thinking that even
some scientifically-trained para-
psychologists have drifted into mis-
representation and fudging, as des-
perate searches for conclusive re-
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 Approved For Release 2000/08/0'x: N"4&588RO01700360003-3
"Perhaps ESP is a not-yet-understood sensitivity to subtle cues, or the brain
function, as a computer processing information subconsciously. Perhaps
those who are most sensitive "print out" slightly before or in parallel with
distant events, thus appearing to be clairvoyant, but having actually calcu-
lated probabilities unconsciously from data gathered along the way-also
unconsciously."
hoaxes further discredits a field of
investigation under suspicion. As
John Beloff, a parapsychologist,
has noted, ESP research has ". .
suffered from its fatal attraction for
persons of unbalanced mind who
seek in it their personal salvation.
"12
Nevertheless, what is to be made
out of the evidence that suggests
the possibility that there may be
something more solid lying behind
it?13 That question makes govern-
ment funding of ESP-related re-
search, at the worst, a ticking
.
bomb and, at best, a quandary
Sponsoring such seemingly wild-
eyed studies could well explode
back in the face of sponsoring
agencies, policymakers or re-
searchers-but failure to follow
leads might yield great advantages
to those less skeptical.
Perhaps ESP is a not-yet-under-
stood sensitivity to subtle cues, or
the brain function, as computer
processing information subcon-
sciously. Perhaps those who. are
most sensitive "print out" slightly
before or in parallel with distant
events, thus appearing to be clair-
voyant, but having actually calcu-
lated probabilities unconsciously
from data gathered along the way-
also unconsciou?ly. Are such ran-
dom coincidences noticed only un-
der stress, as psychiatrist Carl Jung
suggested in his theory of "syn-
chronicity"? Or is there actually a
lining up of .electropotential forces
in the brain at certain times, creat-
ing a low-power long-wave trans-
mitter-receiver system of the kind
suggested by Kogan?
Defense-related Research
American defense analysts and
policy makers seem to have been
hedging their bets in this area for
some 'time. Reports of U.S. de-
fense-related ESP research have
appeared fairly regularly in the
public press over the last quarter of
a century. In the 1950s, for exam-
ple, news releases and popular fea-
tures described the involvement of
WestinghousQpRr t6AireP,eilse
the Army's Redstone Arsenal in
ESP research. Later, the names of
the Rand Corporation and the Insti
tute for Defense Analyses cropped
up occasionally. In the early 1960s,
there were reports of telepathy be-
tween the submarine USS NAUTI-
LUS and a shore-based command
post-which was denied forthwith
by the Navy.14 In 1973, stories ap-
peared describing CIA-sponsored.
probing of Soviet and Chinese se-
cret installations by individuals
with high psi ability.'S By the mid-
1970s, Stanford Research Institute
appeared to be carrying the ball.16
From time to time, some indica-
tions of interest on the part of
NASA emerged to public view.
Following a call for an experiment
in the course of the moonlanding
programs in the late 1960s,11 an
astronaut, Captain Edgar Mitchell,
conducted an experiment using
star-cross-wave-square-circle psi
cards developed at Duke Universi-
ty. In six sessions, he "transmit-
ted" 25 card images at preset
times, while "recipients" recorded
their impressions. While the results
exceeded statistical probability,
they were not overwhelming."
NASA was quick to disclaim offi-
cial sponsorship.
Other cases of NASA involve-
ment included a communication
project funded through Stanford
Research Institute, which generat-
ed hostile reaction in some scien-
tific circles, and a "previewing" of
Jupiter by a well-known psychic
researcher.'9
Evidence of interest and re-
search, however, does not neces-
sarily mean serious acceptance or
commitment to programs. James
Dougherty pointed out how nations
involved in disarmament talks may
interject "jokers" or "riders" into
otherwise serious and rational pro-
posals-to make sure that their op-
ponents will not accept them.
Those thus maneuvered into the
role of rejectors may then seem in
the eyes of technically unaware
publics to be the foes of peace.20 A
corollary to this is the strategy of
mounting shadow programs to
200&Q8a:dQWWR9Q&ftR88R90
and resources-into a dead-end,
the essence of Soviet efforts in the
field of "disinformation." If Soviet.
research in this area proved to be a
spoof, the diversion of money and
people to ESP could lead to the
overlooking of other develop-
ments, as well as serving as a waste
of effort.
Such cautions do not erase the
tantalizing advantages to be gained
in harnessing ESP. Given that such
phenomena are based on an ele-
ment of reality, the strategic use of
ESP raises a further. series of ques-
tions. Are the alignments of people
or conditions only random or occa-
sional? Is psi ability a by-product
of surrounding electromagnetic ra-
diations, or of solar radiation or
induced by terrestrial magnetism?
Is it enhanceable through hypno-
tism or drugs? Is there means for
testing for psi ability? Or for devel-
oping it? Can it be jammed? Is the
effect simply explainable in terms.
of a variation of radio-communica-
tions theory? Can "information
bits," or code messages really be
transmitted by sending combina-
tions of basic sensory images? Is
foreknowledge and remote-sensing
possible? Is it group enhanceable?
ESP and C3
In a parallel vein, the mounting
interest in C3-command, control,
communication-reflects concern
about the complexities .of war in
what National Security Advisor
Breszinski called the "nucleotronic
age." The situation is made more-
critical not only by a rising curve of
innovation but also by anxiety
about Russian developments in this
area. Contradictions in their pub-
lished material do not produce
much agreement among Western
analysts about where the Soviets
are going, but their lines of thought
and unorthodox military problem-
solving techniques are unique and
sometimes strange-21
And so it is not clear at this point
if both sides are really just playing
with each other, or if there'is some-
thing really developing in the realm
7003388033poofing, deception and
camouflage are normal strategies in
the conduct of war-and peace. If
 Approved For Release 2000/08 c NlC"4%788R001700360003-3
ESP does work as a kind of long-
wave radio, it could allow reliable,
unjammable, unmonitorable com-
munication with remote strategic
weapons, especially the nuclear
submarine force. Is there, then,
some overlap between ELF-the
extremely low-frequency radio sys-
tem proposed by the Navy over the
last 10 years under the titles 'San-
guine and Seafarer-and ESP?
The congruence of the Soviet
model of ESP and the characteris-
tics of ELF (Extremely Low Fre-
quency) communication occur at
several qualitative levels, from the
simple aspect of hypothetical-theo-
retical overlap of transmission and
reception, to the need for an un-
jammable and EMP-proof C3 medi-
um in post-nuclear exchange envi-
ronment modes, from "broken-
back war" fighting' to conflict
termination. One main hypotheti-
cal parallel is ' the problem of slow
data rate, a la the age of signal flags
and semaphores, and the early era
of telegraphy and radio, a problem
overcome with codebooks, and
imagination. Unhappily, an effec-
tive ESP system would, depending
on the nature of the phenomena,
offer potential to the executor of a
surprise attack, from the psychic
influencing of targets, through pre-
cognition and remote sensing, to
message transmission below the
detection and countermeasure
threshold of a potential victim.22
? Thus the anxiety born of the'magni-
tudes of increase in threat and con-
sequence of error tends to overide
rationalist skepticism.
Threat Perception
Perception and interpretation of
threat, after all, has been a growing
problem in the age of machine war-
fare, a by-product of the rising
speed and destructiveness of weap-
ons. Since the 1950s and the com-
ing of H-Bomb-tipped ICBMs, the
nuclear super-powers have wired
together elaborate networks of ra-
dar screens, electronic computers,
radios, telephones and, more re-
cently, satellites, fiber optics, fluid-
ic computers and lasers.' Articles in
the Western popular press on the
strategic potential of ESP began to
appear in the late 1950s, as the first
generation of inter-continental bal-
listic missiles cut nuclear surprise
attack warning time from hours to
minutes. Since then, such concern
born of increasingly destructive nu-
clear power has been a driving
force in shaping such "command
and control" systems to function
rapidly, 'and at A hr l *F i- 4l ie,
ciency, systems which are de-
signed as much to prevent war as to
fight. The anxiety has also been
reinforced by the fact that the two
nuclear superpowers are the na-
tions which suffered the greatest
strategic surprises of World War-II,
Operation BARBAROSSA, the
Nazi assault on Russia, and Pearl
Harbor, both in 1941, within six
months of each other.
A~principal problem in the realm
of ESP stems from the dynamics of
political power in an age in which
"far-out" concepts have regularly
become reality. Those who -seek
and hold political power often lack
technical knowledge about the
complex systems on which defense
and foreign policy rely. Many mod-
ern leaders have come to be as
dependent on their scientific advi-
sors as ancient kings were on their
shamans and soothsayers. The
controversial influence of Dr. Lin-
demann (later Lord Cherwell) on
Winston Churchill ' in the Second
World War is still viewed as cru-
cial, since Lindemann's advice led
to a major redirection of British
bombing toward attacks on Ger-
man civilians.
In the Nuclear Age, national
leaders have often had science ad-
visors act as translators of the ar-
cane, even though the performance
of such modern shamans has been
uneven. Albert Speer, for example,
overlooked the potential of nuclear
research, and the influence of Lord
Cherwell on Winston Churchill has
long been under scrutiny by histori-
ans. In any case, science has yield-
ed much of use in modern war,
and, recently, as World War II
secret files have been opened, the,
electronic warfare and decoding
battles of that period, truly resem-
ble, as Churchill said, a duel of
magicians.
When 'looking at the current
plight of policy makers in respect
to ESP, then, it is sobering to recall
that the vast atomic bomb project
of World War 11, undertaken in fear
of parallel Nazi efforts, was based
on an unproven hypothesis in a
highly theoretical 'branch of sci-
ence. Nevertheless, two days be-
fore Pearl Harbor, President Roo-
sevelt committed vast and scarce
resources to support the work of
scientists who had no firm data in
hand, to seek the exotic goal of
loosing the electrical bonds of mat-
ter. As a result, what was literally
science fiction 'until 1944 became
brutal truth in 1945.
Effects of Programs
The data at hand hardly suggest
sehg0OOO8 08itlid1'1'Xu R96 8R
is in order. Any substantial pro-
gram mounted in this area would
face hazardous paradoxes. If too
much were spent, and produced a
dead-end, the political result could
be deadly. But if the potential were
ignored, and an adversary succeed-
ed in harnessing ESP, the result
would be worse than embarrass-
ment. If ESP can, indeed, be mea-
sured and controlled, whichever
player in the game of international
power mastered it might succeed
without tipping their hand;`it would
be hard to keep sealed off. If the
effect proved to be a variant in the
phenomenon of extra-long wave
communication, a whole sub-world
of communications research would
be opened up, not to mention the
impact on' geography, meteorology
and psychometry. '
The tendency for. those who
dwell in corridors of power to over-
read threats is proverbial. In view
of that, even suspicion that a foe
was using ESP could generate tur-
bulence in a system in times of
stress or crisis. The uncertainty
regarding the designs and motives
behind Soviet interest in ESP also
raises other questions. Is that inter-
est merely a spoof, a form of "dis-
information," or are they really
into pay=dirt and trying to cover
up? Did they move their ESP re-
search into their first-line scientific
research establishment' to conceal
developments-or ' to heighten
Western anxiety and ' uncertainty?
Do they fear that the West may be
active in this area-or even ahead?
Perhaps, in the end, all the inter-
est and effort in this area will prove
merely superstitious and wasteful.
Or perhaps many have already
glimpsed bits and fragments of an
.effect-or effects-which will
someday be measured scientifical-
ly. For those looking out over this
strange and blurred landscape, and
trying to fit it into a context of
policy, operations and technology,
it is a very tough call, indeed.
Footnotes
'The Czechs, for instance, claimed the use of
clairvoyance against the Hungarians in 1918 and in
guerrilla warfare in World War 11. Sheila Os-
trander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries
Behind the Iron Curtain, Englewood Cliffs. Pren-
tice Hall; 1970, pp. 312-313; Peter Maddock,
"Electromagnetic Induction of Psi States:' The
Way Forward in Parapsychology." -in Mysteries,
Colin Wilson, New York. 0. P. Putnam's Sons,
1978, p. 632.
2ln the 1920s, the British government reportedly
funded development of a device to measure psy-
chic emanations, Ian Stevenson, "The 'Uncom-
fortable Facts About Extra-Sensory Perception,"
Harper's. July 1959. pp. 20-25; The military theo-
OVA4" 11gr, a student of the occult,
JJ tt n1~s between psychic power and
generalship; Anthony John Trythall. "Roney"
Fuller: Soldier, Strategist and Writer, 1878-1966.
 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : ClI=RIDR.
New Brunswick, Rutgcis-University Press, 1977.
'See Henry Gris and William Dick, The New
Soviet Psychic Discoveries, Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice Hall, 1978, pp. 286-287; R. A. McCon-
1700360003-3
Ingo Swann, "The Threat of Possible Psychic
Techniques in Future Conflicts. Proceedings of
the 17th Annual U.S. Army Operations Research
Symposium, 6-9 November 1978. Fort Lee. VA
(DDC#AD B 036704); also see Dennis -M. Ross,
"Hypnosis as a Tool of Military Intelligence,"
Military intelligence (4:3). July-September 1978,
pp. 34-37; and John B. Alexander, "The New
Mental Battlefield: 'Beam Me UP. Spock,' " Mili-
tary Review (LY:12), Decemer 1980, pp. 47-54.
"M. Ruderfer, "Note on the Effect of Distance
in ESP." Journal of the American Society for
Psychical Research (63:2), April, 1969, p. 201.
19N.a., "Space Experiment in ESP is De-
scribed," New York Times, February 23, 1971, p.
nell. "Parapsychology in the USSR," Journal of
Parapsychology (39:2), June 1976; pp. 129-134:
Milan Ryz1, Parapsychology: A Scientific Ap-
proach: J. G. Pratt, "Soviet Research in Parapsy-
chology" in Handbook of Parapsychology, Benja-
min Woolman, ed., New York, Van Nostrand
Reinhold. 1977; Alfred Douglas, Extra-Sensory
Perception: A Century of Psychic Research, Lon-
don, Victor Gollancz, p. 345. In 1974, it was
announced that E. M. Naurov, a principal Soviet
ESP investigator, had been jailed for two years on
charges of having personally profited from his
work and contacting foreigners, and, in 1977.
Russian security police detained an American
journalist for questioning who had tried to inter-
view Soviet ESP researchers. Reports of Soviet
VIPs seeking health treatment from a well-known
medium have appeared in the West, e.g., see n.a.,
"Ober Ihrgm ein Leuchten," Der Spiegel (35:17),
April 20, 1981, pp. 126-139.
'See Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The
Story of the Manhattan Project, New York,
Harper and Brothers, 1962, p. 146ff.
See M. Ryzl, 'Model of Parapsychological
Communication," Sdelovica Technika (8), 1964,
pp. 299-302, AD-466927, and I. M. Kogan, "The
Information Theory Aspect of Telepathy," transi.
F. J. Krieger, Rand Paper p. 41-45, 1%9. For
whatever reason, since Kogan's article appeared,
listing of ESP-related research in US unclassified
technical report indices has ceased.
6L. Vasiliev, Studies in Mental Telepathy, Mos-
cow, Gospoliditzat, 1966. Joint Public Research
Service Document No. 10702, p. 175.
'See Adrian Dobbs, "The Feasibility of a Physi-
cal Theory of ESP" in J. R. Smythies, Science and
ESP, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971,
pp. 230-254.
'A. S. Presman, "The Role of Electromagnetic
Fields in the Processes of Vital Activity," Bio-
physics, 1964, p. 134, also see na., "Biofields: The
Aura of Magic," Washington Post, July 20, 1978,
Sec. K, p. 10.
9E.g., see Horace Barlow, Henry I. Kohn and
E. Geoffrey Walsh, "Visual Sensations Aroused
by Magnetic Fields," American Journal of Physi-
ology (L48:2), Feb., 1947, pp. 372-375; Walter
Sullivan, "Finger Tip Regrowth Starts a Study of
Regenerating Nerves and Limbs," New York
Times, Dec. 30, 1979, Sec. 1, pp. 1 & 18.
10Alexander Kolin, "Magnetic Fields in Biolo-
gy," Physics Today, November, 1968, pp. 39-50.
In the early 1970s, the use of very low level
currents to aid in the 'healing of broken bones
evolved from research on the electrical aspects of
limb regrowth in lower order animals.
11C. Maxwell Cade and Ann P. Woodley-Hart,
"The Measurement of Hypnosis and Auto-hypno-
sis by Determination of Electrical Skin Resist-
ance," Journal of the Society for Psychic Re-
search (76:748), June 1971, p. 99.
"For a brief critique and description, see Eliza-
beth Hall, Possible Impossibilities, Boston,
Houghton -Mifflin, 1977, p. 161.
')See Stephan A. Schwartz, "Deep Quest,"
Omni, March 1979, p. 94ff.
"Gerald Messarie, "Le Secret du Nautilis,"
Science er Vie, No. 509, 1960, pp. 30-35, and n.a.,
"L'Arm6e AmericAine btudie le 6 sense," Science
et Vie, No. 508, 1960, p. 32.
I?New York Times Index, 1973; and Bris and
Dick, New Soviet Psychic Discoveries, Engle-
wood Cliffs, Prentice Hall. 1978, p. 293. For a
more recent perspective, see Ingo Swann. Ban-
quet Address, "Proceedings of the 17th Annual
. Army Op~-ationsPResc rFtt~Caltgwgs?ium1#
Ft
Ft. Lee, VA, ~rl tSblFl
SAD B 0362704. pp. 9-27.
"For evidence of a trend in the late 1970s. see
19See Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, "A
Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer Over
Kilometer Distances: Historical Perspectives and
Recent Research" in Mind at Large: IEEE Sympo-
sia on the Nature of ESP, ed. Charles T. Tant,
Puthoff and Targ (New York: Praeger. 1979). pp.
13-76; n.a., "Techniques to Enhance Man/Ma-
chine Communication," Stanford Research Insti-
tute, July 1974, Final Report on NASA Project
WAS 7-100).
7elames E. Dougherty. Nov.' to Think About
Arms Control and Disarmament, New York,
Crane and Russak, 1973, p. 52.
=IE.g., V. V. Druzhinin and D. S. Kontorov,
Concept, Algorithm, Decision. Washington, DC:
U.S. Air Force, 1974.
22See Clinton Roche, "ELF and the SSN: Data
Rate at Depth and Speed Today," SIGNAL (35:8),
April 1981, pp. 29-32
I ,:i,- l,,.-,~ C; i -i:
F Ir r
rr r r
r,r r 1 r rr r 1
DM C34-3/ B
'Shipboard/ Mobile
If your current or future requirements indicate a need for satellite commu-
nication antennas, please contact Thomas J. Nichols or Frank W. Kellerman
for further information.
CIA-R Y ~ LtC INC.
eterans emorla 1Qhway
Bohemia, N. Y. 11716 Tel. [phone] TWX 510.228-6502
DM'1501341 Series
 0 lQ GLAD
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3
The.Pe'ntagonis?spending millions,on, parapsychology }
'
s psycho-superiority..
in a crash-program to end Russia
BY RON McRAE AND SUE MERROW ?
Picture this sign propped. in the, win- spectral .image -analyzer." Whitehouse spending money on such a loony gim-
dow of a modest storefront: "Madame assured the gullible admirals they could Mick as, an anti-missile time warp--a
Zodiac, Psychic. Palms Read.. Horo- locate ~a particular submarine 'by Insert- variant on Dr. Wonmug's time machine
scopes - Interpreted. - Russian '"Sub- Ing a photograph of It in his machine.' In the 'comic strip. "Alley Oop"-which
.rharines Tracked.". : And only 'last year,, the Navy- tested would ' intercept . Incoming- Soviet
.:,Laughable? Only If you'rethe kind of ? some,. ,'professed mind-readers, :-.in= missiles over the North Pole and cause
eccentric who thinks' It's amusing when chiding New :Rork seer `Shawn Rob them to detonate thousands of years
Uncle:' Sam` throws"'.your? tax dollars` :bins, to see if they could' -chart ' Soviet
Like so much of our militant
spend-
arauncl cin:wIerd sd-fi projects. The fact Navy maneuvers T
is .that the United States- Navy _'pays ;~ So f r rs xlts have been as. elusive . ngsince' World War' Il, the' outlays' on
f "Madame Zodiac"..:and' 33::other so- as the. Soviet submarines But the ever our.. Ouija=board warriors have been
. ch Justified as an: answer. to: a'perceived
called - ics $400`,a month each to hopeful, Pentagon keeps n P
P 7ch g sy .
plod the' movements-. of. Soviet- sub .ics and -'so-called: "psychotronic'' threat from the Kremlin. But the history
marines: ":That's.. $.163;200 ? a year-,..'. devices, which supposedly measure or of'this branch of research Is almost a
peanuts by :Pentagon .' standards,' but amplify, mental ? powers; :are . 'being caricature of the pervasive East-West
only a small part of the military'and In- tested for their ability to break codes rivalry..':
telligence' community's' research Into locate hidden missiles and. penetrate -
ceptiorir:: of ESP .had a low priority at th
t the
Pen-
The Navy ' =stoutly, denies than:, it Advocates of these spooky.projects,, tagon duffing 4he' 1950s; and if it existed
employs sub-chasing' swamis'but The ..using the old "they'laughed at Colum- at all
In the Soviet Union, it was:notof-
Inuestigator ..has' uncovered a :,`long , bus":.'routine, insist , that.. psychic
record of the'admirals' fascination ;with weapons are as revolutionary, and
the. possiblity that psychics might potentially as important; as the atomic ?`~
somehow be able, to read the minds', bomb. Physicists and other skeptics in-.
-or. the qua' secret- instn,iction's-of Soviet ? '. sist with el vehemence that the pro= The Pentagon Was submarine commanders as they zigzag ' jects' are ridiculous. Despite the crit- alarmed.. Was there
through the world's oceans. ' icism;'the experiments continue, at the j)S )Ch0-$ap" in the
. .
-,. ---- ---- ? ? 'h-
A '~ _
CI
payer
Dr. J.S. Lawson Jr., technical direc space' agency, the National Institutes of ' arcing
tor. of the- Naval' Electronic ' System ` Health',-,the National Security Agency
Command, told The Inuestlgator; 'I've and the armed services `all-have re-
thought for 20. years that, ESP Is 'the. search- programs on one area of para-
way to fight submarines." As early as ' psychology or another. .' ficially sanctioned. Then, In 1960, the
1952, in fact, a fop secret Navy docu- 'All of these 'projects are cloaked In French press' reported that telepathic
ment suggested that psychics be used the.* deepest secrecy. The obvious experiments had been made aboard
. to pinpoint hidden submarine pens. reason.is national security. But from the the U.S. submarine Nautilus' while it
In, 1977, the Navy - shelled . out few bizarre examples that have, leaked was chambered in the ice under the
60
$5,111 to a self-styled is chic named fro bi ' s North Pole.,
se
3si" kFWA - 3 I I ~1700~ ~ ,T press reports were prob-
Charles Whiten
Va., for a device he called a "multi- believer' might be' reluctant to admit. ably fabricated out of whole cloth, but
 Approved For Release 2000/08/08" C A=
parapsychology researchers in the
Soviet Union-every bit as hungry for
their share of the defense budget as are
their counterparts in this country-
seized on the stories as an opportunity
to win approval for their own ex-
periments.
That did it. A few years after the
Nautilus reports, stories of questionable
accuracy began surfacing here and
there about amazing Soviet advances In
voodoo warfare. One apocalyptic ac-
count suggested that the Russians were
"Psychotronic weapons
already exist, and their
lethal capability has
already been
demonstrated."
amassing an .Army ' of "two million
trained psychics" whose mission was to
subjugate the world for the Kremlin.
.. The Pentagon was alarmed. ' Was
there 'a "psychogap" in the making?
1 8_R001700360003-3
was called "Project Scanate,". and its test, however. In the summer of 1977,
results so awed some government of- Swann and five other Stanford Re-
ficials that one exclaimed, "There's no Search Institute subjects were taken in a
security left!" Navy research submarine 2,000 feet
Swann and Price were given 'geo- down to. the floor of the Pacific. There
graphic coordinates and asked to they predicted correctly that the sub
describe the site. Swann sketched a would find lost anchors and parts of
target island In the Indian Ocean. Price. sunken ships. The Navy did not
did even better: he gave a detailed disclose. whether the research site was,
description of a secret military facility in perhaps, the scene'of a World War II
Virginia, and even purportedly read naval engagement.
code-worded files ("Cueball," "14 ball" This was the same year the Navy
and "Rackup") locked Inside a top bought Charles Whitehouse's $5,111
secret installation that monitored Soviet "spectral image-analyzer," the machine
space flights. that could supposedly locate a Soviet
..sub by ingesting its photograph.
For his next act, Swann turned his Whitehouse has. refused to disclose
psychic eye on the Soviet Union itself how his gadget performed in 20 days of
and described a supposedly. secret in- trials, but the Navy bought it, and hired
stallation in the Urals in amazing detail. ' Whitehouse to train two officers. and
He even told the astonished test spon- five enlisted men in its operation.
sors that the secret base was staffed by .
"an unusually high proportion of. The Navy's obsession with psychic
women." weapons was a modest bonanza for the
Security experts in the "Project ' Stanford Research Institute. In 1975,
Scanate" audience were not con- the Navy gave SRI a $50,703 contract
vinced. But enough top brass in both to determine if psychics could, detect
the CIA and the Navy were Impressed remote electromagnetic sources. A
to push for expanded psychic resarch. year later, it threw in another $26,000
Since the Scanate test, Putoff and to find out if the mindreaders could ex-
Targ have publicized their findings ert any influence on'. 'magnetometers, :
.. _:
,
.
-and there were plenty of charlatans widely,, which has allowed independent
which.measure magnetic fields and are
willing top the generals ward. off im investigators = to run their' own tests -, important iri' submarine detection'
pending attack by the Soviet psychic ar ..These experiments have been generally By all odds the most bizarre research.
: .
ht' the ..nd
~ t. L .:.
-
`
n
h
an i 'none has `boo u
ative
- `'
,
g
er
ur
se
i
g psyc
o
an oll neg
f
Scanate performance of the so-called ' "Backster Effect."
Some of the psychics managed to : The Navy was unruffled by evidence .That's th e phenomenon of plants sup-
penetrate the U.S. Treasury-if not the of improper procedures.in the Scanate posedly reading-human thoughts.. You
ample,":;in.,the .early 1970s Stanford .
Research 'Institute' scientists. Harold
Putoff ?and Russell' Tard claimed. to
have. proven that psychics could project,.
their ml' nds and through. "remote view-...
see inside: any militaryinstallation
the . the world. The SRI. psychics for
whom- these incredible claims 'were.
made ' were Pat Price, now deceased,
Ingo .Swann and ' Uri Geller, who also
claims the ability to bend spoons. by
mental force. Swann and Geller have' since- been exposed by professional
magicians as simply gifted illu-
sionists-that is tricksters.
Nevertheless, SRI's "remote
viewing" experiments with Price,
Swann and Geller persuaded the-
in-telligence community, and especially
the Navy, that psychic research was
worth a serious effort, and of course a
serious expenditure of money.
In 1973, the CIA and the Natibnal
Security Agency arranged a top secret
demonstratidlc i*dmma lF Dvi dt2~
62
what was needed was money
Clearly
The investigator, October 1981
 can see the devastating effect this could
have: smuggle a psychic philodendron
into the Soviet Presidium's council
chambers, and the Kremlin' darkest
secrets could be ours-presumably
shuttled to the Pentagon by carrier
aphids.
Cleve Backster is a polygraph
operator who claimed to have discov-
ered that plants attached to a he detec-
tor will "faint" if someone thinks about
plucking a leaf, and vegetables' growth
will languish if they take a dislike to the 1976, the Army awarded a $145,000
gardener.. Many amateur horticulturists contract to check into 'the "aura" seen
have long suspected things like this, but around human beings by ' so-called
Backster actually tried to prove it by- Kirlian photography. The- researchers
"interrogating" a. plant that had been found that the "aura" was an easily ex-
present at a murder.' "The police were plained. interaction of body moisture
persuaded to march 20 suspects past and the' . 'electric field. Army- in-
the plant, but the leafy witness was vestigators even managed to get photos
unable to finger the kfer.' of the. "auras".: surrounding a wet
sponge, a bowl of spaghetti and a used
'
Some of the Air Force
s interest in prophylactic.
security of nuclear weapons. If a Uri When the always-available Stan-
Geller can bend a spoon by sheer will- ' ford Research Institute proposed a $3.5
power, might someone similarly gifted mWion -study of :"remote viewing". in.
be able to move the quarter-ounce trig- 1977, the defense research agency flew
ger of a bomb the one-eighth of an inch.
necessary to explode :it? ' Or could a
mindreader pick the brain of a missile
officer and learn the code words that,
After viewing Project, Scanate, one government
official exclaimed, "There's no security left!"
Union, in the, hope that he would
defect.
As a result of their evaluation, the
Army grew cool toward some psychic
weapons development-but not com-
pletely turned off by any means. In
? "Psychotronic weapons already exist,
and their lethal capability capacity has
already been demonstrated.-
* "The ability to mentally move objects
has also been repeatedly demonstrated
under scientifically controlled condi-
tions."
"Research done on the Transcen-.
dental Meditation Sidhis Program... ?
has produced evidence that individ-
uals can be taught to physically, lev-
itate." "The intelligence gathering capability
of remote viewing Is obvious." .
Note that he says "capability," not
'
potential."
An important point about Alex-
ander's claims Is that he's writing about
Soviet research, not the Pentagon's.
His assertions go beyond -any ex-
perimental results reported in this coun-,
,in. a team of debunkers and SRI's pro: try. And his article presumably.con-
posal was quickly rejected.. stitutes an update of a -.Defense In--
But . it -is .the, Army's ."psychic task telEigence Agency study in .1972; which
force", thaf:. has reported.. the `most predicted
with something less thin cer-
,
control the weapon's release? The alarming, possibilities ' .of psychic taro
James S. 'McDonnell Laboratory is research. As Jack Anderson reported "S oviet efforts in the field of PSI
conducting top secret studies on this. several months ago, the secret psychic research, sooner or later might enable
task force, operating in a room in the them to do some of the following:
The Pentagon is spending
generously on parapsy-
chology in a crash _
program to end Russia's
psycho-superiority.
The Army has not been lagging in
ESP research. In 1972, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
sent a team to evaluate Stanford
Research Institute's claimed results with
spoon-bender Geller. The team was
headed by Dr. George Lawrence, a
psychologist who is open-minded on
the subject of parapsychology. With
him were Ray Hyman, an accomp-
lished magician and ESP debunker,
and Dr. Robert Van de Castle, a
of Virginia sleep and dream
Univercit
"A. Know the contents of top secret
U.S. documents, the deployment of
our troops and ships and the location
and nature of our military installations."
"B. Mold the thoughts of key U.S.
military and civilian leaders, at.. a
distance."
C. Cause the instant death of any '
U.S. official, at a distance."
"D: Disable, at a distance, U.S. military
equipment of all types, including space
craft." .
Whether the Soviets' ? Star Wars
scientists have actually progressed to
the deployment stage, as Alexander
seems convinced they have, there's
one federal agency that's taking no
chances: the Secret Service has com-
missioned studies on ways to protect
the President from the Kremlin's mind
control. And senior agents from both
, ,
y
expert and a past president of the laced professional journal of the U.S. the Secret Service and the CIA have
American Parapsychological Associa- Army, 'published an article entitled been required to take courses In mind
tion. Approved For RgI. MP- ease 200p~~~~~' 0 corrol offered at universities In the
The, +ea rrnr,nrt was totally neaa- L3n. ock_ '6v~ No "511P ig on area, to prevent them from
tive. Hyman ?was moved to suggest that ander. Alexander's assertions are startl- falling under the spell of Soviet
, -+ ,- a tnur Al the Soviet Inn Harp ara a fw psychics. ^
Pentagon basement, has come up with
some hair-curling predictions of Soviet
mastery in the ESP field. -
According 'to retired - Lt. Col.
Thomas E. Bearden, the Russians have
already deployed third-generation
psychotronic weapons. These include
the ?"photonic barrier modulator,"
which can induce death or illness from
thousands of miles away with the ease
of a Haitian- witch doctor; the
"hyperspatial 'howitzer," which . can
transmit nuclear explosions - Instan-
taneously to any point In the. world,
and the "hieronymous machine,"
(perhaps named for the protosurrealist
painter, Hieronymous Bosch) which
Bearden contends sank the U.S.
nuclear submarine Thresher in 1963.
Ludicrous as all this may seem,
psychotronic weaponry has its staunch
believers in government. In December
1980 Military Review the straight -
 Approved For Release 2000/08/0J1F1
58R001700360003-3
IAdW ANW 9640 1
1:l3
CIA Toys With^y/?.'Jf--
In James Bond circles, nothing is tific expert has been examined by my son's physical condition by telepathy,
too. farfetched to be dismissed. The associate Dale Van Attn., like a Haitian witch doctor might try.
Central Intelligence Agency, for exam. The analysts estimated that "the ? High-frequency analysis -of` =an
ple, has been toying for years with the Soviet Military and KGB have had a electroencephalogram, ?a sort o'wire-
idea of using extrasensory perception covert applied parapsychology pro. tapping of. someone's brain waves.
in its work -spurred by the suspi- gram since the mid-1960s." This was The 'area of- Soviet -ESP' research
cion that the Russians have somehow the period when the CIA was experi- that really has the CIA's'. mouth wa-
succeeded in opening an ESP gap.. menting with hallucinogenic drugs on taring is the possibility' :o# "remote
I've already reported on the. Ponta- unsuspecting Americans and with foot viewing" by telepathy- from thousands
gon's $6-million-a-year research to de? powder that would make Fidel Cis- of miles away. Who'd need a, mole in
a psychic? sating at a
f the Kremlin if
+ro s beard fall out
s
. ? ,.
velop ESP .weapons that can .brain-
wash or incapacitate enemy leaders by . The CIA wam "ahead the U.S. In parapsychology" m tally op a sup -~F -
bombs transfer, deliver nuclear Evidence of Soviet progress is sketchy silo site oi:a Politburo.fneeting7
bombs instantaneously thousands of b
the Kremlin's voodoo scion; Under. the` Dome: House" Minori-
ecause
miles away by psychic energy, or even
the CIA suspects, have gone un= ty. Leader...Robert; Nlcchel; (R lyl.}
fasts
,
? ~ crests a protective "tame warp" to
pears to cra
make i cking under the stain -
create Soviet missiles explode dercover. Intelligence sources estimate be
harmlessly in the past. that at least 200 Soviet :.experts in of has yob.: He has taken to composing
v riou disciplines are working on ~ such.literary gems as ,"Uncle.:Bob's
from the Defense Intelligence Agency, The CIA report. identified several "See Big Spenders run in 198Q "See
which reports the Russians have been areas of suspected Soviet study Big Spenders lose, in. `1 80 ., ...See
doing intensive' research in the field ? "Electrostatics of telekinesis," or . Big Spenders forgetting the. Iessor of
for nearly 60 years. The DIA even the ability to move objects by mental 1980. -See Big Spenders' run ` In X1982.
1 credits the omnipotent Kremlin scien= concentration. Lose. Big Spenders, lose. Another ef-
fists with successfully demonstrating ? "Extremely low frequencies w of ; fort, inspired by the old-'song, "Is You
ESP's deadly potential on insects, -a, electromagnetic radiation for informa- Is or'' Is You Ain't My Baby?", goes
possibility that should ' bring joy to', tion transmission." This may have like this:. "Is the Democrats -or : ain't
farmers and backyard gardeners been what the. KGB was up to when the Democrats backing' the mandate
d and strike terror in the insecticide in- Moscow with'nucrowaveradiation'for the people vReagan?~Meeiftt~ri try
The CIA, though historically less: nearly 20 years.: *Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) is the.
alarmist about the Red Menace than. ? Application of theories ' involving' man who Introduced Budget Director
the Pentagon, spooks are, has : also links between the way the human David A. Stockman to.' then-candidate
been monitoring Soviet ESP research' brain and electronic computers oiler- Ronald Reagan; and Kemp says he's
and pondering the possibility of less ate. glad he did. "Stockman 'is an intellec-
bizarre psychic weapons. A top-secret ? Remote monitors and stimulators teal giant who can get along with peo-
report on the subject by a CIA scien to determine or' influence another per- ple," Kemp claims.
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3
 . , C~,(. [i '- R* C rV'..rltlilill :N CU! A .~ 11C V I)4i
t.;tihai~ , a;crir:...? unusual cx ~} ~{'
I f rd IA pR i WggsFRii P96-00788
t s t a cer-
t! in ;~,?~11?ic have psychio abilities. The results SRI repo'
-
' i 1 ted w ere astonishing.
t The Sill investigators, physicists Harold E. Puthoff (a
?
r Former MA research engineer) and Russell Targ, set out
t + demonstrate to their CIA sponsor that their subjects, a
'noted lr :chic named Ingo Swann and.a middle-aged.
businessman named Pat Price, could describe distant.lo.
cations merely by knowing which geographic coordi-
nates to "look at." Some parapsychologists call this al-
"
leged ability
astral projection," or "out of body experi-
ence." Puthoff and Targ prefer the term "remote view.
ing. -
To check such startling claims, a'"rigorous test under.
control of the sponsor"'was conducted, according to the
experimenters' report, entitled "Project Scanate." The
geographic coordinates of target ites"dhosdn by the
NSA monitor were encoded to ensure their securit
y,
then transmitted from his Washington-area location to a
CIA scientist In Menlo Park, Calif., where SRI headquar
ters is located. The CiA man decoded the.coordinates,
passed them to Dr. Puthoff, who then'presented them to.
the subject.. In one case, Swann described and sketched
with reasonable accuracy a target island in'tbe South In-
dian Ocean. In another instance, Pat Price gave an In
credibly detailed description of a supposedly secret,
underground military installation in Virginia. But there
was more. According to the SRI report:
"On a later date Pat was asked to return [mentally) to
the Virginia site with the goal of obtaining codeword i
n-
formation, if possible. In response, Pat supplied the fol-
lowing information:
Top of desk had papers labeled:
Flytrap
`liinerva
File cabinet on north wall labeled:
Operation Pool - (2nd word unreadable)
Folders inside cabinet labeled:.
Cueball
14 Ball
4 Ball
8 Ball
Rackup
wine of sitg vaguely seems like Hayfork or Haystack
Personnel:
Cot. R. J. Hamilton
Maj. Gen. George R. Nash
Major John C. Calhoun??[sic)"
"Hell, there's no security left," 'a government security
officer exclaimed upon hearing of Price's alleged suc.
cess at psychic spyin
Acco
di
g.
r
ng to a military source
..Who requests anonymity, the site Price described was a
satellite interrogation station which ? eavesdrops on
'.,Soviet space vehicles, and the code words referred to
those operations. A security investigation was launched
to determine whether the sensitive information h
d
a
been leaked to Price or others involved in the tests. "The
i
'
secur
ty men wouldn
t buy the idea of remote viewing,"
he says. Neither would CIA psychologists who have exa-
mined the evidence with considerable skepticism.
But Price had more surprises in store. He volunteered
to scan "the other side of the globe for a' fSovietj Bloc
ENGLdSAAW C
600psi"7 7
'entf~~ o
the
.And the.Russta,tS Pr-ob
'he Military .,otentii
Of Paraj~sycliolo
? 1
1i'ilhelrn is a former national science correspu-.::..R
for Time
i
:
naapaz
nc
His book on pspciric rereareJz, "Th
Srarch
forS
?
uperman, was published last year.
equivalent, and found one in the Urals," continues the
SRI report. In addition to giving geographic coordinate$
for this Soviet installation, Price described it In minute
detail, including visions of helipads, rail tracks leading
into a mountainside, radar antennae and even the obser.
vation of an "unusually high ratio of wojnen to men at
least at night."
The CIA scientist monitoring the tests, a Physiologist
from the research and development side of the agency,
believed he had a potential class A espionage agent who
could roam psychically anywhere in the world, ferreting
.secrets undetected - in effect, the perfect spy. _
OR TIIE PAST 25 years, various branches of the mil-
itary and intelligence communities have actively in-
vestigated this highly controversial field of parapsychol-
ogy. Their interest, which parallels recently revealed ac-
counts of drug and mind control experiments, ranges
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3
 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3
from intelligence'reports on foreign developments and
theoretical background studies to funding of original ex-
eriments and even semi-operational tests of psychic es-
pionage abroad.
The frequently grandiose claims made for parapsy-
hology include reading or controlling people's thoughts
telepathy), gaining information about distant persons,
places and things (clairvoyance), predicting the future
precognition), and influencing physical objects (psycho-
:inesis) -- all by unknown, extrasensory or psychic
eans. Such claims are by no means well established
scientifically, and they have stimulated raucous debates
between "believers" and "debunkers" within the agen-
cies charged with evaluating whether parapsychology
colds any promise (or danger) for mind warfare.
)V'ading through all the dubious claims, conflicting re-
orts and deliberate disinformation is mushy business at
By David Suter for The Washington Post
dreams, biofeedback, human factors, biocybernetics and
non-ionizing radiation. For example, one $30,000 CIA
contract study published last year is Ingeniously camou-
flaged by the title, "Novel Biophysical Information
Transfer Mechanisms (NBIT)." Funding officers prefer
to shelter these "high giggle factor" programs from Con-
gress (and sometimes their own bosses) to avoid public
embarrassment as well as to conceal what some project
managers fervently believe may be breakthrough mill-
tary/intelligence capabilities equal to the discovery of
atomic energy. .
There is particular concern about Soviet psychic capa?
bilities, including allegations that the Russians are ably
telepathically to influence the behavior of others, alter
their emotions or health, knock them out or even kill by.
directing a kind of psychic double-whammy at them. A
recent report by the Defense Intelligence Agency states:
par6WeAlF101I Fift}g@ogt,RE, WA$L,0$ri,,VAkBBfi96f00788R001700360003-3
See PSYCHIC, Page B5
 ApproV6fflE I aseMQ90WB/08 : CIA-RDP96-OO b?4q*00MWJiere when lasers were just get-_
"Other Soviet tests included sending to the percipient ting started." Investigators at the Navy's Surface Weap-
the anxiety associated with suffocation and the' sensa- ons Center and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
tion of a dizzying blow to the head. . Some Western . also have run "informal" tests on Geller, with dubious
followers of psychic phenomena research are concern- results.
ed, for example, with the detrimental effects of sublimi- The Geller Tests
nal perception techniques being targeted against U.S. or
allied personnel in nuclear missile silos. The subliminal HE GROWING governmental interest in psychic
message could be 'carried' by television signals or by tel- possibilities had been accelerated in 1972 when Dr.
epatn~c means. _ .,...,..,... ..., > ._..b....._ . _... .. .. .,
"The potential applications of focusing mental influ- brought Geller to be studied at Stanford Research Instl-
ences on an enemy through hypnotic telepathy have tote. This $100-million-a-year think tank south of San
surely oecuried to the Soviets. . . Control and manip- . Francisco (just renamed SRI InternationaD.conducxs_a..
ulation of the human consciousness must be considered . wide..variety, of studies for both .government=and bust- .
4
a primary goal." Hess. SRI has evaluated the poten 4aI of LSU and other
A,_few.analysts even fear that th! 'resident and-other drugs for the CIA, forecast world trade in the year 2000
leaders could-beeome_the,.telepathic targets ofSOyret- for multinational companies, even analyzed an 18%
mind c_ontrol efforts. They argue that _defensiye.,meas- minute tape gap for just one customer, Richard Nixon.
ures need to be, researched to prevent such apparent sci? ? SRI scientists are no strangers when it comes to dealing
ence-fiction possibilities. One speculation voiced in sup. with hush-hush projects.,
port of, this thesis is that the decade-old microwave .sig Neither is Pubarich. His connections with the ?mili-
nals beamed against the U.S. embassy in Moscow might tary/mtelhgence communities go back to the early 1950s
have been an operational experiment in behavior modi- when he worked in the Army's Chemical and Biological
fication using "psychotronic" methods - that is, involy- ' Warfare Center at Ft. Detrick, Md:, site. of the CIA's now
Ing psychic powers amplified by special devices. Wild as ? famous shellfish toxin repository. He presented a paper
this sounds, the CIA's "NBIT" study lends some credence entitled "Oii the Possible Usefulness of Extrasensory
to the hypothesis: "The Russians may now be imple- Perception in Psychological Warfare" to a Pentagon
menting the next logical step [to experiments proposed conference in. 1952 and later lectured the Army. Air
f ,.
F A N o othe osslbilities for to-A
v
n r
w
d
y
p
r
orce an a
a are.
five years earberj, namely to reinforce, enhance, or ai
NBIT in certain, trained or gifted individuals after hav- Expert in hypnotism as well as microelectronics, Puha- :?, .'
ing discovered the basic communication carriers." And rich also invented a miniature tooth radio, reportedly
the DIA reports: I for the CIA.
"Soviet or Czech perfection of psychotronic weapons So it-was Puharich who netted Geller for study, stud- ZC
would pose a severe threat to enemy military, embassy . ies paid for by a few -small, private foundations formed
or security functions. The emitted energy would be si- expressly to fund such research, including one beaded
lent and difficult to detect electronically (although the by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell. In addition to telep.
Soviets claim to have developed effective biological en- atby and clairvoyance, SRI researchers claimed that Gel-
1 could erase ma netic to es levitate tin wei his
ld e
d
r g r , y g ,
wou
ergy sensors) and the only power source require
be the human operator." . - - even materialize and dematerialize small objects. The
Most experts. publicly discount the idea, however, Pentagon's DARPA sent a team of consultants to SRI to "-I countering with the argument that the Moscow signals see if such bizarre claims'rated their funding. But the
involve jamming devices or scanners that "see" inside DARPA consultants concluded that SRI s work with Gel-
'
'
incredible sloppiness.
Geller
the embassy. ler was conducted with
The Soviets have a special laboratory dedicated to par. now is largely discounted as merely an extremely facile
apsychology, according to some intelligence analysts. conjurer.
The CIA report estimates that the laboratory may have a While Geller and others were undergoing tests at SRI,
technical staff as large as 300 physicists, doctors, CIA scientists were canvassing the country for addi.
biochemists and electrical engineers, all studying the tional evaluations, prowling parapsychology meetings
theory and applications of psychic functioning. A Soviet and tapping experts?in an effort to fathom the conflic-
physicist now living in Paris, August Shtern, recently tang, and often quite emotional, reports from both be-
claimed that he had worked for several years in a secret lievers and skeptics alike.,
laboratory in Siberia trying to find a physical basis for "I, had two men from the CIA come down and visit
psychic energies. Shtern also said ,that, before leaving me," recalls Dr. Robert Van de Castle, at the time a Uni.
Russia two years ago, he had heard that an even more versity of Virginia psychologist and also a member of
secret laboratory under direction of the-KGB now is pur? the DARPA team that Investigated- Geller. "One thing
suing similar research in Moscow. ' they wanted to know was if Geller could jam computers.
In June, Los Angeles Times correspondent Robert But they were particularly interested In out-of-body
Toth was .detained in Moscow by the KGB, allegedly for stuff. They were concerned that the Russians bad devel.
receiving "state secrets" about parapsychology research. oped it to such an extent that they were using it for in-
The naner r1iven to Toth by a scientist said to be labora?, telligence monitoring.. They seemed to think that psy.
tory chief at the Moscow Institute of Medical-mologicat `,. cnmC mLeiugence gaLne1_1L1g was livL ur vnu the rc
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 :.CIA-RDP96-00788 R001700360003-3
 Approved For Jelease 2000/48108 :'CIA-RDP96-00788 R001.700360003-3
tie Electronics Systems Command, explaining the
's interest. "I've thought for 20 years that ESP is the
Navy
in , one of SRI was to pinpoint
re to fight submarines
remote viewing
Swann thewor a orld- SRI
the location of Soviet submarines
Within the past few weeks,
subjects descended some 2 , 000 feet b relow emot the
viewing on
side a tiny submersible to try to the
the sea floor. According to a scientist from NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, who also made the
dive, the psychics correctly predicted - prior to diving
of sunken piman-made objects such as an-
where to find
chors and parts
-Mind Trips to Jupiter?? .
eon-
ond Nary
the
secBOUT THE SAME tim the scie
ntific assistant to the
tract was given to SRI,
secretary of the Navy, Dr. Sam Koslov, received a rou?
tine briefing on various research projects, including
SBI's? As the briefer flashed his chart onto the screen
and began that speak, y osiov stormily interrupted'.
hell is words on the projected chart, the
Among the glowing
section describ ng SRI's work was labeled: "ELF AND
MIND CONTROL*" .
.,. r, n,nely low frequency" elec
for
tromagnetic waves, tr
second. The Navy is inter-
per
cics up to about 100
c Seafarer (1orinerly P
Proj
it
e
s
F bcause
sted in ELe
i?I-Iawker here's
convinced the dam'.
Commies'h:ave invented a
ecret brain-washing ray
s
that's beamed in on
Jimmy Carter." ? ..
rom what I have seen it
F
l
t
y
e
mple
reversed himself co was a valid test as far as the investigators are con-
cerned " The excuses range a and om: (1) the NSA or CIA
therefore the cordi-
man "couldnyt read a map chic subjects zo-
nates got confused; and/or (2) the psychic
ace communica-
omed In on the nearby sugar Grove sp
tions center (which does have a few similarities to the
- has
st Virg'
W
e
bt Is in
described target,u tours through it and oand/or (3) the subjects read
Navy, not Army, personnel);
er rather thin the coordinates.
the mind of the NSA off have been a slight exaggeration,*
Says Footer-There may
but it was a.matter of degree rather than a deliberate
falsehood." onded to requests SRI have not The CIA, NSA and
to clarify the discrepancies. Puthoff and Targ continue
to stand by the "Project Scanate" reporrtt, and maintain
04are among th most severely
that their investigations
f scie ce." .?
o
monitored in the history
The Scientology Link
ITEM o followt the SRI unusually
ONE
ment chic
large number of Scientologists involved with the Psychic
'tests there. n,. liarold
t
f hi or
sus chie tolo st and his written defensels os-
fa
ranking Scien g beliefs
d bell Scientology's
ds an
ganization's metho is p powers,
include the development of personal PsY ~~
 Toth-was detain. d in Moscow by the KGB, allegedly iur
receiving state secrets" about parapsychology research.
The paper piv ?n to Toth by a scientist said to be labora-
tory chief at the Moscow Institute of Medical-Biological
Preparations described a theory of psychic functioning
called "mitugenetic radiation" which has been discussed
publicly for years and largely discounted by others in
the field. One theory is that the Russians hope to mislead '
the United States into believing that they are far ahead
in parapsychology research so that we will either (1)
waste scientific resources trying to find out what they
are up to, or (2) do productive research which they then
can tap into because of our more open system of scien.
tific reporting. It is indeed a murky business.
From ESP to Voodoo
B UT, FOR MANY YEARS. small -groups within the
U.S. government have taken seriously the specula-
tions about using psychic powers for mind warfare:
Dr. J. B. Rhine, the dean of American parapsychol-'
ogy, conducted extrasensory perception (ESP) tests for
'
the Army as far back as 1952. In the early 1960s, a team
of Air Force scientists tested- junior college coeds for
ESP in an effort to develop a strict experimental method
that others might follow.
During the Vietnam War, the Marine Corps tried
dowsing or "water. witching" as a technique to uncover
? ,hidden mines and tunnels in the mountainous I Corps
area west of Hue.
? The National Institutes of Health has supported a
.few studies in parapsychology. Funding for one of these
?
programs. experiments-in dream telepathy at Brooklyn's
Maimonides hospital, now has been taken over by the.
? McDonnell Aerospace Foundation, founded by James
McDonnell of McDonnell Douglas Corp., one of the coun-
try's largest defense contractors. `
? Three years ago, NASA paid $80,000 to see if
machines could teach ESP (they could not) and for some
pilot studies that measured brain waves during alleged
telepathic/clairvoyant communications.
* Last year, the Defense Department's Advanced Re-
search Projects Agency_(DARPA) sponsored a $145,000
contract to determine whether. the Soviet-discovered
Kirlian photography really depicted the glowing "aura"
of a person's "etberic body." The study found that Kir-
. .... they ,s __
i ;fed it to such an extent that they Were uz-tng it for ,..
+'aligence monitoring. They seemed to think that ps}~?_
chic intelligence gathering was not beyond the realm of ,
possibility," continues Van de Castle, adding quickly: 1
"They gave more serious weight to that possibility than I
would as a parapsychologist."
"Remote Viewing" . .
PERHAPS the CIA investigators were just better in.
formed. About the same time that Van de Castle .
was being interviewed, the CIA was closely monitoring
SRI's "remote viewing" experiments with. Ingo Swann
and Pat Price. Specialists from the operational side of
the agency were brought in to attempt to confirm the
"remote viewing"' effect, and did so, according to two
sources, by testing both Swann and Price, and others,
.apart from SRI. For' example, Swann and Price were
given foreign targets to focus on, including some in..Rus-
sia and China. Though there were frequent misses, .
enough accurate information was gleaned to please' the
CIA, according, to the reports. How did the monitors
?know'that the information was accurate? Sometimes,
the answers were not known until after the remote
viewing descriptions had been given and "ground truth"
checks were made by agents operating abroad. '.
Swann denies ever having worked for-the CIA, and
. may have been unaware of the identity of the tests' +
';sponsor. anybody gets the Idea that there's psychic
warfare going 01 could get kiile3 1n the, streets,"
The project did suffer one notable failure. When an
Air Force officer was kidnapped by Turkish terrorists a.
few years back, Price and some others attempted to
"see" where he was being held captive. Acting on their
psychic tipsters' information, intelligence operatives
checked the site, but to no avail. But that did not deter
the psychic spy enthusiasts.
In a self-proclaimed "independent and somewhat criti
cal study of extrasensory perception," intelligence con-'
sultant Joseph A.,;BalI of Santa Barbara, Calif., con
eluded in 1975 that the work at SRI. "produced mani-
festations of extrasensory perception sufficiently sharp
and clear-cut to justify serious consideration of possible
applications," that is, psychic.spying.
Under a section hea$ed "Practical Applications,", Bali.
lian pictures are related to the moisture content in a per-
son's skin, a conclusion which is scientifically interesting ?
but certainly not grist for occult lovers.
? One West Coast Veterans Administration hospital
harbors secret biofeedback/telepathy experiments; an-
other VA hospital in the Midwest conducts "out of body"
investigations. Whether these are officially sanctioned
projects 6r just bootstrap investigations is undeter-'
mined, since the investigators refuse to discuss their re- -
search publicly.
CIA psychologists are swamped with proposals for psy-
chic studies, including one this spring which offered to
study a Trinidadian voodoo specialist who reportedly.
flattens automobile tires - and presumably people -
merely by sticking pins in their photographs. . .
Ron Robertson, a security officer at.Lawrence Liver '?
more Laboratory. in California, one of the country's pr -
mary nuclear weapons arsenals, has acknowledged that
..some of the (government's) interest in psi (psychic stu-
dies) ties into classified intelligence areas, for example;
1hc.sccurity of nuclear weapons." Robertson, who has
followed psychic developments on an official' basis, seri-
ously fears that a talented psychic might trigger or dis-
able a warhead merely by psychokinetic force of, mind.
"All it takes is the ability to move one-eighth of an ounce
a quarter of an inch at a distance of one fo.a " he has
warned.
Physicists at Livermore, the University of California
and elsewhere believe that psychic functioning - in-
cluding Robertson's fears of nuclear sabotage by psycbo-
kinesis - can be explained by electromagnetic, quan-
tum mechanics or relativity theories. The scientists at
Liverrimre have conducted psychokinetic tests with the
young Israeli stage performer, Uri Geller, all on an "in-
writes: "No matter how gifted the. paragnost jpsychic),
existing ignorance of the basis of paranormal phen?
omena together with the capricious and unreliable na-
ture of the channel dictate that information derived
from this source can never stand alone and must be used
with caution. Extrasensory information should at best
this emphasis) supplement normal information or guide
its collection, but should never serve in place of it." But
his point is that espionage by ESP is a reasonable expec-
tation.
SRI's highly advertised "Project Scanate" results
served the crucial purpose of garnering further govern-
ment funding. Legitimized by the participation of CIA
and NSA personnel in their tests, SRI'S Puthoff and Targ
briefed "every-government agency you can name" look-
ing for further support: One that bit was the Special.
`Warfare Branch, - the Naval Electronics Systems-Com-
iiiand; The decision to fund was taken largely on the
basis of an impressive briefing on "Project Scanate" by
the SRI experimenters which their CIA monitor atten-
ded.
In October, 1975, the Navy let a W,703 contract to SRI
for psychic sensing of remote electromagnetic sources, a
continuation of earlier work supported by NASA in
which subject 'allegedly used their powers to detect re-
motely fiashiafi lights. klo4 of the experiments Mctr
carried out under "bcontract to inn ky Porter
Neuropsychiatric lnsbtute in San Franns o and v-ere
a bust. Early in 1976. Puthoff and Targ received
k' .0W
in supplemental money from the Navy to see if magne-
tometers could be affected by human beings. The tiRI
researchers already had reported that some of their su
jests could indeed affect the workings of a shield
magnetometer.
excitf ia,motV Fp9r, t{ele a $rjP~b:bC DP96-OQ?NSF 9g1 15PUMP9.00a4son Jr., technical director
 _.:::ic rt'sL .ire intcresteu ;u
:? : J,becaust= many thvorists believe that radiation at the
ELF Erect +eneie is rr'sponsible for psychic commu-
'.aions.
.-ut the "Meld Control" label really upset Koslow. Ile
lered the SRI Investigations for the Navy stopped,
. cancelled another $35,000 in Navy funds slated for
ure remote viewing work. "We [Koslov's emphasis] do
-t fund programs in this area," the outspoken scientist-
.tes. ,If you ask me, 'Do you think It's a pile of crap?' I
, and you can quote me." In March of this year, Koslov
in insisted that the Navy is "simply out of this bus!.
ss. I don't believe it's the function of the military to
pport parapsychology research."
Contrary to Koslov's assertion, the Navy-still is sup.
,rting psychic research. An interdisciplinary team at
?e Navy's Electronics Laboratory Center in San Diego
VII Ulivi ?,i.ig Thcttut, die fiig*ieSL tu;?
ment's cc:nplex ladder of achievements; Pat Price, who
died two years ago, also was a high-level "Operating !
Thetan." The laboratory assistant to Puthoff and Targ
during many of the Geller experiments was a Scientolo-
gist married to a "minister" of Scientology.
Some of the Initial funding for SRI's experiments
came from a ranking Scientologist who had established
his Science Unlimited Research Foundation. "at Hal
Puthoff's suggestion," according to the foundation's ex-
ecutive director at the time. Ingo Swann helped to estab-
lish Scientology's "Celebrity Center" In Los Angeles, the
headquarters recently raided by the FBI. At the time of
his original testing, Swann revealed that there are "four-
teen Clears [a medium-high level of Scientology
achievement), more than I would suspect," working at
SRI.
been continuing some of the work begun- atSRI. Led The involvement of Scientologists in the tests -at SRI
v an expert in bionics, the $100,000,, two-year project partially accounts for at least two government agencies
.,y be cut because of tight research money. Which is pulling back from funding further work there. Sociolo-
nfortunate, since the experiments seem far better,de- gist Marcello Truzzi, one of the consultants called In last
:fined than earlier ones elsewhere. *March to brief DARPA on Puthoff's and Targ's:experl.
This spring, SRI's Puthoff and Targ again made the ments, says letting Scientologists.conduct ESP research ' ~
g a proposal, formal or informal, on psychic research." But there is a core of dedicated believers inside 'sev-
1..ccording to one of the paid consultants who briefed eral government agencies who are intensively reviewing
'A.RPA, SRI had proppsed a $3.5 million program on parapsychology research, weeding though the mass of
:emote viewing." conflicting opinion, biased reports andjnconclusive ex-
Scattafe" or "Bullpasture?" periments in an attempt to determine what next steps
should be taken, if any.
N THE SURFACE, all this government interest in The authors of the CIA's two-volume study urge "that
parapsychology strongly supports the "believers" it is worthwhile for the United States government to in- ,
their heated debate with the skeptics over the reality itiate and support systematic research in this [psychic]
''f psychic functioning. Price's apparent hit on the al? area . . . Thus, it is recommended that a system in-
.eged secret military installation in their demonstration tegration and research planning anlaysis team be for- I
test for the CIA is particularly impressive -- until one med to evaluate research work completed, update an
asks other government fenders touting the test, "Did overall NBIT research system model, identify and out-
??ou ever check it out?" The answer is '"no." line new areas of research and organize interdisci-
So on Sunday, March 13, with compass, topographic plinary meetings between different research groups so
naps and aerial photographs in hand, I drove to an area that they are continuously updated and educated about
?oine 135 miles west southwest of Washington, the site the state of the art."
identified by the coordinates -given in the SRI report. A Those are strong recommendations for such flimsy ev-
,NASA official and his two sons accompanied me. From idence, at least such flimsy public evidence. Regrettably,
all the secrecy surrounding this test we half-expected to most scientists operating within the mainstream refuse
discover the base camp of an extraterrestrial scouting to involve themselves in the contorted debates over psy-
;.arty or, at the very least, the command center for chic phenomena. And, if they do stir themselves to opin-
World War III. Ion, it is generally formed on the basis of emotion, not
No such luck. Just a sparse hillside, a lew flocks of experiment. They fear loss of "legitimate" research
?heep, and lots of droppings. No "underground storage grants and stigmatization for showing Interest in such a
.areas," no' "computers, communication equipment" or taboo subject. Thus, bad science drives out the good.
."Army Signal Corps" personnel, as reported by Price. If there is reason to believe that psychic functioning
The only "codeword" was the name of the place, Bull- , performs according to the "mind wa;" scenarios de.
pasture Mountain. Under the circumstances, It seems scribed In the few classified studies that have leaked
.hat SRI's "Project Scanate" would be named more ap- out, public debate can help shape safeguards to insure
prupriately, "Project Bullpastui e." benign application. If there is the slightest shred of evi-
When told of the results of our hike, James Foote, the dence that psychotronic weaponry is at all possible, it
Navy project manager for the SRI tests, was astonished: should be considered biological warfare and banned in
1 am just chagrined that we didn't catch this. It wasn't , accordance with existing agreements.
.,ust SRI that told us this [the test results) but the [CIA Whether psychic phenomena are nothing but hoax
and NSA] sponsors, otherwise I wouldn't have taken it so and laboratory artifact or the gateway to new dimen.
.much for granted . . . There's definitely some fallacy sions of human experience are questions that should be in this Scanate report." pursued by the very best laboratories, basing their pub-
Several days later, Foote abruptly, changed his tune. licly reported conclusions on rigorous experiment, unal-
?\f 6 pWO 16R$M0 IM1041e 6Y tr-4bP96-0071813NdVlpif'@Ill g1-t#tetoric. .
cir case, DARPA spokesperson Jane Smith flatly de- . ? to one of his consulting psychologists that "it could be
ied that the agency had any interest in psychic re- that we are pretending to support this [psychic] wctrk to
,arch or in Puthoff and Targ. Queried repeatedly, she throw off the Russians." One ranking CIA scientist prl-
'.ood on the statement from DARPA Director George H. vately voiced the same possibility just a few months
Ieilmeier: "DARPA has not received and is not consider-' back.
ork. Just three days after the debunkers presented of DARPA's human resources division in 1973, confided.
cal offices who were considering funding SRI's psychic they themselves have raised. Col. Austin Kibler, director
f. the eclipse as observed an Jupiter [SRI s emphasis).', psychic claims subscribed to by members of the organs-
'hough SRI's proposal claimed that "pilot studies have ? ? zation. But at best, this is questionable science.
cen encouraging," NASA declined.
The SRI investigators also sent feelers to DARPA in Bad Drives Out Good
.,,pes of winning long-term support for their work. (~, NE EVEN MORE, confusing possibility is that the
reptics at the agency quickly flew in an outside team V SRI experimenters may to some extent be unwit-
debunkers to brief engineers in the strategic and tac- ? ting participants in a deliberate put-on, a consideration
rogram precognit:vely to predict eclipses of the four, tton:"
,a jor Jovian moons by having a subject fly. his con- the 'other band, some within government argue
ziousness to the giant planet to "record the actual time that it makes sense to let Scientologists investigate the .
oposal that they hoped to sell to NASA was a $100,000 ' ? experimentation into .the veraci y oC- transubstantla-
 Approved For Relea /6-007888001700360003-3
apons' Seen in Fufure Wars
layRANDALLSHOEMAKER
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - Soldiers in the not-too-
distant future may find themselves on the
sending end or the receiving end of
"psychotronic" weapons.
That's the suggestion of Lt. Col. John B.
Alexander in an article published in a re-
cent issue of Military Review, the monthly
magazine of the Army's Command and.
In "The New Mental Battlefield," Alex-
ander described psychotronics as the Inter-
action of mind and matter.
"There are weapons systems," he said,
"that operate on the power of the mind and
whose lethal capacity has already been
demonstrated." .
The Soviet Union and its allies are gener-
ally believed to be well in the lead In
parapsychological research, and the
amount of paranormal phenomena they
have verified is voluminous, Alexander
said. He cited these examples:
? The ability to heal or cause disease can
be transmitted over distance, but while this
has been demonstrated on lower organ-
isms, flies and frogs, "the present capacity
for human death Is still debated."
. ? Energy emanations from the body,
reflecting changes in emotional condition,
have been widely demonstrated through
radiation field photography known as the
Kirllan effect.
? The ability to move objects mentally
has been repeatedly demonstrated under experimentation on "remote viewing," the
scientifically controlled conditions. ability to collect data from afar, the officer
reported. He also discussed so-called out-
The extent of such research in the U.S. Is of-body experiences, bending of metal by
not well known nor is it centrally' organ- nonphysical means, acupuncture, biofeed-
ized, the officer said. Because the phe- .. back and meditation research.
nomena are frequently beyond explanation . Two unclassified Defense Intelligence .
in known scientific terms, they often are Agency reports dated in 1972 and 1975 were
discounted as nonexistent, he said. cited as sources of information on certain
Researchers at Stanford Research Insti- . psychotronic weapons applications investi
tute have done the best known gated by the Soviets.
A proved For Release 2000/08/08: CIA-RDP96-66-ft TMdAtVh3-3
SOURCE: ARMY TIME MAGAZINE, MARCH 30, 1981
"Certainly, with development, these
weapons would be able to induce illness or,
death at little or no risk to the operator,".
Alexander said.. "Range may be a present
problem, but this will probably be over
come If it has not been already."
Soviet researchers have applied electro-',
magnetic radiation against the U.S.
Embassy in Moscow, he pointed out. Also,
he cited researchers suggestions that
extremely-low-frequency emissions "can
be used to Induce depression or irritability
In a target population."
The use of telepathic hypnosis holds
" great potential," Alexander said, and'
other mind-to-mind thought induction tech-
niques are also being considered.
Although the officer did not specify the
extent or cost of U.S. military interest in
parapsychological research, other reports
have claimed that investment in psychic
warfare by the Pentagon has amounted to
about $6 million.
Many people in the scientific community
remain skeptical of all claims for even
partial success in psychic experimentation.,
Among such doubters, some have suggest-
ed that reports emanating from Soviet
sources about psychotronic accomplish-
ments are?most likely a "disinformation"
effort aimed at encouraging the U.S. to
waste money on research. And, some say
the U.S. spending may be a counter-disin-
formation ploy designed to make the Sovi-
ets nervous.
Alexander and official Army spokesmen
declined to comment on the article or any
further questions about psychic warfare
research.