Project Stargate Examined in “Psi Spies” by Jim Marrs

Known by numerous code names over the years of its existence, the remote viewing program funded by the CIA and the Department of Defense is perhaps best remembered as Stargate.

In Psi Spies, conspiracy author Jim Marrs offers a thorough but succinct account of how the program developed. He discusses the origins of the technique remote viewers would use at the operational level as part of Stargate. That technique was developed in the 1970’s by psychic Ingo Swann working with university scientists trying to develop a repeatable procedure that would lead to what has become known as remote viewing.  Practitioners would psycically examine a target and provide a sketch of the shapes that impressed themselves on the viewer along with a description of colors, emotions, smells, and other data.

Marrs then explains that meanwhile American intelligence experts became aware that the Soviets were experimenting with psychic techniques. This raised a troubling question: are the Soviets actually accomplishing anything or are they just pouring money down a rathole?  

The solution was to test the idea.  Skip the stumbling block of demanding a theory before acting and simply find out if it can be done.  Swann’s technique was brought into play and potential remote viewers assigned.

Certainly for many years, Stargate continued to receive funding because there were always some people believed that the program was producing results, even if they were not acted upon.

It’s not a perfect approach, although sponsors unrealistically expected 100% success at all times, with no errors. After all, name one intelligence-gathering technique that is 100% error-free. As Dr. David Morehouse, one of the later Stargate remote viewers, and I discussed in a radio interview shortly after 9/11, you don’t act on the results of a remote viewing. (Although you can increase the success rate, says Marrs, by having a number of remote viewers unknowingly remote viewing the same target.)

Instead, you grade the intelligence produced (a standard procedure, anyway, whatever the source). Then you work it into your mosaic of gathered knowledge. If it supports other intelligence you have received, you have the basis for further investigation.  This is an aspect the sponsors understood, but enemies of the program did not.

Marrs notes that one problem that affected morale was that the remote viewers were invariably denied feedback. They also knew that no one was acting on their information. It wasn’t finding it’s way into the mosaic, so to speak.  They were always in test mode. 

As far as dependability, there were some good successes. Joe McMoneagle, author of several books on his experiences, successfully remote viewed and described a building in Russia near a northern naval base and how massive it was — up to this point, the sponsors knew everything he was experiencing. But what they didn’t know is what was inside, and he told them through description (not conclusions; making guesses screws up your information)…it turned out to be a new class of submarine.  Morehouse told me that using a pendulum, a remote viewer working for the DEA was able to bust the largest drug smuggling operation in history by locating a ship filled with drugs north of Hawaii. (As remote viewers gained experience, they were able to use tools of choice to achieve their results.)

On the other hand, Marrs points out that at least one of the post-Stargate remote viewers wound up on radio shows making claims about the future that can best be considered extravagant.  Many remote viewers reported unsual experiences such as interaction with UFO’s and other-deminsional aliens.

It was an interesting experiment and Marrs repeats something Morehouse told me in the interview. A second crew was put through training at the same time as the Stargate crew. When Stargate was targeted with a leak to a newsstand tabloid, no less, and publicly terminated, the other crew, deeper undercover, no doubt took over.