When you think of the U.S. government, what comes to mind?
National parks? NASA rockets? Maybe the occasional scandal on Capitol Hill?
Rarely does one imagine men and women in trench coats whispering about ESP, clairvoyance, and the mind’s untapped powers. Yet, believe it or not, the U.S. government once had a full-blown fascination with psychic phenomena…so intense it funded secret programs to see if the human mind could become a weapon.
Yes, the Pentagon tried mind-reading. And yes, it got weirder than any sci-fi movie you’ve ever watched.
The Beginning of Psychic Espionage
The story begins in the 1970s, when the Cold War was heating up like a kettle left on the stove. The CIA and military agencies were desperate to find an edge over the Soviet Union. Nuclear missiles were all well and good, but what if the next big weapon was… your mind?
That’s right: they believed psychic spies might just be the ultimate espionage tool.
Enter Project Stargate, the top-secret umbrella for America’s psychic experiments. Hidden away in unassuming buildings, often indistinguishable from your average office block, scientists and “remote viewers” were busy trying to peer into foreign lands (or even the future) without leaving the room. And no, this was not a 1970s sci-fi novel.
It was real life, funded by…taxpayer dollars *sigh*.
Remote Viewing – Spying Without Leaving Your Chair
The crown jewel of the program was “remote viewing.” Imagine being able to visualise a secret Soviet installation in Siberia while sipping coffee in a dimly lit office in Virginia. That’s exactly what these psychic operatives were trained to do.
They’d sketch images of buildings, machinery, and people, often with uncanny accuracy. The results were, occasionally, astonishing. One famous case involved a psychic named Joseph McMoneagle, who described a Soviet weapons lab with such detail that some of it later turned out to be eerily accurate.
However, for every success story, there were at least ten hilarious failures. Some psychics claimed they had seen flying saucers in North Korea or an underwater alien base in the Pacific. And the government, in its infinite wisdom, paid them for it.
The Government and Its Love Affair with the Weird
What’s striking is how seriously the government took all of this. There were rigorous protocols, classified briefings, and the kind of paperwork you’d expect from a nuclear weapons program. But for people drawing doodles of secret bunkers while blindfolded.
Funding went on for decades, sometimes under the radar, sometimes under names like Grill Flame and Sun Streak.
In addition to spying, they also experimented with influencing behaviour.
Could a person’s mind move an object? Could psychic energy tip the scales of a battlefield?
Some experiments veered into the downright bizarre: attempts to stop Soviet tanks with sheer mental force. While the results were, predictably, underwhelming, the ambition and the audacity were undeniable.
Funny Money – Tax Dollars at Play
It’s hard not to chuckle when you realise how much taxpayer money went into these programs.
Between the 1970s and 1995, reports suggest that the government poured over $20 million into psychic research. That’s millions spent on remote viewing manuals, psychic training workshops, and people sitting in rooms trying to “see” enemy installations.
In today’s dollars? That’s closer to $40 million. And for what? Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it was a full-on cosmic joke.
One report even suggested that a psychic correctly described a secret location. But the CIA never actually verified the target. Classic case of “close enough for government work,” perhaps.
How the Programs Finally Fizzled
By the mid-1990s, scepticism began to catch up with the mysticism. After a long series of evaluations, the government concluded that while psychic phenomena were fascinating, they weren’t reliable enough for espionage.
Project Stargate officially shut down in 1995, and most of the research was archived, classified, or, in some cases, shredded. Some remote viewers returned to civilian life, sharing their stories at conferences and writing books with titles like Mind Wars and The Ultimate Time Machine.
Interestingly, even today, you’ll find the occasional retired operative giving interviews about psychic intelligence operations.
They are usually careful to say, with a wink, that “sometimes it worked… sometimes it didn’t.”
Why This Still Captivates Us
Perhaps what’s most compelling about the U.S. government’s psychic programs isn’t the science or the potential military applications. It’s the sheer audacity of it. In an era dominated by spies, satellites, and sophisticated surveillance tech, someone thought: “What if we just… trained people to see through walls?”
For some generations, this story hits a sweet spot. It’s nostalgic, a little absurd, and entirely plausible, like something out of The X-Files that somehow leaked into real life.
It also taps into that enduring fascination with human potential: What if our minds really can do incredible things, and the government once tried to harness that power… seriously?
And let’s not forget the humour.
Picture a room full of government agents, clipboards in hand, taking psychic sketches very seriously, while half the people are thinking about lunch. It’s bureaucratic surrealism at its finest.
In Short…
The U.S. government’s foray into psychic research is a remarkable chapter in history. It’s part science experiment, part Cold War paranoia, and part comedy.
From remote viewing to mind influence experiments, the programs demonstrate a fascinating willingness to explore the edges of human ability, and occasionally laugh at themselves in the process.
While Project Stargate and its offshoots may be closed, their legacy endures in books, documentaries, and the endless curiosity of people who wonder: Could it be possible? Could someone, somewhere, be using their mind to see what’s behind locked doors?
One thing’s for certain: the next time you think about secret government programs, don’t just picture black helicopters and clandestine meetings.
Picture the psychic sketch artist, pen in hand, trying to imagine a missile silo thousands of miles away…because sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction.
