— awe oe . Approved For Release sooorossodl NAotlosAerdsie001700360003-3 TACK ANDERSON e ‘ EAs Waves, ULN DUOL Monday, March 30, 1981 _ CIA Toys With Extrasensory Weapo 00) on In James Bond circles, nothing | is too. farfetched to be dismissed. The Central Intelligence Agency, for exam- . ple, has been toying for years with the idea of using extrasensory perception in its work — spurred by the suspi- succeeded in opening an ESP gap.. I've already reported on the Penta- gon’s $6-million-a-year research to dé- velop ESP weapons that can _brain- : wash or incapacitate enemy leaders by : * thought transfer, - bombs. instantaneously ‘ miles away by psychic energy, or even” create a protective “ime warp” to ’ make incoming Soviet missiles explode deliver thousands . of harmlessly in the past. These wacky projects have support. ~ from the Defense Intelligence Agency, . “which reports the Russians have ‘been _ doing intensive’ research in the field : for nearly 50 years, The DIA even | : eredits the omnipotent Kremlin scien- tists with successfully demonstrating _ ESP’s deadly potential on insects, ‘a. - possibility that should “bring joy to. farmers and backyard gardeners —, and strike terror in the insecticide i tn, "alarmist about the Red Menace than. , the Pentagon, spooks are, has‘ aleo _ been monitoring Soviet ESP research’ try. : The CIA, though historically ‘eas and pondering the possibility of less bizarre psychic weapons. A top-secret report on the subject by a CIA scien- nuclear. tific expert has been examined by niy associate-Dale Van Atta. -- The analysts estimated that “the _ Soviet military and KGB have had a ‘clon that the Russians have somehow ~ covert. applied parapsychology pro- gram since the mid-1960s.” This was the period when the CIA was experi- - menting with hallucinogenic drugs: on unsuspecting Americans and with foot powder that ‘would make Fidel | Cas- tro’s beard fall out. . The CIA warms the Soviets may be “ahead of the US. in parapsychology.” Evidence of Soviet progress ig sketchy Kremlin's. yoodoo ‘acien- tists, the CIA suspects, have gone wn- dercover. Intelligence gources estimate that at least 200. Soviet experts in various disciplines - are - working on’ ESP weapons development, >.......-- The CIA report. identified ‘several " areas of: suspected Soviet study: _ it bombarded the U.S.: Embassy ¢ “Electrostatics . of telekinests,”.- or the ability to move objects by mental Ds concentration... . e “Extremely - Jow ; - frequencies “ot : electromagnetic radiation for informa- nm. transmission.” may have been what the KGB was up p 10 when in Moscow with: microwave radiation: fot nearly 20 years: ¢ Application ‘of theories involving’ links between the way the human brain and electronic computers. ‘oper- ate, Remote monitors and stimulators to determine or influence another per- son’s physical condition by. atty’ ‘like a Haitian witch doctor ‘might try. -@ High-frequency * analysis ‘of Jan electroencephalograri, “a sort of. wire- tapping of someone’s brain ‘waves. The - atea’ of- Soviet ESP’ research that really has the CIA’s: mouth. wa- tering is the possibility’:of* “remote viewing” by telepathy from thousands - of miles away. Who'd need a mole in. . the Kremlin, if: a’ paychic. sitting” at & desk -in’ Washington ; could’. zoom ,in mentally: on 8 super-secret, Soviet. mis- s aile site. ora ‘Politburo ‘necting? " ‘Under the Donie: ‘House: Minori- : ty Leader. Robert, Michel (RAIL) "ap. pears. t6 be” cracking under. the-atrain - ; of his job.. He-has taken to composing such. ‘literary gems as.“Uncle . Bob's Primer. for. Big Spenders.” “Excerpts: “See Big Spenders rin.in 1980;:See Big Spenders. lose’: in: 1980.:;, . See ~ Big: Spenders forgetting the. Jessouk of 1980, See Big Spenders: run’ ini-'1982. 2" T938;. Big Spenders, lose.”. Another éf- ~ fort, ‘inspired by the old song, “Is ‘You “Ts or’ Is You Ain’t-My Baby?” goes like this: “Is the Democrats -or:-ain’t the Democrats backing® the mandate the people gave Reagan?” Mereifully, Michel didn't try to sing it. -@ Rep. Jack Kemp (RNY) i is. the man. who introduced’ Budget Director David A. Stockiaii to’ then-candidate Ronald Reagan; and Kemp says hé's glad he did. “Stockman is an intellec- tual giant who can get along with peo- ple,” Kemp claims.” ~_ tas, Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3
a ~ ame! a vo, Se RO 6 Ae ay rata naomi: @ ot eames ememtpeee amen since 0 nas» ollie tment Dk achrcireiiedn bea i ee roe ‘ " wae “e . * beeen erates ale eerste Ae Ce nt sean. -4@ an 9 ctnnrerrnenyananete ee = ee +o As amet teed Renin tell se ae Se Mpa, aod - w 4 o { tee wee, coe ay - Mononal secur Awcucy par- dam Utapalys lain jnuyue have psychic abilities. The results SRI repor- ted were astonishing. » The SHI investigators, physicists Harold E. Puthoff (a former MSA research engineer) and Russell Targ, set out 1 demonstrate to their CIA sponsor that their subjects, a noted yr ychic named Ingo Swann anda middle-aged businessman named Pat Price, could describe distant _lo- cations merely by knowing which geographic coordi- _ Hates 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 Reographic coordinates of target Sités*chosén* by the | NSA monitor were encoded to ensure their security, 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 subjects. In one case, Swann described and sketched - with reasonable accuracy a target island inthe 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: 1 “On a later date Pat was asked to return [mentally] to ~ the Virginia site with the goal of obtaining codeword in- : formation, if possible. In response, Pat supplied the fol- . Jowing information: ' Top of desk had papers labeled; Flytrap +: “Minerva: _ * File cabinet on north wall labeled: Operation Poo! — (2nd word unreadable) | Folders inside cabinet labeled:: ‘Cueball 14 Ball 4 Bal) 8 Ball Rackup “ aine of site vaguely seems like Hayfork or Haystack _ Personnel: A Col.R.J.Hamilton —- * ‘ Maj. Gen. George R. Nash Major John C. Calhoun??[sic]” “Hell, there’s no Security left,” a government security , officer excluimed upon hearing 2 cess at psychic spying. According to 2 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 of Price's alleged suc- those operations. A security investigation was launched . to determine whether the sensitive information had been leaked to Price or others involved in the tests.“The . security 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 [Soviet] Bloc ENCLOSURE C Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : Cl H Chita ot: ' : : . "Acre \APRFONAR ARATE cuTy UAT i Pifistopos-ooveapgosrpodsoopsp 7 aaa AA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3 ” eh eh bee ar et he ¢ «The CIA; the Pentagon | And the Russians P; . . Wilhehn is a former national science corre. equivalent, and found one in the Urals,” continues the SRI report. In addition to giving feographic coordinates 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 women to men, at . Jeast 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. ‘ AM urky Business , F OR THE PAST 25 vears, various branches of the mil- jtary 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 rhind control experiments, Tanges By John L, Withel [ r Spy er Jor Time magazine: His book on Psychic research, “The Search for Superman,” was published last veer, ~
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3 io ° Sgt eS ies, Retreat giclee atl ‘se . irom intelligence reports on foreign developments and theoretical background studies to funding of original ex- eriments and even semi-operational tests of psychic es- pionageabroad. CT The frequently grandiose claims made for parapsy- hology include reading or controlling people's thoughts telepatby), gaining information about distant persons, places and things (clairvoyance), predicting the fulure precognition), and influencing physical objects (psycho- sinesis) ~ 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 1olds any promise (or danger) for mind warfare. : ‘Wading tbrough all the dubious claims, conflicting re. orts and deliberate disinformation is mushy business at vest. Much of the research in this country is classified or raveshifiad Rateaseue QQMHO8 0 8rivedArdion9 G100788R001700360003-3 UMN TOIT CT aK gat eres Latin co waysOss so ; By David Suter for The Washington Post ¥ oo . . 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 atomicenergy. . : i a: ‘There is particular concern about Soviet psychic capa» bilities, including allegations that the Russians ure able 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: See PSYCHIC, Page BS -
Te \ ‘I v {7 i Ul f 7 i : . we Approved’ EH ReFease 20001 /08 : CIA-RDP96- oorsaRbexadeeoobel sere when lasers were just gel- “Other Soviet tests included sending to the percipient the anxiety associated with suffocation and the sensa- tion of a dizzying blow tothe head. . . Some Western followers of psychic phenomena research are concern- ed, for example, with the detrimental effects of sublimi- nal perception techniques being targeted against U.S. or allied personnel in nuclear missile silos. The subliminal. message could be ‘carried’ by television signals or by tel- epathic means. “The potential applications of focusing mental influ- © -. encés on an enemy through hypnotic telepathy have : surely occurred to the Soviets. . . Control and manip- ulation of the human consciousness must be considered - : a primary goal.” Atew. analysts.even f fear. that the’ e-President a and’ other _-' tute. This $100-million-a-year think tank south of San_ . Francisco Gust renamed SRI International) conducts_a. ‘ wide variety of studies for both -government.and busi" . . ness. SRI has evaluated the ‘potential of LSD and other drugs for the CIA, forecast world trade in the year 2000 ~ leaders could become the. telepathic targets_ of ‘Soviet oe sentes Inind contro} efforts. They argue that defensive, meas: “ ‘ures need to be researched to prevent such apparent sci- ence-fiction possibilities. One spéculation voiced in sup- _ port of this thesis is that the decade-old microwave sig-" . | nals beamed against the U.S. embassy in Moscow might have been an operationa) experiment in behavior modi- fication using “psychotronic” methods — that is, involv- ° 1: ing psychic powers amplified by special devices. Wild as « ’ this sounds, the CIA's “NBIT” study Jends some credence _— to the hypothesis: “The Russians may now be imple- | menting the next logical step {to experiments proposed five years earlier], namely to reinforce, enhance, or aid NBIT in certain trained or gifted individuals after hav- ing discovered the basic communication carriers.” And the DIA reports: . ‘ “Soviet ar Czech perfection of psychotronic weapons would pose a severe threat to enemy military, embassy or security functions. The emitted energy would be si- lent and difficult to detect electronically (although the Soviets claim tu have developed effective biological en- ergy sensors) and the only power source required would be the human operator.” Most experts, publicly discount the idea, however, : countering with the argument that the Moscow signals involve jamming devices or scanners that “sec” inside the embassy. The Soviets have a special laboratory dedicated to par- apsychology, according to some intelligence analysts. The CIA report estimates that the laboratory may have a technical staff as large as 300 physicists, doctors, ~-biochemists and electrical engineers, all studying the “theory and applications of psychic functioning. A Soviet physicist now living in Paris, August Shtern, recently ‘claimed that he had worked for several years in a secret laboratory in Siberia trying to find a physical basis for psychic energies. Shtern also said that, before leaving Russia two years ago, he had heard that an even more ‘seerct laboratory under direction of the KGB now is pur- suing similar research in Moscow. In June, Los Angeles Times correspondent Robert Toth was detained in Moscow by the KGB, allegedly for receiving “state secrets” about parapsychology research. The paper given to Toth by a scientist said to be Jabora-, rory © chief 3 at the Moscow Institute of Medical-Biological | Biaseh ata AE Het Te See ws Riath to POS? Cte apek en ash ting started.” Investigators at the Navy's Surface Weap- ons Center and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center also have run “informal” tests on Geller, with dubious results. The Geller Tests HE GROWING governmental! interest in psychic possibilities had been accelerated in 1972 when Dr. " Andrija Pubarich, a longtime researcher in the field,- brought Geller to be studied at Stanford Research Insti- ‘for multinational companies, even avalyzed an 18% minute tape gap for just one customer, Richard Nixon. . SRI scientists are no strangers when it comes to Sealing _ with hush-hush projects. * Neither is Pubarich. His connections with the- mili , tary/intelligence communities go back to the early 1950s — when he worked in the Army's Chemical and Biological Warfare Center at Ft. Detrick, Md. site.of the CLA’s now famous shellfish toxin repository. He presented a paper entitled “On the-Possible Usefulness of Extrasensory Perception in Psychological Warfare” to a Pentagon conference in 1952: and later lectured the Army, Air Force and Navy on other possibilities for mind warfare. Expert in hypnotism as well as microelectronics, Puha- 7 rich also invented a miniature tooth radio, reportedly for the CIA. So it was Puharich who netted Geller for study, stud- _ jes paid for by a few-small, private foundations formed expressly to fund such research, including one headed by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell. In addition to telep- athy and clairvoyance, SRI researchers claimed that Gel- ler could erase magnetic tapes, Jevitate tiny weighis, _ even materialize and dematerialize small objects. The .- , Pentagon's DARPA sent a team of consultants to SRI to see if such bizarre claims rated their funding. But the . DARPA consultants concluded that SRI's work with Gel- ler was conducted with “incredible sloppiness." Geller now is largely discounted as merely an extremely facile conjurer. While Geller and others were undergoing tests at SRI, CIA scientists were canvassing the country for addi- ‘ thonal evaluations, prowling parapsychology meetings ' and tapping experts.in an effort to fathom the conflic- ting, and often quite emotional, reports from both be- ’ Hevers and skeptics alike. “{ had two men from the CIA come down and visit me,” recalls Dr. Robert Van de. Castle, at the time a Uni- * versity of Virginia psychologist and also a member of _ chic viemenge ats was not beyond the re? the DARPA team that investigated Geller. “One thing they wanted to know was if Geller could jam computers. But they were particularly interested in out-of-body stuff. They were concerned that the Russians bad devel-. oped it to such an extent that they were using it for in- telligence monitoring. 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