Spy agencies have recruited an eclectic mix of psychics, witches, and astrologers over the years to tackle enemies from Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein. So it was perhaps inevitable that 9/11 would rekindle the military’s obsession with ESP.
Weeks after the US attacks, Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) approved a bizarre plan to test clairvoyants and, presumably, determine if they could track down Osama bin Laden. The initial budget was £18,000 ($25,000) but there was scope for further study, according to declassified - and heavily redacted - MoD files.
"It can only be speculation, but you don't employ that kind of time and effort to find money down the back of the sofa,” Nick Pope, a retired MoD official who ran the UFO research program, told The Guardian. “We must be talking about bin Laden and Weapons of Mass Destruction."
A line in the MoD documents refers to follow-up work after the initial ESP tests “including the search for [REDACTED].” The files show how seriously the tests were taken under PM Tony Blair. The Defense Ministry’s plan was to blindfold ‘Remote Viewers’ and ask them to ‘see’ and describe photos sealed inside brown envelopes.
Spy agencies have recruited an eclectic mix of psychics, witches, and astrologers over the years to tackle enemies from Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein. So it was perhaps inevitable that 9/11 would rekindle the military’s obsession with ESP.
Weeks after the US attacks, Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) approved a bizarre plan to test clairvoyants and, presumably, determine if they could track down Osama bin Laden. The initial budget was £18,000 ($25,000) but there was scope for further study, according to declassified - and heavily redacted - MoD files.
"It can only be speculation, but you don't employ that kind of time and effort to find money down the back of the sofa,” Nick Pope, a retired MoD official who ran the UFO research program, told The Guardian. “We must be talking about bin Laden and Weapons of Mass Destruction."
A line in the MoD documents refers to follow-up work after the initial ESP tests “including the search for [REDACTED].” The files show how seriously the tests were taken under PM Tony Blair. The Defense Ministry’s plan was to blindfold ‘Remote Viewers’ and ask them to ‘see’ and describe photos sealed inside brown envelopes.
Britain wasn’t alone in the ESP race, of course. The US had a long succession of psychic programs with fiery names like Project Sun Streak and Grill Flame that were folded into the Stargate program, the secret US Army unit established by the Defense Intelligence Agency to investigate psychic phenomena. Russia’s Military Unit 10003 and many other researchers also conducted extensive work in military ESP and parapsychology.
Despite some setbacks, Edwin May, who ran the $20m+ US Stargate program, praised Remote Viewing in an interview with SPYSCAPE’s True Spies podcast.
“There were 504 remote viewing spying missions given between SRI [an American research company] and the Fort Meade group over the 20 years or so. Of those 504 missions, they were all spread across the usual ABC alphabet soup agencies like the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and so on,” May said.
“Of those 19 agencies, 17 of them came back with additional new missions,” he added. “That's all you need to know. It worked. It worked well enough to keep them coming back and spending money.”
Remote Viewing
London’s MoD had approval to begin its psychic testing in 2001, but the budget was paltry compared to the Americans. Where to start? Basically, they Googled it. The MoD downloaded The Controlled Remote Viewing Manual from the internet and then set out to find crystal ball gazers and spoon benders with websites. Defense Ministry spies asked around as well, but that didn’t work out - perhaps the clairvoyants saw them coming.
In any event, known ‘Viewers’ and ‘experienced’ psychics weren’t interested. Instead, the MoD had to settle for ‘novices’, according to the declassified documents.
The British rented off-site premises, set up a tape recorder, TV camera and other equipment, and devised a score sheet. The technique was based on the CIA model as the Agency had run Stargate for almost two decades until 1995.
A remotely viewed headscarf?
In all, the British conducted 18 remote viewing sessions but the results were disheartening - and not just because one candidate appeared to be snoozing, or because two of the psychologists refused to return after their initial sessions.
"The untrained RV subjects - rarely - if ever made an accurate assessment of the target," the MoD would soon discover.
One of the most promising candidates sat with his head in his hands for 10 minutes, slumped over, and seemed to be napping. His left arm slipped off of the table before he bolted upright again. Eventually, he took a toilet break and - after about two hours - sketched out pyramids and a white tower.
MoD researchers generously decided that the first image ‘could’ have represented a face with a head covering and that the tower ‘may be representative’ of Mother Teresa’s burial place. Things went decidedly south from there, however.
A second candidate was asked to target a photo of a wine glass sealed inside an envelope.
Many visions came to her mind - a Japanese flag, a car driving down a road, and a beach scene with mountains in the background. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a glass of Chardonnay anywhere in sight.
A third candidate ‘saw’ what appeared to be a large duck inside the sealed envelope. Unfortunately, the original photo was so sensitive the MoD redacted it so we can’t be certain if Daffy Duck was among the secret photos. The odds are, he wasn’t.
"In the majority of cases, the subjects failed to access the target in any degree,” the British researchers concluded. “In 28% of the sessions, there was 'may have accessed some feature of the target'.”
"It is clear that as untrained Remote Viewers the subjects were almost completely unsuccessful," the MoD added in its 2002 assessment of the study. Researchers remained upbeat, however, noting that the first attempt could be used as a baseline when testing expert Remote Viewers in the future.
Intelligence agencies may not be done yet with psychic testing
ESP and the future
Officially, the British research ended then and there. In 2015, the UK Ministry of Defense said it had not conducted any follow-up ESP studies and wasn’t planning to either. In one way or another, however, ESP studies have been ongoing since the founding of the Society for Psychic Research in London in 1882 and likely will continue in one shape or another.
Oxford University’s Dr. Celia Green was researching ESP and 'out of the body experiences' during the 1960s. Around the same time, a CIA officer visited the UK to talk to academics in Oxford, Cambridge, and London about psychic powers. The more shadowy MoD branches who provided technical advice to Britain’s UFO desk were also reportedly developing a UK version of the US Stargate program during the Cold War.
“In 1994, personnel from the US Stargate project met scientists from a British defense intelligence agency to discuss their work and officers collected material from 'open sources' on experiments in Russia and other foreign countries,” according to David Clarke, author of Britain's X-Traordinary Files.
The US was also experimenting with other tests, including studies involving levitation, attempts to walk through walls, and a project to see if Green Berets could kill goats just by staring at the animals.
A British government document dated October 10, 2001, seen by Clarke, said the “existence and results [of the ESP trial] will be classified ‘Secret UK Eyes Only’ and stipulated that 'no indication of MoD involvement in this trial must be given.'”
So, it’s possible the MoD or another branch of the British government are still conducting psychic tests and simply keeping quiet about them. Although you probably sensed that, didn’t you?
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