Project STARGATE: Analysis of Declassified CIA Remote Viewing Intelligence Records

The Origins of Government-Sponsored Psychic Research

Project STARGATE was the umbrella code name for a series of U.S. government-funded research programs dedicated to investigating the potential military and domestic applications of psychic phenomena. Active from 1972 through 1995, the program was primarily managed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The core focus of the research was 'remote viewing'—the purported ability of an individual to psychically perceive information about a distant or unseen target, such as a secure facility or a specific geographic location.

Operational Scope and Declassification

The program followed foundational research conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and other psychical research laboratories. Over its two-decade lifespan, the project involved dozens of operatives and millions of dollars in funding. The intelligence community utilized these remote viewers to attempt to gain information on foreign threats, hostage situations, and other high-stakes intelligence targets.

In 1995, the CIA commissioned an independent review of the program, which concluded that while some results were intriguing, the data was not sufficiently reliable for operational intelligence use. The program was subsequently terminated. In 2017, the CIA released over 12,000 documents related to the project, providing a comprehensive look at the bureaucratic and scientific efforts to quantify human consciousness. These records, now archived by organizations like The Black Vault, offer a rare, primary-source window into the intersection of intelligence operations and parapsychological research. The collection includes session transcripts, operational reports, and foreign threat assessments, serving as a critical archive for researchers studying the history of government-sponsored anomalous research.