Project SCANATE: The 1973 CIA Remote Viewing Trials of Jupiter

Origins of SCANATE

In the early 1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) initiated Project SCANATE (Scanning by Coordinate). This program was designed to test the feasibility of remote viewing—a form of extrasensory perception where a subject describes a distant target location using only geographical coordinates. The primary investigators were physicists Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, and their lead subject was New York artist Ingo Swann.

The Jupiter Experiment

On April 27, 1973, Swann proposed a 'long-distance' trial: remote viewing the planet Jupiter. At the time, NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11 probes had not yet reached the planet, and the scientific consensus was that Jupiter did not possess rings. During the session, Swann described a high-altitude atmosphere filled with crystals and, most significantly, a 'ring' around the planet. He stated, 'Very high in the atmosphere there are crystals... they glitter. Maybe the rings are the same way.'

Scientific Confirmation

Swann's description was initially met with skepticism by CIA monitors. However, six years later, in 1979, the Voyager 1 probe sent back images confirming that Jupiter does indeed have a thin ring system. Declassified reports in the CIA’s CREST (CIA Records Search Tool) database document the agency's surprise at the accuracy of Swann's observations, which also included details about the planet's magnetic field and atmospheric colors that were not public knowledge at the time.

Intelligence Applications

Project SCANATE served as the precursor to the better-known STAR GATE program. The CIA’s interest was purely pragmatic: if a psychic could view Jupiter, they could potentially view Soviet nuclear facilities. The records maintained by The Black Vault and the CIA Reading Room show that while results were often inconsistent, the 'hits' were statistically significant enough to maintain government funding for psychic research for over two decades. The Jupiter experiment remains the most famous 'deep space' remote viewing case in the official record.