In late 1972, after DARPA computers seemed to have been affected by Uri Geller's psychic powers, DARPA sent the prominent skeptic Ray Hyman to debunk Geller.
Hyman reported that Geller was doing what magicians could do. However, Hyman did not test Geller under controlled conditions that would enable him to distinguish between stage magic and paranormal abilities. In his book "Uri", Andrija Puharich, a scientist who validated Uri Geller's psychic abilities, names two individuals from DARPA who started rumors that Geller's abilities were not genuine. This was exposed as a disinformation campaign when Targ and Puthoff at SRI obtained positive results with Geller under tightly controlled conditions and their research was published in the Nature article: "Information Transmission Under Conditions Of Sensory Shielding" by Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D., and Russell Targ, Nature, VOL 252, No. 5476, Oct. 18, 1974, pp. 602-607.
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In 1987, the National Research Council (NRC) issued a report that was the result of a request by the US Army for an evaluation of several subjects, one of which was parapsychology. The report incorrectly stated that there was no justification for parapsychological research. During an interview on Skeptiko Podcast, Chris Carter, author of "Parapsychology and the Skeptics", described this report:
There was even a National Research Council (NRC) report in 1987 which announced to the press: "The Committee finds no scientific justification for research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena." It was a total hatchet job.
http://www.skeptiko.com/blog/?p=38
According to the Wikipedia article on the NRC, the NRC is the working arm of the National Academy of Sciences and was founded to help develop military technology during World War I.
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The CIA, at the direction of Congress, requested the American Institutes for Research to prepare a report on remote viewing. The report was released in 1995. The report incorrectly concluded that remote viewing was not useful for intelligence purposes.
Edwin C. May, who had participated in intelligence programs using remote viewing, wrote in "The American Institutes for Research Review of the Department of Defense's STAR GATE Program: A Commentary" (
http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/media/air_mayresponse.html ) that the CIA had deliberately limited the scope of the report to ensure that the report would not find any cases where remote viewing had been useful for intelligence purposes.
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Some of the incredulity about psychic phenomena spread by the mass media is due to collaboration with government agencies. In his book "Uri", Andrija Puharich, wrote that individuals working for DARPA directly influenced Time magazine to publish an article that denied Geller's psychic abilities were genuine and tried to discredit the scientists who studied Geller at SRI. More details can be found in Puharich's book:
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According to the Wikipedia article on Ray Hyman, Hyman was a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), a skeptical organization, and he also consulted for the Defense Department. This is fairly straight forward evidence suggesting that the Defense Department has infiltrated skeptical organizations. If one prominent member of a skeptical organization was working openly for the Defense Department, it seems possible, in light of the above examples of government misrepresentation of parapsychological research, that other prominent skeptics, also members of skeptical organizations, could be working secretly for government agencies.
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Another case of government suppression of a psychic occurred in England during World War II. The British Admiralty was afraid the medium Helen Duncan would provide a channel for spirits to reveal secret plans for the D. Day invasion of Europe. To protect this military secret, Helen Duncan was wrongly convicted of fraud. This case is discussed in greater detail in the chapter on Skeptical Misdirection in the section Helen Duncan, framed by the British government.