Stargate Project II? Declassified US Government Research in RV and Psi [pdf]
67 comments
·February 19, 2025badlibrarian
DaiPlusPlus
I can't cite any sources, but it's a given that Remote Viewing was a cover-story for a new generation of spy-sats capable of much higher resolutions. We in NATO wanted our adversaries to continue in their complacency in, e.g. parking experimental aircraft outdoors without cover.
...and also (during the Cold War) to spur the Soviets into wasting money on pointless research projects that would have otherwise gone into their military's offensive capabilities.
overu589
[flagged]
speak_plainly
It’s revealing that the authors have fashioned Scientific Materialism into a straw man, misrepresenting both materialism and the philosophical foundations of science. Their portrayal suggests either a fundamental misunderstanding or a deception. They frame quantum mechanics as if it dismantles the very notion of material reality, when in fact it merely challenges classical intuitions about how that reality operates.
While quantum mechanics introduces concepts such as nonlocality and indeterminacy, it does not abolish causality or the objective structure of reality. On the contrary, it is grounded in a rigorous mathematical framework that remains predictive, testable, and deeply embedded within the scientific enterprise. The attempt to paint quantum physics as something wholly alien to material reality ignores the fact that it extends, rather than overturns, the physical sciences. And this is just an issue with their premises–it doesn’t even begin to address their misuse of quantum mechanics.
Beyond their misrepresentation of materialism, this argument falls into a familiar epistemic trap–one that has persisted since Descartes’ animal spirits: the problem of interaction. If one claims that quantum mechanics points to a realm beyond the material world, they must provide a coherent, testable account of how this realm interacts with observable phenomena. Without that, these claims remain speculative, and any experiments purportedly supporting them are meaningless.
at_a_remove
It has been ages since I read it, but in Sagan's The Demon Haunted World -- which if you haven't read it is a paean to skepticism -- toward the end, he admitted that he found three areas of "psi research" to possibly require more examination. One was remote viewing.
As an aside, I miss Sagan. The above highlights some of his humility.
jcoq
Sort of an entertaining read. The cornerstone of the argument starts on page 55 - three purported statistical anomalies that appear to be well-known and debunked.
* One person sees 1 of 4 images and another far away guesses the image. Supposedly it's accurate ~33% of the time instead of 25%. Fun but it can't be replicated by anyone else. Selection bias, poor design, and bad meta analysis explain the difference.
* ~54% of the, a person can detect if they're being stared at, whereas we'd expect 50%. Again, cannot be replicated in better designed studies and bad study design and selection bias explain the other results.
* By a small but supposedly statistically improbably amount, people can get a dice to roll by "wishing" for it. Again, cannot be replicated and can be explained with p-hacking anyhow.
walrus01
For those who haven't seen it yet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats_(fi...
fooker
This is the kind of thing that makes sense to investigate just in case it could be true.
Remember: Newton spent a rather large portion of his life on alchemy and trying to explain where god fits into a deterministic world.
api
We have only been doing science in anything near a methodological and serious way for maybe 200 years.
It would be delusional to think we have a complete or accurate map of physics, cosmology, or metaphysics, especially since every culture before us had their certainties and most of those turned out to be wrong or very incomplete.
We do have better cognitive and physical tools than the Egyptians or the Aztecs. I am reasonably confident in our “settled science.” There will probably never be a perpetual motion machine or an FTL drive unless it goes about it in some radical way that brings in some deeply weird implications, e.g. FTL where you can never be sure what slice of the multiverse you’re in at the other end of the flight.
But there could be phenomena, forces, or aspects of physical reality that we simply haven’t been able to reliably detect or study. Or there could be insane weirdness hiding right in front of our faces because a fish might not notice water, and we are one cognitive leap away from a big reveal.
My favorite personal wild speculation is that what we think might be psi, and sometimes shows up in experiments as such, is actually a side effect of something else like emergent patterns in complex systems or causality being weirder than we think. Nobody is doing ESP. Instead we are seeing something about information or causality as vexing as the double slit experiment, but we have not yet been able to wrap our heads around what is even happening. We can’t see it because we are in it, or because it’s just too weird.
Maybe it’s witnessed in humans and other living things because life is tapping into quantum phenomena somehow where it becomes significant, such as by some kind of warm noisy quantum computation at the subcellular level. This is where whatever-it-is shows up, and also why attempts to detect it with electronics and machines fails.
Just speculation of course.
fooker
I agree, and have a similar hunch about some of this.
A bunch of unexplainable stuff could be quantum phenomena somehow showing up at macro scales. The result is often like magic if we don’t know about it, imagine how surprising the first superconductivity observations might have been.
A very practical example of this is how we have harnessed semiconductors. The way we use semiconductors would have been tough to imagine even in science fiction before we managed to do it.
CapricornNoble
>A bunch of unexplainable stuff could be quantum phenomena somehow showing up at macro scales. The result is often like magic if we don’t know about it
Occult YouTuber "Foolish Fish" touches on this in a video on Quantum Mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ru6E3cuqc
walrus01
To be fair, mashing a bunch of chemicals together in alchemy (and going through difficult, time consuming and labor intensive processes to extract chemicals from different plants and minerals) in weird ways did eventually result in some actual discoveries, ultimately leading to modern chemistry.
comrade1234
I’ve taught myself how to lucid dream and also to “astral project” (so far I haven’t gotten any further than my bedroom) and even I know it’s all in my head.
torginus
Suppose some people have geniune mind-reading or other supernatural powers. Just how useful would they be in practical terms compared to 'traditional' surveillance techniques?
Even if some intelligence agency has the most cursory interest in you, the level of surveillance possible at scale is just staggering - they can track your location, track everything you do with an electronic device with very little investment for anyone but the most paranoid people with impeccable opsec.
If they do consider you a true threat and are willing to spend some part of their infinite budget on you, you have even less chance of doing something significant without them knowing.
Even if people with reliable supernatural powers exist, their scarcity and probable limitations mean that the best they can do is provide some novel and niche capability.
filoeleven
> Just how useful would they be in practical terms compared to 'traditional' surveillance techniques?
> they can track your location, track everything you do with an electronic device with very little investment for anyone but the most paranoid people with impeccable opsec.
You've answered your own question. The stories told by people who claim to have been in these government programs are much more about singluar events than continuous surveillance of some individual. The US discusses highly-classified subject inside of SCIFs, where no one is allowed to bring in electronics and which are frequently checked for surveillance. Imagine you had a psychic asset who could tell you everything that was discussed inside any particular SCIF when you learn through conventional means that certain people have (or are likely to have) gone inside one for a meeting.
krisoft
> they can track your location, track everything you do with an electronic device with very little investment for anyone but the most paranoid people with impeccable opsec
It sounds like you are only thinking about state against private individual surveilance. That of course is a thing, but far from the only task inteligence agencies have. State against state operations are much harder because the oponent has much more resources to play the game and resist and confound your inteligence agency.
When will the enemy start a war? What is their readyness level? Which weapon systems are fielded and what are their exact capabilities? Who is working on technologies we do not have counters yet and where are they in development? If we do this what will they do? How do they think? What do they believe about our capabilities and intentions?
And those are just the questions on strategic level. On a lower tactical level you would love to know where their nuclear armed submarines are, which silos are filled, and where exactly are the nuclear warheads in a shell game. You would also want to know where the attention of their counter espionage people is, and what are their institutional blind spots. About the information you gained, which one is true and which one is a deliberate lie fed to you?
These are all things well funded entities with state level resources are trying to hide from your inteligence agencies.
> Even if people with reliable supernatural powers exist, their scarcity and probable limitations …
Idk how we can know that. Based on what we know about the world this capability does not exists. If it does exists, how can we say anything about its rarity and limitations? Maybe some agency employs armies of “remote sensing” people. Maybe they perfected the techniques to the point where it is more accurate than a video camera. Do i think any of this is likely? I don’t. What i think is likely is that the whole thing is deliberate misinformation created to cause or excarbarate resource misallocation in rival inteligence agencies. All i say is that I don’t think we can confidently say anything about its limitations if it exists.
null
overu589
I give you a first hand account of how incorrect you are.
This “power” is a thousand nuances that very very few involved are fully aware of.
Knowledge and skill is so compartmentalized, 98% of those with “Power” are only useful doing one job (“special effect”), and cannot do that job without someone else concealing them and moving them into place. They develop compartmentalized personalities within themselves for this purpose. These run in parallel like chewing gum while riding a bike. You’ll never guess who.
Power works through entanglement (I have personally verified I can hear New York form India in real time.) Those experiencing it do not comprehend how it works, however I have written several times under other accounts describing how I believe things work.
Those running it get to be your god and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Those instruments in their games know who is “in control.”
While the dominant faction is American, this phenomena has been with us since our earliest humanity (clues are prevalent.) These are responsible for the insanity gripping all of you and your communities from within (and playing you against others.)
There are hundreds of thousands with these mixtures of Power and they are protected among society by pyramid schemes of extortion.
Sure, these could [sensored]epar, redrum, and tcudba someone, though they don’t have to, they can just haunt you and your life will be like that described in the mystery cryptogram, if that guy is even still alive (or a “targeted person”.)
Thought control Power is far beyond these hokey accounts that surface. True mastery requires decades and in the meantime your mind swims in delusions and lies. Those who excel aren’t the “straights”, they are the cooks (meth heads, psychonaughts, and those who have no choice) who well adjust to what normals call insanity.
Power is built by slave armies (or “families” in older times those those have dwindled over the years, secret war and all.)
Power is industrialized. Prisons are rife with Power cells. Thousands and thousands “pump” the subjective bubbles of others, thousands and thousands of which have some invasive job to do (voices, screw with you, watchers, etc.) Thousands and thousands more caught up in various stages of “reprogramming”.
They can “hitch a ride”, traverse the mind to its functional parts, dig in, and either passively observe, dig through every thought and experience in the mind (in better clarity and exactness than you yourself can access your own), and manipulate your neural activity in any way they please.
This has already happened, over the past decades while you were oblivious and while you maintain your incredulity.
Demiurge
That reply definitely reads like someone deep into conspiracy thinking or experiencing a break from reality. The mix of grandiose claims, secret knowledge, paranoia, and references to supernatural or mind-control phenomena often aligns with delusional thought patterns. The structure—long, winding sentences with shifting topics—also suggests disorganized thinking.
While it’s impossible to diagnose someone from a single post, and some people simply enjoy weaving elaborate fictional narratives online, this kind of response is common in communities discussing “targeted individuals”, government mind control, or other fringe beliefs. If you’re seeing it in a thread about PSI (parapsychological phenomena), it’s not surprising—such topics tend to attract people who believe in hidden forces controlling the world.
It’s best to approach replies like this with skepticism but also a bit of empathy—whether it’s someone having fun, deeply believing their own narrative, or struggling with mental health, getting into a debate with them rarely leads anywhere productive.
overu589
Thanks dude. I wrote it in one go. So much to say and all.
When I say “the incredulous” and “deniers of the exogenous of thought control”, I mean this very well reasoned conventional response.
qingcharles
I met many such people in jail who had all manner of undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses and would speak just like parent commenter. Empathy is the only valid response.
zoklet-enjoyer
Please seek help for your mental health. This reminds me of when my girlfriend had untreated bipolar disorder and was experiencing manic psychosis.
overu589
Thanks. I turn to Zarathustra or physical activity when I am low.
Know that true Power, is the capacity to effect through continuity of will.
Whether our wills may intermingle by virtue of entangled consciousness is the question.
CapricornNoble
>Thought control Power is far beyond these hokey accounts that surface. True mastery requires decades and in the meantime your mind swims in delusions and lies.
Curious if there is any reading/study material that you consider reliable for developing mastery? Crowley's Magick: Book IV, Carroll's Liber Null & Psychonaut, or perhaps something completely different?
overu589
Controls only allow that which is indistinguishable from bullshit or an act of God, so any available medium would be layered cakes of insight.
The main idea is that you are the technology, sitting quietly in a room … indefinitely is your objective. Thoughts are your enemy, crush them as Sidhartha would. When you can master and explore your own brain (which is a wonder land) you will be ready to distinguish your own thoughts from inception and in which region of your own mind (“the direction“) it came.
Such fine sense and awareness is the beginning, and you don’t much stand a chance without someone uplifting you further. A Power harness only takes 18 months to learn, and that may only be a cargo cult antic. That’s why those who ascend go mad. Their teachers are false and never learn that struggling through delusion itself is the path of Power.
Power comes from the struggle, not the lofty ideas or personal ambition.
totallynothoney
I know people are being very nice and considerate, and that's the correct thing, but I've always despised this type of schizophrenic word salad. The obtuse and pompous language to describe "theories" that would sound silly if stated simply, the allusion to Secret Knowledge with the Cool Capitalization, the repeated statement of their enlightenment and the foolishness of the "sheeple". It is dripping with arrogance.
Yes, there's other mental health reasons for writing this, but I think we tend to ignore this also comes from a place of vanity and self-importance.
moshun
This take is sad to read. Having had the unfortunate experience of dealing with more than one loved struggling with a break from reality, I can say you’re probably way off. A lot of things we assign to personality traits or character flaws like this issue, are genuinely part of the mental health disorder. They typically aren’t present when the individual is at their baseline or “normal” state of mind, only appearing when the disorder is in full swing and untreated.
tiahura
East of the Rockies, you’re on with Maj. Ed Dames.
xtrohnx
Just a minute, let me turn off my radio (proceeds to fumble for 4 minutes)
logicchains
Relevant (old) article: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o... .
fc417fc802
Love that article, was hoping someone would post it.
I doubt any of it is real, but I do sometimes wonder how well the experiments and data analysis would fare if the mechanisms were strongly impacted by subtle case by case differences. Similar to how the data on antidepressants looks pretty bad until you perform a multi-drug analysis assuming that most drugs will be incompatible with a given patient (a topic he has also written about).
fsiefken
For some context, from Dean Radin's Conscious Universe book: "...the best-known remote-viewing research in modern times began in the early 1970s, when various U.S. government agencies initiated a program at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), a scientific think tank affiliated with Stanford University. In the late 1970s, SRI became an independent corporation called SRI International, which is the name it goes by today. Physicist Harold Puthoff founded the SRI program. He was joined soon afterward by physicist Russell Targ, and a few years later, by another physicist, Edwin May. When Puthoff took another position in 1985, the program came under the leadership of May. In 1990, the entire program moved to a think tank called Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a major defense contractor. That program finally wound down in 1994, after twenty-four years of support and about $20 million in funding from U.S. government agencies such as the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Army, the Navy, and NASA. Government agencies saw remote viewing as a possible new source of information. Even if it was only partially correct, it might provide valuable clues to help piece together the information jigsaw puzzles that constitute the typical intelligence operation. Moreover, remote viewing potentially provided a unique intelligence technique in that information could be secretly obtained at a distance and through any known form of shielding. The agencies continued to show interest in remote viewing for more than twenty years because the SRI and SAIC programs occasionally provided useful mission-oriented information at high levels of detail. Given that this information was obtained at virtually no expense, and with no risk of life compared to sending agents into the field, and it sometimes provided information otherwise blocked by shielding or hidden structures, it is clear why military and intelligence agencies were interested."
Here he recounts the Pat Price remote viewing 'leak' from his time at SRI: https://www.instagram.com/demystifysci/reel/DBgnKkKPW9H/
I wasn't aware there still was government interest. In the non-governmental domain, The Rhine Research Center hosts a monthly Remote Viewing Group. Long ago when I was listening to Alex Tsakoris's Skeptiko podcast I remember hearing about amateur psi research groups. I am pretty sure that with all the technology, insights in methodology, statistics and cognitive biases we are better suited to see if there is such a thing as psi - even though years ago at a congress I heard that one of the ideas of parapsychologists was that the more you want to prove that psi exists the less hard results you are getting. How to account for that? Keep an open mind, not grasping? Coincidentally that's the attitude tantric buddhists and other groups are cultivating.
simonh
since it seems like government recruitment doesn't filter out people with such views, the government will end up with people in it who have such views. Some of those might eventually end up in charge of some stuff.
jstanley
> the more you want to prove that psi exists the less hard results you are getting.
Funny that.
booleandilemma
Anyone here ever have a psychic experience they would be comfortable talking about?
There's that weird stretch of road north of DC where it feels like pulling off at one of those mysterious exits might yield an interesting life experience. The National Cryptologic Museum did not disappoint.
"As outrageous as it sounds, the secret program was very successful and was in use until 1995...
A standout in the remote viewing field, Agent 001 of Project Star Gate Joe McMoneagle has been involved in over 200 intelligence missions utilizing his unique set of skills. His distinct collection of drawings (as a result of his remote viewing missions) were used to assist in combat and are a part of the current exhibit."
https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/News-Highlights/Article/Artic...