Area 51 - Lawrence Research Lab, Berkeley - IONS, Petaluma
US Government-funded Research - Private institutions all seeking answers
From World War II until the 1970s the US government occasionally funded ESP research. When the US intelligence community learned that the USSR and China were conducting ESP research, it became receptive to the idea of having its own competing psi research program. (Schnabel 1997)
In 1972, Hal Puthoff tested remote viewer Ingo Swann at SRI, and the experiment led to a visit from two employees of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. The result was a $50,000 CIA-sponsored project; Bluebook/xnews Project RV Specialist; Robert Mclaughlin, assistant director of communications for of research and application of RV projects (1965-1966). The team deployed several squads of trained RV Techs throughout Vietnam and Asia and conducted several observation seek and deploy missions to detect and describe enemy underground bases.
Project BlueBook and Xnews Files performed many investigations of UFO/Paranormal reports and similar classified missions during 1964-1966. The project was pushed to a private laboratory group to evade congressional scrutiny and censure. This also allowed research to continue without legally needing to respond to any Freedom of Information Act demands. Private companies are not bound by the FOIA laws. Convenient. Smart.
So, investigations and research continue under the guidance of private sector 'sister' companies and by dedicated individuals searching for the answers to the Ufology Questions and puzzles.
In some instances military personnel have been enlisted to work in concert with these investigations.
Some of the men involved with the drug and mind control experiments got a little too brave and actually performed testing on men and women without their knowledge or consent. Several missions were begun world wide to learn how to broaden the tools for looking into the unknown for answers and intel.
Some missions were scrapped because many innocent civilians were being affected. During the training a strain of spinal meningitis spread through the base at Ft. Ord and became epidemic creating wide spread concern and media attention. Specialist Mclaughlin and the RV operations team were re-assigned to non-classified projects. He returned to 6th Army headquarters and struck a deal to leave the project, returning to Ft Ord for retraining at the language Institute, Monterey. Then, After several months of secret meetings, transports to 'dark matter bases' around the US and overseas for foreign propulsion system analysis and other UFO related research, The pressures took a toll.
During the outbreak of Spinal Meningitis, Specialist Mclaughlin was later hospitalized for 'Pneumonia' and was transported to Letterman Hospital at the Presidio. He was diagnosed with PTSD and hospitalized at The Presidio of San francisco, treated for depression and suicide attempts. He requested to be de-commisioned and return to non military status.
As research continued, the SRI team published papers in Nature, in Proceedings of the IEEE, and in the proceedings of a symposium on consciousness for the American Association for the Advancement of Science Puthoff, et al., 1981.
The initial CIA-funded project was later renewed and expanded. A number of CIA officials, including John N. McMahon (then the head of the Office of Technical Service and later the Agency's deputy director), became strong supporters of the program.
In the mid 1970s sponsorship by the CIA was terminated and picked up by the Air Force. In 1979, the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, which had been providing some tasking to the SRI investigators including Lee Mclaughlin, was ordered to develop its own program by the Army's chief intelligence officer, General Ed Thompson. CIA operations officers, working from McMahon's office and other offices, also continued to provide tasking to SRI's subjects.
In 1984 viewer McMoneagle was awarded a legion of merit for determining "150 essential elements of information...producing crucial and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source".
Unfortunately, the viewers' advice in the "Stargate project" was always so unclear and non-detailed that it has never been used in any intelligence operation.
Despite this, SRI scientists and remote viewers have claimed that a number of "natural" psychics were crucial in a number of intelligence operations.
The most famous claimed results from these years were the description of "a big crane" at a Soviet nuclear research facility by Pat Price's Joseph McMoneagle, a description of a new class of Soviet strategic submarine by a team of three viewers including McMoneagle,(Smith 2005, McMoneagle 2002) and Rosemary Smith's location of a downed Soviet bomber in Africa.
The project is now a non-military operation. Rumor is that the team continues to be active on classified projects as civilian advisors and and 'guides'. The xnews office has become an online portal offering information and entertainment about paranormal and ufo research related topics. See xnews.com - The UFO - Paranormal research continues with the aid of MUFON DATA and NASA reports.
