In the Army, many may have read this report, but only one individual truly understood its importance. That was First Lieutenant Frederick Atwater, now known to his friends as Skip. He clearly understood the potential this document represented, as well as the possible threat to national security. At the time, Lt. Atwater was a counterintelligence officer working for the 902nd Military Intelligence Group, located at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. The other man in the interview room with me on that day was Major Watt, known to his friends as Scotty. Because he had been passed over twice for promotion, the powers to be felt he couldn't be damaged by association with such a project. So he was assigned as a volunteer supervisor.
What I didn't know at the time, but would later find out, was that their original assigned task was to locate and recruit potential remote viewers to test the degree to which remote viewing could be taught, organized, and utilized for intelligence collection purposes. In my opinion, based on my very early interactions, Scotty and Skip were pretty much split as to whether or not they believed remote viewing would be effective. It was clear to me that Skip came from a background where the possibility of psychic functioning was very real, and while Scotty was not closed to the possibility, I believe he considered its eventual verification as somewhat remote or even dubious.
The fact that these two very professional intelligence officers could differ so radically on the subject but be open enough to attempt its verification is a testament to the ingenuity and skill of those recruited to do the job of defending the nation. I'm not sure I would have had the same courage in like circumstances.
Despite the above, one should not automatically assume that the United States Army was encouraging such exploration, because—as time would tell—it was not. From the outset, great care was taken to keep the effort as quiet as possible. This was done not only for the normal security considerations, but also to ensure that the automatic ridicule that is nearly always generated by the subject matter did not kill the effort in its premature stages.
Initially no one actually knew how to recruit a psychic. No documents or studies outlined what you needed to look for in a psychic. About the only way to really tell was to directly test someone—an expensive proposition, even back then, but especially when you begin hiring scientists working in the San Francisco Bay area.
Skip was able to find a document that provided some insight about general traits alluded to be found in people who were thought to be psychic. This is provided as appendix B. Generally, it suggested people who were well liked, who tended to seek answers to problems outside the norm, who were seemingly successful in their careers, and were self-starters. The backgrounds of successful intelligence officers might on its own generate even more problems in narrowing down the pack. Usually if an intelligence officer survives a career, that alone speaks to his or her ability. But, it was at least a starting point.
Over a considerable period of time, they picked through the records and narrowed the possibilities to those recommended by senior supervisors within the headquarters. One of those supervisors was my own, Ralph Maahs. I remember the day very well. I arrived at work very early, as was my custom, made the first pot of coffee and started working my way down through the foot-high stack of new work jammed into my in box. Ralph came into my office and told me that a couple of "spooks" wanted to meet me the following afternoon in an empty office at the end of the hall. I asked him why, and he only said they were interested in interviewing me. I pressed him, asking what the interview was for, and he reiterated that he didn't have a clue. I was to find out later that in actuality he didn't know at the time, though he was informed indirectly by the commander, General Freeze, at a later date that it had something to do with the paranormal. I only came to know this at all because some months later Ralph pulled me aside and warned me that my involvement with such craziness was putting my soul as well as my career in great jeopardy—a somewhat scary but typical reaction to what we were attempting to do in the Star Gate project.
I approached the interview warily. Generally, someone was called to such an interview with a couple of suits for one of only a handful of reasons. First, it was almost always in conjunction with a background investigation on a coworker who might be in jeopardy of losing his or her clearance because of some action or inaction they thought you might have witnessed or had informative access to. No one likes to be put in the position of having to report on someone, especially when you already know there is nothing overt enough to have created any kind of a warning blip on your own radar screen. Second, it could have a direct relationship to some action or inaction of your own. An even scarier thought since I could not recall anything that I might have done to warrant an investigation.
Most people do not realize that people within military service and the intelligence branches can be, and are, frequently targeted to do nefarious work for enemy intelligence services, or sometimes their own people.
Peter Grose wrote a book called Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000). From it I quote a Communist counterintelligence agent of some note, Samuel Ginsberg, a.k.a. Walter G. Krivitsky, reporting to the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities about inappropriate activities of members of the Communist Party. "It very often happens that a member of the party furnishes information . . . to individuals whose identity he does not know, without realizing that he is thereby engaged in espionage," which means people can be enticed into doing things they believe to be right which are ultimately wrong.
And third, the system has discovered some way they can use you for which you would never volunteer your services—something that had occurred on numerous occasions when I was stationed overseas, and something that was almost always terribly unpleasant in its outcome.
So, to say that I entered the interview nervously would be an understatement.
As I've already noted, I did follow the small voice in the back of my mind, and at the time responded in what I believed to be as truthful a way possible. I honestly felt that should psychic functioning be real, it would pose a very severe threat to our nation's security and we should know as much about it as could possibly be understood. My responses were about as perfect as one could hope for, falling about midway between Skip and Scotty's position on the matter, thus assuring me a second interview.
I walked away from the first interview wondering more about the strangeness of our counterintelligence division than about their long term intentions. Had they told me that they were planning to actually investigate the use of psychic functioning as a collection tool, I probably would have done what most others still do, and resorted to some form of ridicule, followed by laughing my way out of the office. Instead, I left as mystified as when I entered. When I got back to my office, I went back to the more mundane issues of my job, like figuring out how to wisely spend a couple hundred million dollars of taxpayer's money. Little did I know there would be a lot more happening a lot sooner than I expected.
If I had been asked in 1978 where I would be in 2002, or what I might have done in the interim, I would surely not have responded accurately. Psychic or not, there was absolutely no hint of the circumstances that drove me down the path I ultimately pursued.
(In fact, just to demonstrate the depth of this mystery, the old Soviet system has collapsed, and I am sitting in a hotel in Moscow working on this very paragraph—something that would not have even been a remote possibility in 1978. Never mind the fact that I've just given a paper on the paranormal at the University of Moscow, which was crowded beyond belief.)
The second contact occurred approximately two weeks later. I received a call from Scotty asking me if I would please travel to Fort Meade to attend a meeting with some others in reference to the discussion we had previously had. He stated that I should not talk about the subject matter, as it was sensitive, and if I required someone to speak to my boss, it could be arranged. I explained that it was difficult for me to take time out from my job without an ex
ceptional reason, so someone would have to at least speak with Ralph for me. Less than an hour later, Ralph was called to the chief of staff's office where he told me that the chief of staff wanted me to attend a meeting to be held at the 902nd MI Group's conference room the end of the week. I asked him what it was in reference to, and he said that he didn't know, but the chief of staff had made it very clear that I was to attend and that it was important to the commanding general. The chief of staff never looked up from his desk.
Impressed by the amount of pull Scotty apparently had within the command, I decided to go. A couple of days later I drove early one morning to Fort Meade to see what the meeting was all about.
I arrived about fifteen minutes early, and was ushered into the 902nd MI Group conference room—an impressive place, with heavy wood paneling, and appropriate "war room" accouterments, buried deep inside an older brick building and layers of security doors. I was surprised to find about eighteen other people present as well. A few of them I remembered seeing in the halls of the headquarters building, none of whom I knew personally. Some were in civilian clothing and some were even wearing Navy uniforms. I was somewhat disappointed because it made me feel vulnerable to some extent. If Scotty intended to talk about the subject matter we had previously discussed, I certainly wasn't going to be comfortable doing so in front of a room full of strangers.
But, maybe that was part of the plan—make everyone feel as uncomfortable as possible and see who sticks it out. Of course those thoughts were anything but clear at the time.
To complicate matters, when Scotty and Skip entered the room they carried numerous classified documents, which they scattered across the tabletop. These addressed specific threat assessments concerning other countries' efforts in the paranormal, something that came as a total surprise to me. Having been initially reticent about discussing the subject matter, I quickly became curious as to what these other countries were doing and how they were doing it. As can be imagined, the information was quite sketchy and not very detailed, based mostly on rumor or innuendo cooked from second-hand or tertiary reporting, attributed to both reliable and unreliable sources. But, it would be fair to say that it was very interesting. In any event it certainly piqued my curiosity as I moved in for a closer look. I suppose part of the plan was to allow us to read and discuss the information to see what our reaction would be. The little voice in the back of my mind was talking to me very softly once again, and it was saying,
This is a part of the test. Be careful here. Don't believe everything you are being shown. Be careful here.
As a result I was cautious about what I would say or not say to others within the room. I neither trusted nor distrusted those present. I adopted a "let's wait and see" attitude.
After about an hour, Scotty and Skip returned to the room with a Major Keenan, who I was later to learn was the officer who, along with Skip, had actually initiated the proactive investigation into psychic functioning. He announced that since we had had a chance to read over some of the material and discuss it among ourselves, we should be able to respond to his first question. I can only paraphrase his first question, which went something like the following, "Do any of you feel uncomfortable about the subject matter?"
Clearly, it would have been a huge understatement to say no. A large number of hands went up. This sort of surprised me I think, as I was not particularly made uncomfortable by the material itself. What made me more uncomfortable was the fact there might be some serious threat posed by such a possibility. In my discussions with some of the others present, I gravitated toward two individuals—a man by the name of Kenneth Bell (Ken), and a Melvin Riley (Mel); both seemed to be not only comfortable with the material, but they were even down-to-earth about it. Their matter-of-fact attitude was more of an encouragement to me than not. It helped to keep things in perspective. The little voice inside my head said,
Be cool. Hang in there for a bit longer and see where this is going.
So I sat comfortably in the back of the room with the idea that I would eventually see where all of this was going. (Or, another way of looking at it, just how far was this going to take me?)
Major Keenan then said, "Those who are uncomfortable can leave. I caution you that you should not discuss anything that you might have seen here today. Those of you who stay will be asked to sign agreements to protect what you are about to find, hear, or see."
I stayed.
What is interesting to me in recall is the number of things I noticed back then but never really thought about until now There were interesting observations that may or may not be important, but probably should be noted, simply because they happened.
There was a preponderance of men. Out of approximately eighteen people present, only two were women. I don't know statistically if this was about the same male/female mix as existed in the headquarters at the time. While this is possible, the little voice in the back of my head tells me that it is probably not correct. From the outset, I had a sense that there was a negative reaction to women within the project, and this has never left me. It was further evidenced by actions that occurred that I'll discuss later. In any event, the two women present chose to stay, and for all intents and purposes appeared to be just as critical in their thinking, and just as cautious as any of the males.
Everyone present was being cautious. It was clear that the subject matter was disturbing to many, not so much from what it actually was, as what it represented. If we were somehow vulnerable to psychic functioning, then there were no safes or locks sufficient to block access to our most treasured secrets. In fact, that meant that we were all vulnerable to exposure, no matter what our jobs or responsibilities were. Somewhere out there was someone possibly accessing our very thoughts. This was serious enough a threat to make one's blood run cold at the thought, and it was a thought that I'm sure most of those present actively resisted. Instead, it was my desire and hope that what we would eventually find out was that none of it was real, none of it really worked, and we could all sleep happily and comfortably in our beds at night, convinced of our invulnerability. But, the little voice in the back of my head, while not content with that, was at least not pushing it any further.
3.) As I said earlier, it is nearly impossible to know who is psychic and who is not without a direct test. This was certainly the case back then, and to my knowledge is still the case today. I've heard others claim to be able to tell, but I've never seen that demonstrated. It is one reason why later on in the project we ended up with people involved who were not so much psychic as crazy. As with being psychic, many believe they can tell if someone is crazy or not. But if anyone thinks that by looking at someone they can tell whether or not they are insane, I've got news for them. Someone does not have to be staring off into space and drooling out of the corner of his or her mouth to demonstrate insanity. (In fact, I've done just that many times myself, after spending weeks in the field under a blazing sun in 100 percent humidity, then simply having an ice-cold beer set down in front of me.) So, testing is an accepted necessity—and back then, it was even more so.
In hindsight, I would also suggest that those of us who decided to stay that day were in actuality going through a very clear and systematic self-selection process. Again, I would like to credit Major Keenan, Scotty, or Skip with that complex a thought process, but I can't. I believe it was more synchronistic than not.
In any event, those who did stay opened themselves to the next level of investiture—a direct interview with the people from SRI International—who, up until that moment had been kept secretly hidden out of sight.
Dr. Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ were waiting in the wings to present our first exposure to remote viewing, which was a movie of a retired police officer, Mr. Pat Price, doing a typical "outbounder" remote viewing session. An outbounder was someone who actually traveled to a randomly chosen site and interacted with it. In this case, the target was the courtyard of the Stanford Medical Center.
With no one in the r
oom having ever seen a remote viewing before, to say that it created quite a sensation would be an understatement. Pat Price was taken to a sealed room on the top floor of the Stanford Research Institute's Radio Physics Laboratory, where he was kept for approximately half an hour, while Hal Puthoff randomly selected a sealed opaque envelope from a safe drawer. Puthoff carried the envelope out to the parking lot and climbed into a car with the cameraman. After driving around in traffic for a bit of time, he pulled over to the edge of the road, opened the envelope, and read the directions inside, which instructed him to drive to the Stanford Medical Center, and walk around the inside courtyard. The inside courtyard has a very distinctive pattern to it, and some interesting patterns on the walls.
Back in the windowless room a few miles away, Pat Price was sitting with Russell Targ in front of a camera, as Russell asked him to draw his perceptions about where Hal might be standing.
The film showed Price drawing an enclosed courtyard, with similar patterns to those found within the Medical Center courtyard. Even the layout was presented with a very clear approximation of size relationships between objects and distances within the courtyard. Unbelievable! One could assume that if you were familiar with the area—which I was not at the time—it would be no trouble to determine where Hal was actually standing, no matter how large the search area might be.
Such a demonstrated potential was both mind-boggling and frightening. It left me feeling that a new door to reality had just opened. At the same time, I could feel the flow of ice water across the underside of my arms. From a spying standpoint, we were obviously vulnerable in the extreme. How much detail could someone like Price provide on a specific target location? Were there others like Price? My head was suddenly filling with questions and possibilities. And the greatest question of all—what was I doing in the room and how would I be involved in this strange new world of remote viewing?
The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy Page 11