The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2003 by Richard S. Broughton

THE STARGATE CHRONICLES: MEMOIRS OF A PSYCHIC SPY by Joseph McMoneagle. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company. Pp. 299. $24.95 (hardback). ISBN 1-57174-225-5.

Few events in the history of parapsychology have garnered as much press attention as the 1995 release of the CIA's evaluation of Stargate remote viewing (aka psychic spying) and the subsequent revelations about the program. Today, putting "remote viewing" in an Internet search engine will locate tens of thousands of sites. A surprising number of them offer various training programs for a fee, so you too tan learn the secrets of the psychic spies, often from someone claiming to have been one of the military remote viewers. Sometimes it seems that it will soon be hard to tell fact from fiction regarding the military remote viewing program.

One of the people trying to demystify remote viewing is Joe McMoneagle, the first of the US government's psychic spies and reportedly the best. In his latest book he gives us his unique insider's perspective on how the program developed and operated. This is not just a history book, however. We also learn just what made at least one of the psychics tick, and what it was like to be a psychic spy. One thing is clear--psychic swing was not as glamorous as spying is in a James Bond movie.

As expected in a memoir, The Stargate Chronicles is part autobiography, part history, part soul-searching, with a bit of railing against the system.

The first quarter of the book deals with McMoneagle's childhood and his career in conventional Army intelligence. McMoneagle's childhood was difficult and beset by the problems of parental alcoholism, but not especially remarkable. There were some incidents that, with hindsight, suggested he had some psychic talent, but otherwise it was just a tough life for an all too normal kid. When the time came for McMoneagle to escape his circumstances, college didn't suit him, so the military was his only ticket out of town. He chose the Army in particular because only the Army recruiter didn't try to oversell his branch of the service with wild promises of adventure and advancement. McMoneagle's test results got him assigned to the intelligence wing, and subsequent hard work, achievement, and a bit of luck had him moving up through a decent army career.

The next half of the book will probably be of more interest to parapsychologists and historians of the field. It is the first authoritative account of the remote viewing program by one who was there at the start and worked in it throughout its heyday and into the time when the program began to decline as viewers, including McMoneagle himself, became burned out by the heavy tasking load and the absence of replacement talent. When McMoneagle retired in 1984 the program was already in decline as new superiors began loosening standards for recruitment and operations in a desperate attempt to replace the depleted team.

In these chapters McMoneagle describes the early days as the program got started and how the early successes led to a growing load of real-world intelligence assignments. We learn about some of the more famous operations--the kidnapping of General Dozier, for example--and some of the gaffes, such as when President Carter, appearing on television to discuss the Iranian hostage crisis, was photographed holding a folder labeled "Grill Flame," the original code name for the secret project (1). In addition to the action story line there is also the personal side, as McMoneagle describes the heavy toll his involvement in the project took. Besides seeing Stargate push his second marriage to the breaking point, McMoneagle knew (and was repeatedly warned by others) that getting involved with "this crazy stuff" would certainly end his chances for career advancement. But for McMoneagle there wasn't much choice. He apparently had the talent and his country needed him. Eventually he became a non-entity as far as the mainstream military was concerned and even his retirement ceremony, where he received the Legion of Merit award, was held in secret.

In the final quarter of the book, McMoneagle relates the adventures of a remote viewer in retirement (from the Army, at least). After a third marriage, which seems to be lasting, McMoneagle began working at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) as a civilian remote viewer. Although he did receive operational taskings, especially as his former clients learned where he was, most of his work involved remote viewing in carefully constructed experiments. He relates several of the more interesting cases in some detail.

About this time the psychic spy emerged from the clandestine world with the first of his books on remote viewing. In these later chapters, McMoneagle deals with his growing celebrity status. I must adroit here that it is at this stage in his career that my life began to intersect with McMoneagle's, and the results are described in two of these chapters. In 1995 I took a telephone call from one Ruth Rivin, who was working on the ABC television program "Put it to the Test" and was looking for someone who could demonstrate psychic ability on the program. I told her I knew of no one personally who could manage that, and the only people that I thought might be up to the task would be the government remote viewers, McMoneagle in particular, but her chances of getting anyone from that secret program were pretty slim. Fortunately, Ms. Rivin ignored my pessimism and contacted McMoneagle. His appearance on "Put it to the Test" is probably one of the most convincing demonstrations of psychic ability ever broadcast. McMoneagle's relating of how the program was made, and its aftermath is a fascinating tale.