THE THEORIES / PSYCHICS
The government really did pay psychics.
RECORD / AT A GLANCE
DOCUMENTED
The program existed. A 1995 evaluation found results better than chance but too unreliable to use, and it was shut down.
THE EVENTS / THE CLAIM / THE RECORD
Summer 1972
The CIA starts research into remote viewing.
1977
The CIA ends its research; the Army and DIA continue.
September 1995
An independent review finds it too unreliable to use for intelligence.
READ THE FILE
The government believed in psychic powers.
Research, an evaluation, the end.
Open an article for its evidence, labeled AI assessment and numbered sources. Read the complete static edition ↗
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THIS FILE
3 claims people make about this file, each rated documented, partly true, disputed, unproven or false. Think a rating is wrong? Use Dispute or Support, or join the Discussion.
It funded psychic research from 1972 to 1995.
Who says it: CIA; AIR report.
One subproject analyzed extrasensory perception.
Who says it: Turner 1977.
The 1995 evaluation found it too unreliable, inconsistent and sporadic to be useful for intelligence.
Who says it: Program advocates.
OPEN THE RECORD
Numbered citations in each article identify the relevant sources. These records have different purposes and evidentiary weight.
CIA’s own short history of its remote-viewing research, 1972–1977, and the 1995 review.
173-page official scan. Prepared statements, questions and answers are distinguished; Appendix A reprints the relevant Church Committee investigation. Printed page numbers differ from PDF page indices.
The independent evaluation that led to STAR GATE’s termination. Includes Jessica Utts’s and Ray Hyman’s opposing assessments.
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The government believed in psychic powers.
MKULTRA funded at least one subproject on the “analysis of extrasensory perception”. [2] For more than twenty years afterward, the CIA and the military paid people to try to see Soviet sites with their minds. [1]
CIA’s own short history of its remote-viewing research, 1972–1977, and the 1995 review.
173-page official scan. Prepared statements, questions and answers are distinguished; Appendix A reprints the relevant Church Committee investigation. Printed page numbers differ from PDF page indices.
Research, an evaluation, the end.
The CIA says it did not conduct its own research into psychic phenomena “until the summer of 1972”, and ended it in 1977. The Defense Intelligence Agency continued the work under names including GRILL FLAME. [1]
In the mid-1990s the program went back to the CIA, which commissioned the American Institutes for Research to evaluate it. The CIA summarizes the September 1995 report’s conclusion: “enough accurate remote viewing experiences existed to defy randomness, but that the phenomenon was too unreliable, inconsistent, and sporadic to be useful for intelligence purposes.” The CIA decided not to continue. [1][2]
CIA’s own short history of its remote-viewing research, 1972–1977, and the 1995 review.
The independent evaluation that led to STAR GATE’s termination. Includes Jessica Utts’s and Ray Hyman’s opposing assessments.
Approved reader comments and ratings appear here when JavaScript is on.