Price’s ability to provide code names, accurate data on the layout of the installation, and even activities of extreme sensitivity proved to be a major turning point for the project.…
The Revealing Truth of Ufos, Secret Aircraft, Cover-Ups & Conspiracies: Area 51
Price’s ability to provide code names, accurate data on the layout of the installation, and even activities of extreme sensitivity proved to be a major turning point for the project, as the now declassified documentation notes: “The new directors of OTS and ORD were favorably impressed by the data. In the fall of 1973, a Statement of Work was outlined, and SRI was asked to propose another program. The OTS funds were to evaluate the operational utility of psychic subjects without regard to the detailed understanding of paranormal functioning. If the paranormal functioning was sufficiently reproducible, we were confident applications would be found.”
In another experiment, says Kress: “The interiors of two foreign embassies were known to the audio teams who had made entries several years previously. Price was to visit these embassies by his remote viewing capability, locate the code rooms, and come up with information that might allow a member of the audio team to determine whether Price was likely to be of operational use in subsequent operations. Price was given operationally acceptable data such as the exterior photographs and the geographical coordinates of the embassies.” In both cases, Price correctly located the code rooms and produced copious data, including the location of interior doors and colors of marble stairs and fireplaces that were accurate and specific.
The year 1974 saw a notable advance made with respect to the targeting of potentially hostile nations. The advance would be marred by tragedy, however. According to Kress: “The origin of the requirement went back to the fall of 1974 when several OTS engineers became aware of the parapsychology project in OTS and had volunteered to attempt remote viewing. They passed initial remote viewing tests at SRI with some apparent successes. To test these OTS insiders further, I chose a suggested requirement to obtain information about a Libyan site described only by its geographic coordinates. The OTS engineers described a new construction which could be an SA-5 missile training site. The Libyan Desk officer was immediately impressed. He then revealed to me that an agent had reported essentially the same story.” Only days later, Pat Price died of a massive heart attack. While Price’s death was a terrible shock, some suspect that it may have been sinister in nature, too.
One who suspects this is British remote-viewing researcher Tim Rifat, who says: “It was alleged at the time that the Soviets poisoned Price. It would have been a top priority for the KGB to eliminate Price as his phenomenal remote viewing abilities would have posed a significant danger to the USSR’s paranormal warfare build up. He may also have been the victim of an elite group of Russian psi-warriors trained to remotely kill enemies of the Soviet Union.” While this may sound extreme, ESP research in the former Soviet Union at the time in question did include studies designed to affect heart rhythms in human beings. Was Pat Price the victim of a Soviet-sponsored “mind murder,” or was this simply one of life’s tragedies? We will probably never know.
In the post-1974 era, according to the available documentation, at least, CIA involvement in this field was allegedly minimal, but studies pertaining to Soviet research into parapsychology were undertaken and even reached the office of former CIA director and future U.S. president George H. W. Bush, as the Kress document demonstrates: “Since July, 1975, there has been only modest CIA and Intelligence Community Staff interest in parapsychology. The Office of Scientific Intelligence completed a study about Soviet military and KGB applied parapsychology. During November of 1976, Bush became aware that official Soviets were visiting and questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI about their work in parapsychology.
Mr. Bush requested and received a briefing on CIA’s investigations into parapsychology. Before there was any official reaction, he left the Agency. Various intelligence community groups, such as the Human Resources Subcommittee on R&D, have exhaustively reviewed parapsychology in CIA, DOD, and the open research, but have failed to conclude whether parapsychology is or is not a worthwhile area for further investigation. Several proposals from SRI and other contractors were received by CIA but none were accepted. There are no current plans for CIA to fund parapsychology investigations.”
In essence, that is the document, but to what extent—if, indeed, any—has CIA interest and direct involvement in these particularly controversial, ESP- based areas of intelligence-gathering continued and been expanded upon since the 1970s? In 1995, a CIA-sponsored report titled “An Evaluation of the Remote- Viewing Program—Research and Operational Applications” was produced by the American Institutes for Research. Basically, the report concluded that, from an intelligence-gathering perspective, remote-viewing and related phenomena were largely useless, and there the matter rests—at least as far as the CIA is publicly concerned.
Not everyone agrees with that conclusion, however. “The CIA wanted a negative psi report, and controlled the data access so that such a result would be a foregone conclusion,” says W. Adam Mandelbaum, a former U.S. intelligence officer. “The AIR report was US intelligence purchased disinformation intentionally formulated to misrepresent the true state of remote viewing research, and the true operational utility of the phenomenon.”
Does the CIA continue to covertly investigate ESP and utilize parapsychological phenomena for intelligence-gathering purposes, or has the subject been dismissed from the minds of agency personnel? Taking into account the intense secrecy and the hall of mirrors that surround all aspects of the CIA’s work, one would almost have to be psychic to answer that question.
Moving on to the FBI.… It scarcely seems feasible to imagine that in the summer of 1957, a secret and lengthy FBI file was opened on a young girl and an employee of the local railway company who, elements of the FBI believed, had perfected the ability to use ESP as a tool of espionage. Just occasionally, however, truth really is stranger than fiction. One month earlier, a document titled “Extra Sensory Perception” was prepared by the FBI that outlined the remarkable story: “One of our agents attended a private exhibition of extra sensory perception given by Mr. William Foos, resident of Richmond, Virginia, and a high school graduate employed in a minor capacity with the C. and O. Railway. About two years ago he became interested in extra sensory perception and began experimenting with members of his family.
He claims to have achieved amazing success.” In a partly blacked-out section of the document, the FBI recognized the seemingly endless applications that Foos’s talents offered the secret world of both international and domestic espionage: “Should his claims be well founded, there is no limit to the value which could accrue to the FBI—complete and undetectable access to mail, the diplomatic pouch; visual access to buildings— the possibilities are unlimited insofar as law enforcement and counter- intelligence are concerned.
As fantastic as this may appear, the actuality of extra sensory perception has long been recognised—though not to the degree of perfection claimed by Mr. Foos. It is difficult to see how the Bureau can afford to not inquire into this matter more fully.” Inquire into it the FBI most certainly did, as did the CIA. An additional FBI document provides additional data: “Mr. Foos explained that, in February 1957, he inadvertently discovered a method of teaching others to see through barriers.
He explained that his hope and intentions were to use this discovery in teaching the blind to see through Extra Sensory Perception, and that in teaching his daughter, Margaret, how to perceive objects beyond physical barriers, he realised that this knowledge and ability had serious and dangerous implications as well as practical value in Military and/or Diplomatic operations.”