The Stargate Project was a secret military group started in 1977 at Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI), a company in California. The group was created to study the possibility of mental abilities, such as the ability to see things from far away, for use in military and intelligence work. Before being called the Stargate Project in 1991, it had many other secret names, including "Gondola Wish," "Grill Flame," "Sun Streak," and "SCANATE," depending on which organization was involved.
The Stargate Project’s main activity was called remote viewing, which is the claimed ability to see events, places, or information from a long distance using the mind. Until 1987, the project was led by Lt. Frederick Holmes "Skip" Atwater, who helped find people with mental abilities for the military. The group was small, with about 15 to 20 people, and operated from a small, old wooden building.
The Stargate Project ended and was made public in 1995 after a review by the CIA found that it was not helpful for intelligence work. Although some experiments showed results that were statistically meaningful, the review was unsure if these results were accurate or due to mistakes. The information the program provided was unclear and often included incorrect details. The project was mentioned in the 2004 book and 2009 movie The Men Who Stare at Goats, but neither the book nor the movie used the name "Stargate Project."
Background
Joseph McMoneagle said the CIA and DIA began their own research programs and provided funding after learning the Soviets were studying parapsychology. McMoneagle explained that these programs were reviewed twice each year by Senate and House select committees. He noted that standard procedures for remote viewing required keeping results secret from the person doing the viewing so that failures would not harm their confidence or ability.
McMoneagle described remote viewing as an effort to gather information about unknown places or events. He stated that it was usually used to learn about current events, but during some military and intelligence operations, viewers reported sensing future events, a phenomenon known as precognition.
History
In 1970, U.S. intelligence believed the Soviet Union was spending 60 million rubles each year on "psychotronic" research. In response to claims that the Soviet program had achieved results, the CIA started a new program called SCANATE in the same year. Remote viewing research began in 1972 at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California. Supporters of the research, Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff, stated that experiments often exceeded a 65% accuracy rate required by clients.
In 1972, physicists Targ and Puthoff tested psychics for SRI, including Israeli psychic Uri Geller, who later became famous worldwide. Their reported success attracted interest from the U.S. Department of Defense. Ray Hyman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, was asked by Air Force psychologist Lt. Col. Austin W. Kibler to investigate Geller at SRI. Hyman concluded Geller was a "complete fraud," leading to the loss of government funding for Targ and Puthoff’s work with him. This resulted in a publicity tour for Geller, Targ, and Puthoff to seek private funding for further research.
One success of the project occurred in 1976, when Rosemary Smith, a young administrative assistant hired by project director Dale Graff, helped locate a lost Soviet spy plane.
In 1977, the Army’s Intelligence unit began the Gondola Wish program to study how adversaries might use remote viewing. By mid-1978, this became an operational program called Grill Flame, based at Fort Meade, Maryland.
In 1979, SRI’s research was integrated into Grill Flame, which was later renamed the INSCOM "Center Lane" Project in 1983. In 1984, the program was reported by journalist Jack Anderson, but it was criticized by the National Academy of Sciences. Army funding ended in 1985, though the program was renamed "Sun Streak" and continued under the DIA’s Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate.
In 2024, George Stephanopoulos wrote in his book The Situation Room about a 1980 Situation Room briefing for President Jimmy Carter, following a failed hostage rescue mission in Iran. Carter later said the CIA had once contacted a California woman with psychic abilities to help locate a missing plane.
In 1991, most of the program’s contracts moved from SRI to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Edwin May controlled most of the funds and data. The program’s security classification changed from Special Access Program (SAP) to Limited Dissemination (LIMDIS), and it was renamed STARGATE.
In 1995, the program was transferred to CIA oversight. The CIA commissioned a report by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), which found no proof that remote viewing worked through psychic abilities and that it had never been used operationally. The CIA then canceled and declassified the program.
In 1995, the CIA conducted a retrospective evaluation of the project. The panel included Jessica Utts, Meena Shah, and Ray Hyman. Utts argued the results suggested psychic abilities, while Hyman said the findings were not yet proven and had not been independently tested. The AIR report concluded no remote viewing reports provided useful information for intelligence operations.
The CIA ended the $20 million project in 1995, stating there was no documented evidence it helped intelligence work. Time magazine noted in 1995 that three psychics still worked on a $500,000 annual budget at Fort Meade, which would soon close.
In 2000, David Marks wrote in The Psychology of the Psychic that the Stargate Project had six major flaws, including possible sensory leaks, lack of independent testing, and conflicts of interest. He concluded the project failed to provide scientific proof of remote viewing.
Some project members, like Dale Graff, were surprised by the findings. Graff said the project seemed successful in his experience, but he noted that military and intelligence officials never took it seriously.
In January 2017, the CIA released Stargate Project records online as part of the CREST archive.
Methodology
According to Joseph McMoneagle, the Stargate Project developed a set of rules to make the study of psychic abilities and out-of-body experiences more scientific. These rules aimed to reduce errors and unclear information during research. McMoneagle explained that the term "remote viewing" was used to describe this more organized method of studying psychic abilities. He stated that the Stargate Project would only take on a mission if all other intelligence methods had already been tried and failed.
McMoneagle reported that at its busiest time, the project had more than 22 active military and civilian remote viewers who provided information. However, when people left the project, they were not replaced. By the time the project ended in 1995, only three remote viewers remained, and one of them used tarot cards. McMoneagle noted that the Army was not very open about psychic abilities, which led to the term "giggle factor" and the saying, "I wouldn't want to be found dead next to a psychic."
Civilian personnel
In the 1970s, the CIA and DIA provided funding to Harold E. Puthoff to study paranormal abilities. He worked with Russell Targ on the Stargate Project, which examined the claimed psychic abilities of individuals like Uri Geller, Ingo Swann, Pat Price, Joseph McMoneagle, and others. Puthoff became a director of the project.
Puthoff, along with Ingo Swann and Pat Price, believed that their remote viewing skills were influenced by their involvement with Scientology. At that time, Puthoff had reached the highest level in Scientology. All three individuals left Scientology in the late 1970s.
Puthoff was the principal investigator of the Stargate Project. His team of psychics reportedly helped identify spies, locate Soviet weapons and technologies, such as a nuclear submarine in 1979, and assist in finding lost SCUD missiles during the first Gulf War and plutonium in North Korea in 1994.
Russell Targ began working with Harold Puthoff on the Stargate Project during the 1970s while also working as a researcher at Stanford Research Institute.
Edwin C. May joined the Stargate Project in 1975 as a consultant and worked full-time on the project in 1976. The original project was part of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory managed by May. With more funding in 1991, May moved the project to the Palo Alto offices at SAIC. The project ended in 1995 when the CIA closed it.
May served as the principal investigator, judge, and gatekeeper for the project. Some sources, like Marks, noted that this arrangement created a conflict of interest because May had control over the data and could influence the experiments. Marks also mentioned that May refused to share the names of the "oversight committee" and denied permission for an independent review of the project's transcripts. This refusal raised concerns about the reliability of the data or the methods used to collect it.
The Stargate Project's early experiments, called "Phase One," were conducted by the American Society for Psychical Research under research director Karlis Osis. A former Scientologist who claimed to have created the term "remote viewing" based on protocols developed by a French chemical engineer named René Warcollier in the early 20th century, documented these efforts in his book. Ingo Swann improved the study of clairvoyance by creating a structured method called "Coordinate Remote Viewing" (CRV). In a 1995 letter, Edwin C. May wrote that he had not worked with Swann for two years due to rumors that Swann had shared information about remote viewing, aliens, and extraterrestrials with high-level officials at SAIC and the CIA.
A former police officer from Burbank, California, and former Scientologist, Pat Price participated in Cold War-era remote viewing experiments, including the U.S. government-sponsored projects SCANATE and the Stargate Project. Price joined the program after meeting Harold Puthoff and Ingo Swann, who were also Scientologists at the time, near SRI. Using maps and photographs provided by the CIA, Price claimed to have retrieved information about facilities behind Soviet lines. He is best known for sketches of cranes and gantries that matched CIA intelligence photographs. At the time, the CIA took his claims seriously.
Military personnel
In the 1990s, the project leader was Lt. Gen. Clapper, who later became the Director of National Intelligence.
A key supporter of the research at Fort Meade, Maryland, was Maj. Gen. Stubblebine. He believed strongly in the existence of various psychic abilities. He required all his battalion commanders to learn how to bend spoons in the style of Uri Geller and personally tried several psychic activities, such as attempting to walk through walls. In the early 1980s, Stubblebine led the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), during which the Army’s remote viewing project began. Some people have mistakenly linked a project called "Project Jedi," supposedly managed by Special Forces at Fort Bragg, to the Stargate program. After controversy involving these experiments, including reports of unauthorized civilian psychics working in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs), Stubblebine was placed on retirement. His replacement as INSCOM commander was Maj. Gen. Harry E. Soyster, who was known for being more traditional and cautious in his approach to intelligence work. Soyster did not support paranormal experiments, and the Army’s involvement in Project Stargate ended during his leadership.
In his book Psychic Warrior, Morehouse described working on hundreds of remote viewing tasks, including searching for a Soviet jet that crashed in a jungle and carried an atomic bomb, as well as tracking suspected double agents.
McMoneagle claimed he had a strong memory of events from his early childhood. He grew up in an environment marked by alcoholism, abuse, and poverty. As a child, he had visions during times of fear and began developing his psychic abilities during his teenage years for self-protection while hitchhiking. He joined the Army to escape his home life. While serving in U.S. Army Intelligence, McMoneagle became an experimental remote viewer.
Ed Dames was initially assigned to monitor and analyze sessions as a helper to Fred Atwater, not as a remote viewer. He did not receive formal training in remote viewing. After joining the remote viewing unit in January 1986, Dames was used to supervise remote viewers and provide training and practice sessions. He became known for pushing the remote viewing program to include extreme targets, such as Atlantis, Mars, UFOs, and aliens. Dames has frequently appeared as a guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio program.
Archives of the Impossible
The Archives of the Impossible (AOTI) at Rice University in Houston, Texas, is a special collection of materials started in 2014 by Jeffrey J. Kripal, a professor of religion. AOTI is located at the Woodson Research Center (WRC), and its materials are stored in the Fondren Library. AOTI contains declassified documents from the Stargate Project. Christopher Senn helped organize the Stargate Project collection for Rice University. The collection was donated by Edwin May, who was the U.S. Army's program director from 1985 to 1995. In Routledge's Handbook of Religion and Secrecy, written by Hugh Urban and Paul Christopher Johnson, Kripal and Senn explained that May's donation to AOTI included thousands of pages of declassified materials. In 2025, Derek Askey, an editor at The Sun, described his visit to AOTI and his review of materials from the government's Stargate Project. The Stargate Project materials donated by May cover the years from 1972 to 1995.