File 025 · 1972–1995 · Paranormal research

Project Stargate: the CIA's psychic spies

For more than 20 years the US government funded research into 'remote viewing', the claimed ability to see distant places with the mind. A 1995 review concluded it had never produced useful intelligence.

Background

In the early 1970s the CIA became concerned about reports that the Soviet Union was studying psychic phenomena. It funded researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, including physicists Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, to test people who claimed to describe distant locations. Later the US Army, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other bodies ran their own units under names such as Grill Flame, Center Lane, Sun Streak and Stargate.

At times the program tried to use these viewers in intelligence work, for instance to describe the location of hostages or military facilities. The results were never convincing to most analysts, but the program continued quietly for about two decades, until Congress and the CIA ordered an independent review.

What the record shows

• The program's existence is confirmed by thousands of pages of released CIA and Defense documents.
• The American Institutes for Research evaluation concluded that continued use of remote viewing for intelligence gathering was not warranted.
• Two reviewers disagreed: statistician Jessica Utts argued that laboratory results showed an effect worth studying, while psychologist Ray Hyman argued the results were flawed and not reliable.
• Reported total cost was in the region of 20 million dollars over about two decades, according to secondary sources.

Timeline

• 1972 CIA-funded research at Stanford Research Institute begins.
• 1978 The Army sets up a remote-viewing unit at Fort Meade.
• 1991 The program is renamed Star Gate.
• 1995 The CIA hires the American Institutes for Research for a review; its report is dated September 1995.
• 1995 The program is cancelled after the evaluation.
• Later Program records are released through the CIA's online reading room.

Checking the claims

The claim: the US government spent years trying to use psychics as spies. This is true, and the documents prove it. The claim that it worked is not supported. The evaluators found that the vague descriptions produced by viewers could not be used to carry out an operation, and that results were often interpreted after the fact to fit the target.

The Utts and Hyman disagreement is worth understanding. Utts argued that the statistics in some lab experiments were hard to explain by chance. Hyman argued that experiment design, such as clues in the target material, could explain the results. The outside evaluation settled the practical question: it did not help intelligence work.

Claimed, but not shown

There is no verified case in the released record of a remote viewing session that solved a real intelligence problem in a way that could be tested.

Verdict

Sources

• American Institutes for Research, An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications (September 1995)
• CIA Reading Room, STARGATE collection
• Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program: Star Gate

Connected files (red threads)

• MKUltra — Another Cold War program exploring the limits of the mind
• Project Blue Book — Both were government projects that tried to investigate the unexplained
• Havana Syndrome — Another government effort to study unexplained effects on the mind

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