The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy

by Joseph McMoneagle

  After a great deal of hesitation, they came to my room and knocked on the door. It was very late and I had to get out of bed to answer it. When they told me they wanted to share some information with me, I simply said I didn't want to know anything at all and shut the door, going back to bed. I didn't realize it at the time, but this really put them between a rock and a hard place. They were very concerned that I was going to opt to describe a famous landmark instead of going for the actual target. It really wasn't their fault; they just didn't understand that knowing nothing at all for me was better. In any event, with a huge amount of money and effort already expended, they all spent a rather sleepless night worrying about what might happen, while I slept like a babe under my covers.

  I took all my meals in my room and did not leave it until they sent a police officer to escort me to the windowless room on the second floor they had chosen to use as a remote viewing room. On the way into the room, Ruth asked me if I would be put off if more than just the moderator, a cameraman, and sound guy were inside. I told her no, I didn't care who was there as long as everyone was blind to the target location. The room quickly filled with production people lining the walls. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

  In a second room, next to the one I was sitting in, the moderator, Bill, was throwing a die and selecting the target from the previously randomly chosen four. Once they filmed the selection of the target, he passed the sealed envelope to the outbounder, Ms. Jessica Miller, from the Houston tourist bureau, who then departed with the second film crew. When Bill entered the RV room and sat down next to me, neither he, nor anyone else inside the room knew what the target might be. We were all blind.

  After about fifteen minutes of cool down, where I do a small meditation with my eyes closed, I said I was ready to begin. At that point, Bill said the outbounder should be at the location by now, and he asked me to describe the location.

  I quickly sketched a picture of the location on sheets of blank paper lying on the table in front of me. I'm sure that while I was drawing, Bill had no idea what it was that he was supposed to be doing, but now and then he interrupted with a question.

  I drew a view looking downward onto the edge, or dock area, running alongside a river. I said that it was constructed of seawalls that were both finished and unfinished in parts, and that the river had been dredged in parts or places. I drew what looked quite a bit like a barge with a dredge or crane kind of machine on it. I also drew in curved lines and verticals of what I sensed was some kind of a bridge.

  But I mistakenly said that my sense was it was used only by people and not by cars. (In fact it was a major bridge crossing the river and was used in just the opposite fashion, mostly by cars and not by people walking.) Toward the end of the session, which lasted about twenty minutes, I said there was some kind of a large object that I couldn't quite make out, but that it had suddenly appeared in my vision from out of nowhere.

  I told Bill at that point that there didn't seem to be any more pertinent information, at which time we terminated the session.

  They stopped filming and Bill and I waited while they arranged the cars to take us out to wherever the actual site location was. During that time, Bill asked me what I thought the large object might be, and I responded probably some kind of a large ship.

  We were escorted down to the limousine and were joined there by a cameraman and a soundman who continued to film us on the way to the actual target site. Our driver got the location via cell phone and as we drove I tried not to guess where we were headed. I sat in the backseat discussing the original drawings with Bill.

  He was actually looking at the drawing of the barge when the limo pulled directly up to the edge of the river and stopped. When he dropped the drawing to see where we were, he was staring directly at the barge.

  "Holy shit!"

  It was the first and only curse word I'd heard Bill use in the entire time I spent with him.

  "Cut! Cut!" The cameraman yelled. "Now we've got to go back out and arrive again, because we can't use that particular expletive over the air."

  So, we drove a large circle and arrived back at the same point.

  "Oh, wow! Look at that!" Bill said, smiling and holding up my drawing of the barge. He was clearly excited. In fact the entire crew was blown completely out of the box by what they were seeing. Everyone who had been in the filming room with me—who knew that there wasn't any way any of us could know what or where the site was—arrived and stepped out of cars with their jaws hanging open.

  Later, at the river edge, I had to spend some time talking with the young woman who was the outbounder. She was clearly shaken by the experience and thought that the only way I could have done the drawings I did was by being inside her head and looking through her eyes. This was way beyond her capacity to understand and it frightened her severely. I told her what is true about RV, that probably that is not where the information comes from. I could no more be inside her head than she could be inside my own. After some time, I was able to calm her down.

  Ruth asked me what I did to celebrate whenever I had such a good result and I immediately said that I would always go out and treat myself to a great meal. This really wasn't a lie. Ed, Nevin, and I would often go out and have a great lunch after a good RV back at the lab. We've always felt it was important to finish on a high note by giving ourselves appropriate feedback—emotionally, visually, and physically. As a result, they picked me up that evening and we all went out to a five-star restaurant in Houston to celebrate.

  During the meal, Ruth and the senior producer from LMNO asked me how I could do what I did in front of a camera and not look at all nervous. I explained that it's easy when you don't have to do the remote viewing at the same time. This confused them a bit, so I explained that I hadn't really done the RV in front of the camera. I did it ahead of time in my room. I knew I might not be able to get into my cool-down in front of the camera because I'd never done it that way before, so I did my cool-down in my room the night before and did the viewing then.

  They couldn't believe their ears.

  "How could you do the remote viewing the night before, when no one knew what the target was going to be, not even the outbounder?" Ruth asked, clearly mystified.

  "Time and space are illusions," I responded. "It doesn't matter when I do the remote viewing. I only have to target what I'm eventually going to see. That way, it never leaves my head."

  There was a long silence at the table.

  One of the executive producers looked over at me. "How do you tell it apart from the other targets we were selecting from?"

  "Sometimes it's hard," I calmly responded. "But, in this case since they were so different it was easy."

  They looked like they didn't believe me, so I mentioned that fact that I knew what the other targets were as well—ticking them off on my fingers— "a water slide, a wet arch, and I can't tell if it's a small tree house or some kind of a playhouse surrounded by large buildings somewhere in the heart of town."

  The table was completely silent now, the executive producer staring at me incredulously. All he could say was "There is never a camera when you need one." And we all laughed.

  I had an enjoyable time with the LMNO Production people and we have since developed a lasting friendship. They were my first taste of an exceptional group of people with high-order ethics in the media line of work. It shows in their responsible attitude toward their job as well. They went on to produce most of Bill Cosby's shows, and Joan London's Behind Closed Doors—high-quality broadcasting. I was told when the segment was eventually shown to the ABC executives that they were stunned by the results.

  The ABC special—Put To The Test—was supposed to air sometime during the end of 1995. As we approached the release of the special, Scooter and I decided to spend some time together, and we took the first real vacation we had in six years, traveling to the beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But my first vacation in six years was going to be completely
shattered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The AIR Report

  In the middle of 1995, at the request of Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considered assuming responsibility for the Star Gate project. As part of its decision-making process, it asked the American Institutes for Research to evaluate the research conducted since the National Research Council's (NRC) predominately negative 1986 report. At that time a supposedly blue-ribbon panel had been charged with evaluating the evidence bearing on the effectiveness of a wide variety of techniques for enhancing human performance.

  This review was conducted by David A. Goslin, then executive director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (CBASSE), who by 1995 was the president of the American Institutes for Research (AIR). His report, Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques, was published by the National Academy Press in 1988 and summarized by Swets and Bjork (1990).

  They note right up front that while this panel found some use for guided imagery, "little or no support was found for the usefulness of many other techniques, such as learning during sleep and remote viewing."

  What is fascinating here is what they don't tell you: We were under direct orders during the 1986 study not to talk to the members of the NRC blue-ribbon panel, and we didn't. Not only did they not talk with us, they were denied access to any of the project's remote viewing materials or historical files from 1979 through that study in 1986. These orders were intended to hide the effectiveness of the unit.

  Even more fascinating, given the negativity toward remote viewing based on "nothing being provided" from the Star Gate project, they put the same man in charge of the AIR study—Dr. Goslin, already noted for his narrow-minded attitude toward remote viewing or anything else paranormal—a position even then a matter of record.

  Regardless of these facts, the AIR initiated a study of the Star Gate program that was supposed to cover two issues:

  –Review the research program

  –Review the operational application of the remote viewing phenomena in intelligence gathering

  To do this, another blue-ribbon panel of two individuals was appointed, consisting of "noted" experts in the area of parapsychology—Dr. Jessica Utts, a professor of psychology at the University of California/Davis, and Dr. Raymond Hyman, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. At the outset, Dr. Utts was considered to be pro and Dr. Hyman negative in their attitudes toward the paranormal, both having previously published in the area. To this, AIR added Dr. Lincoln Moses, an emeritus professor at Stanford University, for statistical advice; and Dr. Goslin, president of AIR, who served as the coordinator (and is previously mentioned as already having a bias).

  This panel was asked to review all laboratory experiments and meta-analytic reviews conducted as part of the research program. They state within the AIR report that this consisted of eighty separate publications, many of which were summary reports of multiple experiments.

  In the operational evaluation, they state that they first reviewed the relevant research literature to identify whether conditions applied during intelligence gathering would reasonably permit application of the remote viewing paradigm. Second, members of three groups involved with the program were interviewed: (1) end users of the information, (2) the remote viewers providing the reports, (3) the program managers. They also claim that feedback information obtained from end user judgments of the accuracy and value of the remote viewing reports was assessed.

  The following was the finding based on these conditions:

  FOR RESEARCH:

  "A statistically significant laboratory effort has been demonstrated in the sense that hits occur more often than chance."

  "It is unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to the paranormal ability of the remote viewers as opposed to the characteristics of the judges or of the target or some other characteristic of the methods used."

  "Evidence has not been provided that clearly demonstrates that the causes of hits are due to the operation of paranormal phenomena."

  FOR OPERATIONS:

  "The conditions under which the remote viewing phenomena is observed in laboratory settings do not apply in intelligence-gathering situations."

  "The end users indicated that, although some accuracy was observed with regard to broad background characteristics, the remote viewing reports failed to produce the concrete, specific information valued in intelligence gathering."

  "The information provided was inconsistent, inaccurate, and with regard to specifics, required substantial subjective interpretation."

  "In no case had the information provided ever been used to guide intelligence operations. Thus, remote viewing failed to produce actionable intelligence."

  Their conclusions were quite general, stating that, "Even though a statistical significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomena, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." And, "Even if it could be demonstrated unequivocally that a paranormal phenomenon occurs under the conditions present in the laboratory paradigm, these conditions have limited applicability and utility for intelligence gathering operations."

  Now for a reality check.

  The entire idea behind the evaluation was that it should be open-minded and balanced. But, given the position already established by Dr. Goslin in the NRC report of 1986, this was hardly the case. I was working in the project in 1986 and remember being ordered not to speak with any of the members of the NRC report investigators. Why? Because, the agencies we were working for didn't want them to know the success rate we were experiencing in the use of remote viewing for intelligence collection purposes. The members of the NRC lacked sufficient clearances for access to this information, as did also the later investigators representing the AIR who were tasked with reviewing the same level of information. So, no one in either blue-panel review group has ever seen the information they claim to have had access to.

  In addition, of the vast collection of research studies, more than 75 percent of them were ignored, also due to classification. They make no note of this fact in reference to the purported large selection of data they supposedly had access to. There is also no explanation of how they were able to evaluate whether or not "conditions" present regarding operational targets could have effective remote viewing applied. How could they make such a recommendation when they had insufficient clearances to see the operational materials necessary to make such a decision and had no understanding of what might be required in order to apply remote viewing operationally in the first place?

  Further, they state that they interviewed the end users, the remote viewers who produced the reports, and the program managers involved with the program. If they did this, they interviewed only those five individuals who were standing in the office during their visits. On at least five occasions I volunteered to be interviewed, and those interviews were denied. No one with more than a twelve-month history as a remote viewer was interviewed, and neither were the previous program managers. There was no attempt to seek out end-product users who actually used remote viewing materials, because they were considered by the panel to be biased. Then comes the goalpost shift!

  They state that while there is obviously a significant statistical effect proven within the laboratory, it can't be directly related to paranormal activity—that is, remote viewing.

  In other words, you can't tell us how or why it's happening! You can't provide us with a cause, so how can we accept it?

  Now we suddenly find ourselves again defending the existence of the paranormal instead of defending the actuality of remote viewing or its effectiveness. And, if moving the goalposts isn't enough, we have a statement that research methods do not apply to collection.

  But they do! They always have. If they want to point out the periods or times that remote viewing was not done within the framework of protocol, then they should have done so. But, there were significa
nt numbers of intelligence targets that were handled within such protocols. In fact, in many cases the end users guaranteed those protocols by managing the collection targeting materials, as well as having independent evaluations done of the resultant materials. Obviously, none of these cases were reviewed—as perhaps it was intended that they should not be.

  We are told that the information provided was inconsistent, inaccurate, and with regard to specifics, required substantial subjective interpretation. Now this is a surprise. This actually applies to every form of intelligence gathering and intelligence material I've ever been subjected to, evaluated, or had to make conjecture on. This not only well establishes a lack of expertise in evaluating intelligence-applied methods, it also underscores the planned ignorance in the design of the AIR evaluation. If I were one of the scientists asked to put my signature to such a document, I would be outraged. Not only did they cut them off from the materials necessary to make such considerations, they disallowed the appropriate expertise in support of their effort, denied them clearances for the level of material they were being asked to analyze, and restricted them to the worst twelvemonth period in the 222-month period of the project.

  Finally, they emphatically state, "In no case had the information provided ever been used to guide intelligence operations. Thus, remote viewing failed to produce actionable intelligence."

  Had there been intelligence expertise involved in the final analysis, it would have been understood from the outset that there has probably only been a handful of cases in a hundred years where a single source of intelligence was utilized to guide intelligence operations. That is never the case, regardless of the form or method of intelligence collection utilized. No one in his right mind would make a decision without a plethora of indices driving him in one direction or another. In most cases, it boils down to a small-percentage-majority vote, then an entire folder of information being or not being discarded. There is no long discussion about the "method" of collection for any particular piece of information contained. Because information is discarded utilizing other methods of intelligence gathering, it is not abandoned without a full and fair evaluation. Remote viewing has never had the benefit of this open-minded view.