[escepticos] La CIA y lo paranormal

[LAGAMEZ <LAGAMEZ@...>]

http://www.usne
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Enemies in the 
mind's eye
For more than 
20 years, the 
CIA funded 
psychic 
experiments 

BY 
MARIANNE 
SZEGEDY-M
ASZAK AND 
CHARLES 
FENYVESI

His name would 
eventually be 
revealed as 
Joseph 
McMoneagle, 
but for the 
purposes of the 
Army's psychic 
intelligence unit, 
he was simply 
Remote Viewer 
No. 1. One fall 
day in 1979 he 
reclined in an 
easy chair in an 
office at Fort 
Meade, Md. 
The lights were 
dim. Sitting 
nearby was an 
interviewer, 
who gave him a 
series of 
geographical 
coordinates that 
were supposed 
to be his mind's 
destination. 
After about 20 
minutes, 
McMoneagle 
brought himself 
out of a deep 
meditation and, 
as he describes 
it, "opened my 
mind." 
Gradually 
images began to 
appear: a low, 
windowless 
building; a 
smokestack. He 
smelled "a 
strange stink," a 
mixture of sulfur 
and natural gas. 
There was also 
a "smelting or 
melting activity." 
After an image 
came to mind, 
he drew it 
roughly on a 
piece of paper. 
Another viewer, 
No. 29, could 
"see" heavy 
metal 
equipment, 
including tubes 
conducting a 
"heat exchange." 
For him, the site 
emanated a 
"sense of 
power." 


Far-fetched as it 
sounds, the 
remote viewers 
at Fort Meade 
were engaged in 
deadly serious 
work?an odd 
marriage of 
American 
intelligence-gath
ering and 
paranormal 
experimentation. 
Unbeknownst 
to themselves, 
viewers No. 1 
and No. 29 
seemed to be 
describing Lop 
Nor, a Chinese 
nuclear 
complex.

The experiment 
was only one 
episode in a 
remarkable 
research 
program run by 
the Defense 
Intelligence 
Agency and 
CIA from 1972 
until 1996. The 
project, known 
variously as Grill 
Flame, Sun 
Streak, and 
finally Star 
Gate, explored 
a variety of 
parapsychologic
al phenomena 
but especially 
one known as 
"remote 
viewing," the 
process by 
which someone 
in, say, 
Maryland 
visualizes an 
office in the 
Kremlin and 
describes it both 
in words and 
drawings. The 
viewers were 
shadowy and 
unacknowledge
d participants in 
the quest for 
intelligence 
about a range of 
security 
concerns: 
nuclear 
weapons sites, 
the Iranian 
hostage crisis, 
the kidnapping 
of Gen. James 
Dozier by the 
Red Brigades, 
the location of 
Col. Muammar 
Qadhafi during 
the raids on 
Tripoli in 1986, 
and the 
espionage case 
of Aldrich 
Ames. 

The outlines of 
Star Gate have 
been sketched 
before, but new 
details of the 
project have 
come to light in 
73,000 pages of 
previously 
classified 
records 
released by the 
CIA last 
November and 
made available 
just this month. 
(An additional 
20,800 pages 
are undergoing 
review, and 
17,700 pages 
were deemed 
too sensitive to 
release.) The 
documents 
illuminate a 
chapter of 
spying that 
bears closer 
resemblance to 
Miss Cleo than 
to James Bond. 

In a sense, it 
was inevitable. 
>From the early 
1950s on, 
United States 
intelligence 
explored 
psychic 
research, hoping 
to use 
extrasensory 
perception 
(ESP) for 
intelligence 
operations. 
After all, the 
Soviets were 
doing it. 
Nonetheless, 
officials were 
torn between 
worries that the 
Soviets?and 
later the 
Chinese?were 
ahead of the 
United States in 
the psychic 
arms race and 
the skepticism 
of many 
American 
officials about 
spending money 
in the field seen 
as dominated by 
kooks. 

Even such 
hardheaded 
operatives as 
Richard Helms, 
who later 
became the 
director of the 
CIA, were 
intrigued. The 
declassified 
documents 
reveal a memo 
written when 
Helms was 
deputy director 
for plans in 
1963. For 10 
years a small 
group in the 
Technical 
Services 
Division had 
been studying 
hypnosis and 
telepathy for use 
in clandestine 
operations but 
concluded that 
these fields 
were not ready 
for operational 
applications. 
Helms 
disagreed and 
sent a memo 
suggesting more 
research in "this 
somewhat 
esoteric (and 
perhaps 
scientifically 
disreputable) 
range of 
activities." He 
argued that 
given the Soviet 
preoccupation 
with 
"cybernetics, 
telepathy, 
hypnosis, and 
related subjects 
. . . recent 
reported 
advances . . . 
may indicate 
more potential 
than we 
believed 
existed." 

Remote viewing 
was added to 
the roster of 
psychic 
phenomena in 
1972 when the 
CIA became 
interested in the 
published 
viewing 
experiments of 
Hal Puthoff at 
the Stanford 
Research 
Institute. In 
1972, the CIA 
gave the institute 
$50,000 to 
study remote 
viewing. Russell 
Targ, who 
joined the 
project in 1972, 
recalls a CIA 
official telling 
him: "You are 
wasting your 
time looking at 
churches and 
swimming pools 
in Palo Alto." 
Two years later, 
the institute 
received the 
geographical 
coordinates of a 
"Soviet site of 
ongoing 
operational 
significance." 

"Turning point." 
The target was 
Semipalatinsk, 
in what is now 
Kazakhstan. 
Aside from 
suspicions that 
the site was 
important, 
nothing was 
known about it. 
Given the 
coordinates, a 
remote viewer 
provided a 
layout of a 
cluster of 
buildings and 
drew a puzzling, 
"damned big 
crane." He 
identified the 
underground 
facility as 
storage for 
Soviet missiles. 
Satellite photos 
verified the 
viewer's report, 
according to 
Donald 
Jameson, then a 
senior CIA 
Soviet 
specialist, who 
called the event 
a "turning point." 
One group 
within the 
agency refused 
to look at the 
Semipalatinsk 
data, objecting 
to the 
unscientific 
methodology. 
Another group 
allowed that the 
data might be 
real but called 
the process 
"demonic." 

Still, officials 
were convinced 
enough of the 
program's 
potential that a 
training program 
was designed, 
as well as an 
ESP teaching 
machine. 
Questions 
designed to 
detect ESP 
talent 
supplemented 
the standard 
personality test 
used by the 
CIA. Some 
employees were 
deemed 
psychically 
gifted. When the 
CIA cut the 
program in 
1975, the funds 
shifted first to 
the Air Force 
and then, in 
1980, to the 
Defense 
Intelligence 
Agency. The 
military also 
looked for 
potential talent. 
That meant, 
says Paul H. 
Smith, a retired 
intelligence 
officer who 
spent seven 
years in Star 
Gate, "certain 
odd proclivities, 
like a creative 
pursuit in music 
or art, an 
interest or 
aptitude in 
foreign 
languages. They 
were also 
looking for 
people who 
didn't report any 
ESP 
experiences." 

Between 1979 
and 1994 Fort 
Meade's 
viewing site 
conducted 
roughly 250 
projects 
involving 
thousands of 
missions. One, 
in 1987, was an 
attempt to find a 
mole in the 
CIA. The 
viewers came 
up with a 
composite: The 
man lived in the 
Washington 
area, drove an 
expensive 
foreign car, 
perhaps gray, 
lived in a palatial 
home, was 
intimate with a 
woman from 
Latin America, 
possibly 
Colombia. 
Aldrich Ames 
lived in a palatial 
house in the 
Washington 
area. He drove 
a Jaguar and 
was married to 
a Colombian. 
The car was 
red; the house 
was gray. Not 
that the 
information was 
used; Ames was 
apprehended in 
1994. By 1995, 
the end of the 
Cold War, 
along with 
increasing 
concerns about 
unfavorable 
scrutiny, drained 
the 
remote-viewing 
program of both 
its vitality and its 
supporters, and 
CIA director 
John Deutch 
ended it. All 
told, it had cost 
$20 million. The 
CIA says it no 
longer funds 
remote-viewing 
research, but 
the military is 
less emphatic in 
its denials. In 
the end, the 
weakness of 
remote viewing, 
says Smith, "is 
the weakness of 
any 
phenomenon 
that deals with 
the threshold of 
human 
perception. 
There are false 
positives, vague 
notions, and 
confused data 
that go with the 
territory." 
Paradoxically, 
for nearly a 
quarter of a 
century of 
American 
spying, that was 
also a strength