After twenty minutes or so, I brought myself out of a deep place of meditation and slowly opened my mind. The first thing I saw in my mind's eye was what looked like a short stubby periscope-type device with some form of optical view-port. I began to sketch and describe it in as much detail as possible. Soon what looked liked two layers of a vehicle interior appeared with what appeared to be armored seats. There was some kind of a hardened military-type computer built in with a modified keyboard, which I also tried to draw. Eventually I began to have images of what appeared to be very large bullets or shells lying on their sides (indicative of an automatic loader), all following some kind of a curved track. They disappeared to the rear of the seats. I continued drawing what I was seeing in my head, one element sort of leading to the next, not really knowing exactly what it was that I was presenting. Eventually the information signal line dried up and I had to quit. I sort of sat there in a daze, feeling completely drained of energy.
I looked at my drawing and laughed out loud. "That sure doesn't look like any airplane I've ever seen," I remarked. Fred agreed but didn't seem disappointed with me. By this time, he was becoming a pretty good judge of when I was in contact with a target location and when I wasn't.
Many weeks later. I found what had gone on. The Army was getting ready to field its new heavy tank, the Abrams XM-1. Back then, there were only prototypes in existence and few were allowed access to them. They had parked one inside an aircraft hangar and surrounded the hangar with airplanes as a test to see how much of an effect front-loading might have on a remote viewer.
Another problem with moving into operational targets was their time requirement. They'd always come with a drop-dead date or time. As in most operations, we'd usually be the last people notified, and there would be very little time in which to respond. So the stress was terrific, especially on the viewers. I was beginning to carry that stress back to my apartment with me and my relationship with Peggy was getting worse. We almost never talked about anything. I was cut off from the outside world of news, so current topics were out, and we shared zero friends. Most of her friends didn't have a clue about the military, never mind intelligence, and probably would have totally lost it if they had known what I was doing. My friends, of course, were limited to Ken, Mel, Fred, Scotty, and Hartleigh. Beyond that, there were only a few of the part-timers who would drop in once in a while for a cup of coffee, or to work a specific target, and those visits were becoming less and less frequent.
During this same period, we got word that sometime in the next year the American Skylab was expected to fall from orbit and break up. Just to get a break from some of the more serious targeting we were doing, I took it on as a personal project. In a conversation I had with Hal Puthoff while I was out in California, he had said one of the best ways to prove RV would be to do a target for which there was not yet an answer. In this case, no one on the planet knew where or when it was going to drop out of orbit and hit the Earth.
I wrote out on a small card, which I slipped under the glass of my desk, "When and where is the American Skylab going to reenter the atmosphere?" It seemed an impossible task.
Scotty thought that it was a target that couldn't be answered, because it had not yet happened. I took it on anyway.
After working on the problem at my desk for a couple of days, I decided the issue was more complex than it appeared. It wasn't a simple answer like, here and when. But, eventually I produced a map that I gave to Scotty and also forwarded to Hal Puthoff at SRI. I had selected a spot in Australia about two-thirds of the way west, across from the easternmost coast and about a third of the way up from the southern coast, and drew in a pear-shaped area running from the narrow end westward to a much larger end. I darkened in the narrow end and said that was where the primary craft pieces would impact, with the larger end area being the debris field that would be spread over about 1500 miles of area some sixty miles wide. It was the latter part of 1978. I predicted that reentry would occur around the 5th of July, 1979.
Skylab reentered from Earth orbit on the 11th of July 1979. I missed the primary impact area by approximately sixty kilometers, as the area I selected was a bit farther to the north. I also missed the reentry date by six days and a few hours and minutes. The other strange thing was my debris trail. For some reason I had flipped it over 180 degrees out of proper orientation. This was something I was beginning to notice in some of my drawings. It happened so frequently I decided that it must have something to do with the physical layout of my brain. Rather than try to figure out why it was happening, I just started correcting for it by drawing everything backward and upside down. I was disappointed that my results were almost ignored. Scotty never said a word to me about it. But, the next time I saw Hal, a few years later, he said that it was one of the most impressive predictions he had ever seen. I think the problem within the unit was that we had so much operational tasking to worry about they did whatever they could to discourage us from freelance-type viewing. I could understand that, but still, it would have been nice to have someone notice that my Skylab stuff had been both precognitive and accurate.
At the same time, I didn't know it but my XM-1 tank was added to a growing list of mind-blowing targets that were accumulating in a briefing book that was being passed around at the highest level. More than just the Army began to notice. As a result, a decision was made by the ACSI, General Thompson, to begin allowing other agencies to task our unit, operationally that is, for other purposes of collection than just OPSEC. Putting money behind his decision, he assigned three permanent personnel slots to the unit and increased the funding. The project name was changed to Grill Flame. This resulted in other changes as well. The work being done at SRI-International was combined with our collection project, which essentially doubled the remote viewing assets and enabled us to obtain research support as well. Mel Riley, Ken Bell, and I were asked to move to the project full time. So this became a pivotal moment of truth for me. I now had to decide if I wanted to continue with the project or resign from it.
For nearly a week I vacillated over the decision. I had no one with whom I could discuss it. Part of me was committed to the Army and what I had originally been trained to do. I knew that my office in the headquarters needed me and needed me badly, but at the same time, I knew this new form of intelligence collection was proving to be more than anyone ever thought it could be. Eventually my choice boiled down to which decision would do the least amount of damage and what was the highest probability of damage that might occur as a result of whatever decision I made. Whatever I decided to do, there would be no turning back.
In my MOS, 29 other warrants were considered as qualified as I was. In my own mind I was not irreplaceable. It might cause some problems, but eventually they would find the means to replace me. I knew it would cause a great deal of anger, though at the time I didn't actually realize how much. On the other hand, if we were doing as well as we were with the remote viewing, then the Eastern bloc countries might be doing at least as well. This meant that we needed to put on the afterburners and see if we could at least discover a defense against it. I knew by experience that it wasn't easy finding someone in the Army with the kind of talent needed to do remote viewing. I also knew, based on what I had already observed, that even when they did, it was going to be more difficult getting them to commit to participate even on a part-time basis, never mind full time. If I walked away from the project now it could take months to replace me and perhaps I could not be replaced.
After anguishing over it for days, I finally knew that I would have to just suffer the heat and make the change in assignments. I had no idea how much angst it would cause among so many of my career-long friends.
After a long weekend, I went directly to the chief of staff's office and told him what my decision was going to be. I think he was surprised. He advised me to reconsider, and told me that if I did this, I would be doing irreparable damage to my career. I told him that, given the circumstances, I couldn't not do i
t. He said he would bring my boss in and tell him that they were reassigning me to a black project of national import.
My boss did exactly as I thought he would—he just stopped talking to me. You could almost feel the heat radiating from his body when he'd enter the office. I silently cleaned out my desk and packed my carryall. As I headed out the door, he stopped me and asked if I was absolutely sure this is what I wanted. I told him that it really wasn't what I wanted, but it was something that needed doing, and I was in a position to do it. He turned his back on me and never said good-bye.
What needs to be understood is the fierce intraservice competition that exists when it comes to certain issues pertaining to personnel. In my own case, the field in which I worked contained very few officers—all of whom were warrants. It took an average of nine to twelve years of experience to produce someone who could fill one of our warrant officer positions, and then only one in twelve who applied were ever selected. This was because of the extensive knowledge of technology required to fulfill the job requirements. We had recently entered the computer age and most of our electronic equipment was rapidly contracting from truck-mounted, half-ton van-sized shelters filled with electronic racks, to suitcases. Understanding the developmental mechanics and software, mission integration, support, repair, and training requirements was pushing the intellectual envelope of most of the people involved to the limit. Having a warrant officer who understood the intricate details across the board, able to fulfill that role, only to have him walk out to do someone else's project was viewed as the worst possible sin. I was a traitor in the eyes of those I left behind and treated accordingly.
Maybe they didn't know the reasons I felt I had to go, or maybe they didn't understand what I had come to understand about the threat. It didn't matter. It's just the way it was.
It really hurt leaving my old office. I was altering what had essentially driven me for more than 13 years. But I did what I had always done with things that were distasteful, ugly, or painful—I buried it somewhere inside my head. My whole focus had to be on the new problems I'd be challenged with. That's what soldiers do.
Chapter Seven
A Crisis
The Grill Flame project office was now staffed with Scotty (the boss), Fred (the operations officer), Mel, Ken, and myself as viewers, and a secretary. The secretary was a young and very beautiful young lady who was very competent in her office skills and could translate the tapes from the sessions, as well as do the normal office paperwork. Scotty and Fred actually shared duties in each other's areas of responsibility, so were interchangeable if one was not there and a decision had to be made. While Fred and the rest of us were convinced through experience that RV was a unique collection device and that it worked, at least most of the time to a usable degree, Scotty was the hardcore skeptic in the house.
As we progressed against unknown targets, he was constantly trying to test us in some way to try to prove to himself that this was actually happening and that we were not cheating as a group and trying to fool everyone. While that was a possibility, one only had to observe two or three remote viewing efforts to see that there wasn't enough information available to anyone that would permit guessing a right answer, never mind producing the kinds of details that we were producing. Scotty was constantly coming to my desk and challenging me with things he would cook up on his own.
One day he came to my desk and carefully unwrapped a deck of playing cards, shaking them out into his hands. He then pulled the jokers and direction card from the pack and began to shuffle the deck. All the while he was watching me very carefully.
I watched him shuffle the deck eight or nine times, then set it on the edge of my desk. "Cut it," he said, which I did, four times across outside to inside. We both stared at it for a few seconds. He then said, "If you're really psychic you should be able to sort them face down by color." I don't know why, but this really pissed me off. So, I picked up the deck and quickly dealt the cards into two piles. I pointed to the left pile and said, "These are the red ones." The only black card on the left side was the ace of spades. The only red card on the right side was the ace of hearts.
"Oops," I said. Picking up the deck and reshuffling it six more times, I then had him cut it, and redealt them into two piles. This time all the reds were on the left and all the blacks were on the right.
Scotty didn't say a word. He just picked up the cards and returned to his office. Ken Bell looked across from his desk and, with incredulity in his voice, asked, "How in the hell did you do that?"
"Beats the hell out of me," I responded.
I honestly didn't know. I sat at home later that night sorting cards for an hour and the best that I could do was about 75 percent on any given run.
A year later Scotty called me into his office, along with the rest of the shop. He had discovered a new kind of game. It looked a lot like a cribbage board, with five holes across and a line of rows perhaps thirty in length. It came with eight different color pins that fit into the holes. The first row had a dark black cover, which would hide the first row of pins. The idea of the game was to put in the starter row and not tell anyone what it was. It could be any combination of pin colors, or even all one color, whatever you wanted to put there. Once it was set up, the opponent would guess the colors of the pins. For example if the first row was
RED GREEN BLACK YELLOW WHITE
And the person guessed
RED BLACK YELLOW GREEN WHITE
The person controlling the game would then put in a white pin where they were correct, and black pins where they were wrong. So, the player would see
WHITE BLACK BLACK BLACK WHITE
This would tell them that their guess for the first pin and last pin was correct, and they would continue to guess until they could name them all in appropriate order.
Scotty had already set up the game and had it sitting in the middle of his desk. He announced that he had played it with his wife for a couple of hours the night before and the absolutely best game was three moves. He said according to the book three moves was exceptional. He looked over at me and asked me to give him the colors in proper order and we would see how good I was.
Initially, I was angry with him, because it was obviously meant to put me in my place, or otherwise prove that I was only lucky. The fact that he had invited everyone who was there inside to watch was adding to the insult.
"Go ahead, Joe, do it." Ken poked me on the shoulder.
He was actually giving me support, because we had become very close friends and he had a lot of faith in me.
So, I closed my eyes and let my breath out in a long, slow exhale. My mind became totally blank. I relaxed into it and began shutting out the rest of the world.
After about five minutes of total silence with me sitting there, eyes shut and meditating, Scotty said, "Well, are you going to do this, or aren't you?"
I opened my eyes and very calmly said, "I'm waiting for you to pass the answer to me." Which wasn't completely honest, but I knew it would make him uncomfortable.
He kind of chuckled at that but closed his eyes for a second, then quickly opened them. "Okay. I've passed it over, what's the combination?"
Without hesitating a second I gave him the five colors in order, got up, and walked out of his office. I didn't even wait for a response. There was silence in the office as he slowly raised the black-plastic cover. By the time I reached my desk I could hear a soft, "Holy shit, he did it!" Which kind of drifted across the room. Ken came out of the room smiling ear-to-ear. That was the last time Scotty tested me.
I liked Scotty a lot. I liked him because he was one hard-assed skeptic, which was exactly what the project needed. If we could do the kind of viewing we were doing under his guidance and using the SRI designed protocols, then there was very definitely something going on. It's hard to believe, but today I find myself asking the kinds of questions that Scotty was always asking back then; where's the hole, where's the leak, how can we make this tighter, how can we prov
e this stuff doesn't work? It would certainly make for a far less complicated world if it didn't.
The targeting was done in a sort of stepped, or progressive, fashion. It took a bit longer, but in the end, it was the best way to do it, because it provided us with checkpoints and incremental verifications along the way.
A target would be delivered to the unit and passed only to Scotty Watt. It might contain a picture of a building. Accompanying the picture might be a series of questions or directives: Describe the interior. What's being constructed there? What's the most vulnerable entry/exit?
Scotty would set up the remote viewing by placing the photograph (or sometimes a portion of the photograph he would scissor out). Sometimes the photograph had stuff on it that might give clues, or ideas about the structure he wouldn't want us to know. He never quite trusted anyone who held the envelope, even his operations officer. The questions would be on a piece of paper and both photo and questions would be sandwiched between two thick sheets of cardboard, black on each side.
Once Fred and I (or another viewer) were in the room, Fred would pull the envelope from a briefcase and lay it on the table between us, and say something like, "This is your target. Tell me what I need to know."
If I was on target, I would describe the building in general and its surroundings. I might even talk a little bit about the interior or what was going on inside. If I wasn't on target, I might describe an aircraft, or an event taking place in a subway. The beauty of this totally blind targeting system was that you could instantly tell if the remote viewer had acquired the right target by the first session. If I talked about the subway event, obviously I wasn't on target and would have to go through the same process again later. The next time the target package might be renumbered or re-identified in some way to encourage me as though I was going after a new target. If I gave a good description of the exterior of the building, then Scotty would restructure the targeting by asking specific questions based on my own transcript.
The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy Page 14
