part0014

W ar has been an integral part of human history from the very beginning and has become ever more sophisticated. While one can definitely argue that advancement in weaponry from stone knives and spears to nuclear, laser, radiological, and biological weapons may not make one feel any safer, warfare has evolved as our science and technology has evolved—and often our science and technology has evolved—because of war. Intelligence gathering, like the use of weaponry, has been an integral part of the history of warfare from the very beginning, and has taken some new forms with technology-based spying. However, the use of human assets in gathering information on one’s enemies continues as it has from the start of human history.

If someone from an ancient culture had been bold and creative enough to hint at the possibility of the technological weapons of today, it would have seemed pure fantasy, though they would not have scoffed at the idea of magical or psychic weapons or spying. In many conflicts in the past, and for many rulers at the head of the different sides of those conflicts, utilizing prophets, seers, psychics, mediums, and self-professed magic-wielders has been part of their status quo; one more intelligence asset to use.

Today, technology being what it is, speculations can run wild on tech-based weaponry with only the reaction being “maybe someday” or even “we already have those secret weapons.” On the other hand, the immediate reaction of many to any suggestion that someday we might use ESP phenomena—precognition, remote viewing, and psychokinesis—in warfare and espionage is of downright disbelief. After all, many people, especially scientists, seem to seriously doubt or outright deny the existence of such things.

Would it surprise you to learn we’re not talking about some distant future? That we’re actually talking about the recent past and present? That ESP has already been added to the arsenal of modern warfare both in the former Soviet Union—now in Russia—and the United States, as well as other countries around the world? Maybe it’s a surprise to you, or maybe it isn’t .

For decades, people all over the world have heard or seen snippets of news about psychics being used to spy and even to attempt mind control, and have gobbled up these reports with great interest—whether the reports had any truth to them or not. Revelations and speculations about psychic research in the Soviet Union caused much discussion on this side of the Iron Curtain. Confirmation that the American Military was conducting its own form of psychic espionage came in the mid-1990s—though some of the work was declassified earlier—only fueled a fire of interest in this area that had only slightly diminished since the fall of the USSR.

Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, some information had come out about the USSR’s research on psychic applications for warfare—especially in the popular press and media—but very little about what might or might not have continued since the fall of communism in Russia. In the US, it wasn’t until 1995 that the full declassification of the military intelligence psychic spying program last known by the code name STAR GATE happened with its closure, that the public found out for sure that there was any sort of American psychic espionage program. Even researchers conducting more public scientific research on ESP in general and Remote Viewing in particular had no real knowledge of such a military application or the STAR GATE program.

Even well before the declassification of STAR GATE and the declassification of similar programs in Russia, there had been considerable public interest in whether ESP was being used by the military and intelligence communities, and if so, how. This interest has already spawned a number of books on the topic published in the US. If you’ve read any of them, our book will stand out as somewhat different, as those books fall short in two important respects.

First and foremost, they failed to discuss, or in most cases even mention, the activity in the former Soviet Union and later, in Russia. Additionally, they entirely missed the greater perspective of what went on with those programs. They were written by retired military or civilian personnel who held non-management positions and were in the operational side of STAR GATE—that is, the psychic spying part—and/or were involved for only a fraction of the 20 year span of the total effort.1

So, besides being focused only on one side of the ESP Wars (the US), they were presenting only a part of the whole, missing the behind the scenes story of how and why these programs even began, how they garnered and continued support in the halls of government and with the military, and why they ceased.

Even the Russian books on this subject have never described the major Russian military ESP program at the General Staff level and have not told the story about its home—Military Unit 10003—due to its top secret status. As with the American books focusing on only one side of the ESP Wars, the Russian books skipped their “enemy’s” side of the story, the STAR GATE program. In Russia, there have been a number of TV programs and publications in press about parapsychological work in the Presidential Security Service, but they were unable to tell this story consistently for the limited information they had.

This book brings together the real stories of the American and Soviet/Russian ESP programs, what actually went on in those programs, and how ESP was used in intelligence gathering and other applications. The book also covers the greater story of why these major powers saw fit to put stock in something so many academics dismiss out of turn, how they found practical value for Military and Intelligence operations, and the competition in this series of ESP Wars.

Perhaps most important to this two-level story are the sources of information in the book.

First author Edwin C. May, Ph.D. was in the middle of it all from 1975-1995, and served as the Director of the contracting side of STAR GATE for the last 10 years of its life. A well-respected researcher in his own right, Dr. May dealt with all sides of the program—from the individual viewers to the military and government personnel watching over and funding STAR GATE. One of the project’s best (and best known) remote viewers, Joseph McMoneagle, provided source material and perspective of one of the psychic “spies.”

Second author Dr. Victor Rubel, Ph.D., coordinated the development of this international project from the beginning. His work as a manager, a historian and a scholar-writer was invaluable in putting this book together.

Drs. May and Rubel have made certain that the Russian story is well told by interviewing and garnering other information from Russian military sources. One source is Lt. General Alexei Yu. Savin, Ph.D., who was the head of the special ESP Division (Military Unit 10003) of the General Staff, which is the Russian equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Another Russian source is KGB Major General Boris Ratnikov. His duties, in part, included being the Deputy Head of the Federal Service of Security and Head of its special parapsychological department. That service applied psychic techniques to international politics and to defending key Russian political figures against enemy psychic scanning and potential psychic attacks.

This book provides a tapestry of personal stories of the major players from the American and Russian sides. We have joined forces with our former adversaries to document ESP Wars from both sides of the Iron Curtain during the cold war and after. We also wanted to describe some of the differences in the approach from both camps, and especially from the Russian side, and reveal some of the strongly felt ideologies that had been suppressed during the Soviet era.

We were determined to keep our story non-technical yet give insight into what went on behind the scenes and to personalize the individual players. Third author Loyd Auerbach, who’s written several more popular books and articles about parapsychology and psychic experiences for the general public, is here to make sure we keep the story flowing and interesting—sort of as the readers’ representative.

So, what are ESP Wars ?

ESP Wars are wars fought using extrasensory means instead of bombs and bullets. They probably cannot be separated from other kinds of warfare, at least conceptually, as perhaps, the only difference is the method and means of the “fighting”—just as one can’t much separate wars of today with those of a thousand years ago other than by the weapons and tactics.

ESP, or extrasensory perception, is a term coined by Dr. J. B. Rhine in the 1930’s. It covers information gathering by the mind without the use of the normal senses, logical inference or intuition. In other words, ESP is the acquisition of information by mental means alone.

ESP traditionally covers three areas or subcategories of abilities or experiences: telepathy (mind-to-mind information exchange), clairvoyance (real time information perception) and precognition (awareness of information from the future). In modern laboratory experiments, it is possible to ensure that there is not, nor even could be, any sensory leakage of information whatsoever. According to May, precognition may be the only form of ESP as it can account for what appears to be telepathy or clairvoyance.

In historical anecdotes and in the “field” (in real life), where it is difficult to know or control the circumstances, claims of ESP abound. These kinds of mostly first-hand personal experiences are difficult to consider as evidential of ESP from the scientific perspective. At best, they serve a valuable function, challenging modern researchers to see what aspects of these claims can be teased into the laboratory, studied under the best possible scientific methodology and eventually understood well enough to use psychic abilities in practical applications. Thus, although we will describe historical accounts of the use of ESP in warfare, keep in mind that these are personal accounts and must be properly considered only as anecdotal reports and not blindly accepted as having happened as remembered or reported. Even so, these stories are important, since they form a foundation for the use of ESP, show us patterns in the experiences that we can bring into the laboratory, indicate potential real-world applications, and show that the experiences are actually quite common around the world—even though what’s behind them is not yet understood.

The general field of study of ESP is called by a number of different names, but the most common is parapsychology. Within the US Government’s STAR GATE program, the researchers defined a new term, anomalous cognition (AC). Cognition as in becoming aware of information, knowing something, and anomalous as in ways we currently do not understand. In other words, it is awareness or knowing or gaining information about something using a process we are still trying to figure out. The term “remote viewing” refers mainly to anomalous cognition—typically an extrasensory perception of a location or other target hidden from the senses by distance, and is primarily associated with a methodological approach in laboratory studies .

In this book, we will use various terms interchangeably—psychic functioning, ESP, AC and the Greek letter psi—but they all basically mean the same thing. The broader concept of psi also includes the possibility to influence the physical world by mental means alone—that is, not using the known sensory or motor actions of the brain and body.2 Most people know it as telekinesis or simply “mind over matter,” while parapsychologists use the term psychokinesis (PK).

We know that the study of ESP remains controversial, and even dismissed by a large number of academics, even though the experiences continue to be reported and with some rare exceptions, only parapsychologists seem interested in fully exploring what’s behind the experiences. At first sight, many of the claims of psychic functioning seem to lie outside of what we currently understand in physics, psychology and physiology. Therefore, for many people, the immediate and quite proper response to psychic claims is huge and even amused—or belligerent—skepticism or disbelief. Think of how entertaining but ridiculous the stories are that one finds easily in the world’s tabloid newspapers.

On the other hand, substantial peer-reviewed scientific literature that meets all the requirements of modern science strongly supports the existence of ESP. These reports can be found in small circulation (as with so many scientific publications), peer-reviewed scientific/technical journals, and residing on the back shelves of some public and university libraries.

While parapsychologists apply the term ESP to cover informational abilities and experiences vs. the physical-affect ones (PK), we use the term ESP here in a broader way. Certainly part of warfare is gathering intelligence—just trying to figure out what your enemy is up to. Most of this book is about that particular use. However, our expanded concept of ESP includes physical interactions at a distance, that is, to cause your adversaries physical distress, make them ill or, perhaps even kill them. This might be done directly by a shaman/psychic or by using some device, often referred to as a psychotronic weapon that had been activated by that individual to cause the damage to the enemy.

It’s not our primary purpose to convince you that psychic functioning is real—though that conclusion will be hard for most readers to avoid. We’re not going to dump studies and evidence on you. Throughout the book, we’ll offer some implications and evidence for its validity, especially in the context of the US and Russian remote viewing programs.

For example, were you aware that Jessica Utts, a professor of statistics at the University of California at Irvine (formerly at UC Davis), was hired with other experts indirectly by the CIA through the American Institutes for Research to provide a statistical critical review of the evidence for psychic functioning or ESP? As part of her analysis, she stated:

“Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.”3

Apparently unbeknownst to many academics and scientists—mainly because they either haven’t looked or because their beliefs about ESP turn them away from such considerations—there is a host of technical reviews of the experimental literature of parapsychology, known as meta-analyses, which clump together most of the available published research directed toward a particular topic. Professor Utts published one such review paper in the prestigious statistical journal Statistical Sciences, and Cornell University psychology professor Daryl Bem, along with the late Charles Honorton, published a notable review in Psychological Bulletin of the literature investigating a type of ESP known as the ganzfeld—a procedure where psi is observed when the participant is in a mildly altered state of consciousness.4

In other words, contrary to what so many academics and professional debunkers state, there is scientific evidence for the existence of ESP, based on well-controlled laboratory research, and some of it is indeed repeatable.

There is a second form of evidence that one might consider more circumstantial. It arises from the simple fact of the long-term existence and successful functioning of the military ESP programs in the United States and Russia, from the stature of the scientists involved in them, and from their extensive high-level, and enduring support they received from within their respective governments and academic worlds. If these programs were ineffective, they would have shut down at the very beginning.

The last Prime Minister of the USSR, Valentin Pavlov, was a great supporter of the Russian ESP program and was fascinated by the results. In both countries, many eminent scientists, including academicians and Nobel laureates, supported these programs. On the American side, remote viewer Joe McMoneagle was given the most prestigious award possible in peacetime for his excellence in providing psychic intelligence. His Legion of Merit award citation reads in part:

“…[McMoneagle] used his talents and expertise in the execution of more than 200 missions, addressing over 150 essential elements of information. These EEI [essential elements of information] contained critical intelligence reported at the highest echelons of our military and government, including such national level agencies as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DIA, NSA, CIA, DEA, and the Secret Service, producing crucial and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source… ”

You may be wondering how it happened that the Russian side of the story herein has as its sources the very high-level military/intelligence personnel so directly involved in their psychic spying/warfare programs.

In 1992, Ed May and his late colleague, Ms. Larissa Vilenskaya, traveled to Moscow in what would turn out to be the first of many visits. Although most of that trip was devoted to exploring the world of non-government sponsored ESP activity, they did begin to see hints of a much larger, government-condoned, military program.

During their second visit, they hit pay dirt. They met General Savin and some of his colleagues who could not have been more cordial—perhaps surprisingly since the fall of the Soviet Union was still so recent. After a number of formal meetings, it became clear to both May and Savin that Russia and the US could benefit substantially if they joined forces to address problems of common interest, such as counter-terrorism. Over the next many, nearly annual visits, May and Savin became friends.

Finally, in the year 2000, May, Vilenskaya and McMoneagle visited Savin and quite a number of the members of the Russian ESP group at the Military Unit 10003. At that time, General Savin allowed them to take a number of photographs and said he would officially cooperate with the US side, as they wrote up a report for US Intelligence Community about our extensive contacts. As we will see, nothing came of that; the full cooperation between the two sides, as imagined by May and Savin never occurred.

After May learned that Savin had retired, he wrote a personal letter to the General, suggesting that they join together to document what had happened with the use of psychics on both sides during and after the Cold War. May suggested that both the former Soviets and the Americans would be able to tell stories, reveal names, and document examples that had never been seen in public before. The first result is this book.

The book is divided into four parts, as we do want to talk about the past and future, but mainly to underscore the differences and value of approaches from the West and the East. The first part gives a sketch of the roots of ESP Wars from ancient to modern times and discusses some of the military and political ESP activity during World War II and the Cold War.

The next two sections describe the personal journeys and first-hand material of the leading participants, from the US and Soviet/Russian perspectives, respectively. In both, you’ll get an idea of what prompted the development of the programs, the politics within the governments and respective military and intelligence communities, and why the programs came to an end—of what they evolved into. Naturally, we’ll also look at the psychic tasks and missions of both sides in the ESP Wars .

Part four brings the two sides together by first discussing the closure of the programs and the opening of discussions between the two sides of the ESP Wars. Following that is the last chapter in which we attempt to draw some conclusions and make predictions for the future of ESP and how it can serve humanity in ways better than the applications in the ESP Wars. We’ll discuss why ESP can and should eventually become one of the turning points for modern science’s understanding of what we are as human beings, and our potential.

For your information, we’ve included a selection of recently declassified documents from the US program as Appendix A.

In future books, we hope to delve more deeply in this story, give material not known to the general public, and provide peer-reviewed scientific results and analyses. Perhaps by that time we will be able to facilitate for declassification of even more remarkable material that we collected during our work. In any case, we hope that this material will bring some new significant perspectives to ESP and its role in our lives.

ESP WARS: East and West provides the previously untold bigger story of what the US was doing in the psychic spying business, what the Russians—as successors to the Soviets—were doing on their side, and what both East and West found in actually doing ESP on a practical level that supports the existence of this ability that humans possess, which is so often dismissed without consideration by mainstream science, yet remains clearly and perpetually in the public consciousness and beliefs.

It’s a story that encompasses government and military involvement in and management of an intelligence-gathering program using extrasensory perception that had its roots in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and continued well after the dissolution of that nation.

It’s also a story of the “missions” the remote viewers were tasked with, of the applications of ESP in the context of spying, and of the people in the program themselves.

And it’s a story of the official Russian work in psychic intelligence that was a legacy of the USSR—a story never told in the West until this time by sources within their program.

Not only does the material in this book lend credence to the growing body of knowledge that supports the existence and effective applications of psychic functioning, it discusses the high-level involvement of both the US and Russian governments that reached all the way to the West Wing of the Whitehouse and to the Kremlin.

ESP WARS: East and West places you with the people inside the psychic arms race the US and USSR/Russia found themselves in from the perspectives of both the “weapons” (ESP and the remote viewers) and those military and government personnel on both sides effectively pulling the “triggers. ”

One final note: several of the people involved in the history of the STAR GATE program did not want their real names used in this book, for whatever reason. In such cases, we will put quotes around the name and italicize it, if for no other reason than your own information.

1. There is, however, a partial exception to this general rule. Mr. Dale E. Graff, has written two authoritative books about STAR GATE first from his perspective as a civilian working for the US Air Force in the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Ohio, and later working for the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a contracting officer’s technical representative, he monitored the ESP government contracts and later became the director for the Ft. Meade psychic spying unit. Dale had direct involvement from 1976 to 1993. Yet, Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness, which was published in 1998 and his second book, River Dreams, which was published in 2000, could not have told the story from neither the complete point of view or from the Russian perspective.

4. It is interesting to note, that both these reviews, along with much of the published literature, led Utts to her conclusion cited above for the CIA. It inspired one of parapsychology’s most informed critics, psychology professor Ray Hyman of the University of Oregon, to remark from the stage of the 20th anniversary of the Committee to Scientifically Investigate the Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) that there is no longer any doubt that some kind of information transfer anomaly exists, and we must now invest resources to explore and understand that anomaly.