Remote viewing redux

Recently, I have been browsing the archives and noticed, with some curiosity, that the only proper RV thread that came back was a Mod+ "resources" thread. I see a lot of criticism to Project Stargate and Joe Moneagle in particular by a skeptic user named "ersby", but the duscussion in that thread was (apparently) taken elsewhere. Can some of the older users point me to further discussion on the topic, and to rebuttals for the claims of this particular user?
 
No much discussion in either of those, but surely somebody responded in detail somewhere. For one, I'm not sure why he is laying it on the author. Joe must have replied to these arguments.
 
Now that you are here... Can you answer why you are targeting GLP in those posts? Joe has authored his own books, is this version any different? If Joe does not respond to skeptics directly, then perhaps Craig (apparently knowing him personally) can ask him for one?

For the record, I don't think that Legions of Merit pop out of thin air or that a project can survive for so long in such an enviroment without gathering a decent degree of success. My interest in this comes because it seems that there is only one side of the debate accessible, yours. Where is the proponent side? Why are they avoiding this thread?
 
Now that you are here... Can you answer why you are targeting GLP in those posts?

Because he wrote the article. And I'm not "laying into" or "targeting" anyone: simply seeing if his version of events matches what the original documents say.

For the record, I don't think that Legions of Merit pop out of thin air

The Legion of Merit for Joe McMoneagle came from the remote viewing project itself, not a third party who were delighted by the level of success.

or that a project can survive for so long in such an enviroment without gathering a decent degree of success.

The project went from one contract to the next, from one department to the next, for most of its history.

My interest in this comes because it seems that there is only one side of the debate accessible, yours. Where is the proponent side? Why are they avoiding this thread?

I don't know.
 
Because he wrote the article. And I'm not "laying into" or "targeting" anyone: simply seeing if his version of events matches what the original documents say.
So? Can you establish any sort of link to Joe himself? Nobody can be criticized for second hand accounts, and that includes the project itself.

The Legion of Merit for Joe McMoneagle came from the remote viewing project itself, not a third party who were delighted by the level of success.

Military awards are not like cereal box prizes... There was, by protocol, a review process by an O-9, who authorized it. AFAIK, Stubblebine was not the one to authorize it. Tough I may be wrong and don't have any copy of his book to verify it.

The project went from one contract to the next, from one department to the next, for most of its history.

So have several other projects. Yet the funds kept on flowing until it was made public. Why?
 
So? Can you establish any sort of link to Joe himself? Nobody can be criticized for second hand accounts, and that includes the project itself.

Well, I disagree. I think an author bares a responsibility for whatever they write, even if it quotes extensively from another source. Guy Lyon Playfair put his name to this article, so it's only natural that any issues I have with the article should mention him.

I'm not sure, though, why you think there is a "link" between Guy Lyon Playfair and Joe McMoneagle. If there was, I don't see its relevance.

Military awards are not like cereal box prizes... There was, by protocol, a review process by an O-9, who authorized it. AFAIK, Stubblebine was not the one to authorize it. Tough I may be wrong and don't have any copy of his book to verify it.

There is a memo in the Star Gate Archives in which it is mentioned that Buzby suggests to Stubblebine that McMoneagle should receive a retirement award.

http://www.isaackoi.com/documents/s...8/Part0001/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220008-3.pdf

Paul Smith, another remote viewer, says in his book "Reading The Enemy's Mind" that he was asked to write the citation for the Legion of Merit.

This is what I meant by the Legion of Merit being initiated by the remote viewing team and written by them.

So have several other projects. Yet the funds kept on flowing until it was made public. Why?

That the project went from one client to another is not necessarily a sign of success. One might also ask why, if the remote viewers were so successful, they couldn't keep these clients for longer than a few years. And the project was never well-funded, and usually under-staffed. The reason they lasted so long was because there was always one more department willing to give them a go.
 
I'm not sure, though, why you think there is a "link" between Guy Lyon Playfair and Joe McMoneagle. If there was, I don't see its relevance.


Because, taking your stance, that would mean there is some sort of "confabulation". As it stands, GLP simply published a second or maybe even third hand account and any variations are to be expected. Neither him nor Joe can be blamed for a lack of communication.

There is a memo in the Star Gate Archives in which it is mentioned that Buzby suggests to Stubblebine that McMoneagle should receive a retirement award.

http://www.isaackoi.com/documents/s...8/Part0001/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220008-3.pdf

Paul Smith, another remote viewer, says in his book "Reading The Enemy's Mind" that he was asked to write the citation for the Legion of Merit.

This is what I meant by the Legion of Merit being initiated by the remote viewing team and written by them.

Who authorized and reviewed it? Who was the O-9? His comrades could propose (usually his direct superior) and draft the document, but a conflict of interest is to be avoided by involving an independent O-9. That pretty standard protocol, AFAIK.

That the project went from one client to another is not necessarily a sign of success. One might also ask why, if the remote viewers were so successful, they couldn't keep these clients for longer than a few years.

You are missing the point, the mere fact that it got funding is noteworthy. We have seen several projects that represented a lesser investment being cancelled for trivial reasons/allocations. The development of the XM806 project was not particularly costly by military standards, but patience soon ran out. The delay in the adoption of the Remington MSR is another example of the military being unwilling to throw their money away.

And the project was never well-funded, and usually under-staffed.

Perhaps because it was the middle of the Cold War and most funding went to the Military–industrial complex? Even if the RVrs could "see what was being developed", that meant little if the U.S. could not counter it... All of the effort was being invested into the development of weapons, planes and other gadgets. There is also the very plausible fact that, despite being "Eyes Only", the people that knew of the project were still divided between skeptics and supporters. And of course, the fact that they were well aware of what a leakeage to the media would mean (ridicule, crictism of the way that the funds were being managed, etc.) all which were seen when it became public.


The reason they lasted so long was because there was always one more department willing to give them a go.

And you think that a mere two or three "good hits" were enough to convince these departments to give them "a go"? A highly bureaucratic military, that is overly concerned with its image as the keeper of a functional and orderly society and is the literal incarnation of functional rationality, was willing to keep winding these guys up because they were "good at guessing"? None of these departments took up the project without analysing the previous results.

Edit: Grammar
 
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Because, taking your stance, that would mean there is some sort of "confabulation".
Allow me to clarify: I think Guy Lyon Playfair has uncritically accepted the word of several sources (not just McMoneagle) without checking.

Who authorized and reviewed it? Who was the O-9?
Don't know. Does Stubblebine talk about it in his book?

You are missing the point, the mere fact that it got funding is noteworthy. We have seen several projects that represented a lesser investment being cancelled for trivial reasons/allocations.
I agree that it is noteworthy that it got funding, but in military terms, it was a very small outlay for a potentially huge return.

And you think that a mere two or three "good hits" were enough to convince these departments to give them "a go"? A highly bureaucratic military, that is overly concerned with its image as the keeper of a functional and orderly society and is the literal incarnation of functional rationality
I think this image of the military is a little misleading. The army likes mavericks and people who can see opportunities where others can't. Plus, they are always among the ealiest adopters of new techniques and technology. It would have been foolish in the extreme to not give psi a fair crack of the whip as an intelligence gathering method.
 
Allow me to clarify: I think Guy Lyon Playfair has uncritically accepted the word of several sources (not just McMoneagle) without checking.
Don't know. Does Stubblebine talk about it in his book?

So... We have no idea where his account comes from, yet, it is good enough to prove that the project was "not all that". Ok...

I agree that it is noteworthy that it got funding, but in military terms, it was a very small outlay for a potentially huge return.

In theory, so was Operation Acoustic Kitty, but it was cancelled as soon as it became obvious that it was a dud.

I think this image of the military is a little misleading. The army likes mavericks and people who can see opportunities where others can't. Plus, they are always among the ealiest adopters of new techniques and technology. It would have been foolish in the extreme to not give psi a fair crack of the whip as an intelligence gathering method.

Then perhaps you need to become more acquainted with the military policies of the Cold War, the defense spending was below 10% of the GDP for most of it and continued to decline until the 90s. People seem to think that the military budget was a water tap to a cash flow, but most of that was going to develop things that gravitated around the arms race. Allocation of funds from projects that failed were common, and so was the cancellation of redundant projects. Frequent mergers of different departments was a macro of this tendency. Yes, you can say that intelligence tried some pretty insane stuff back then, but they only stuck with the ones that were of particular interest (i.e. MKUltra) for anything close to the two decades that PS lasted. They also spent most of their budget in technology and more "traditional" methods (i.e. counterintelligence, interception of communications, old school spying, spending a holiday with the Contras in Nicaragua).

Anyways, digressing away from socioeconomics... A "fair shake" to determine the validity of a proof of concept is not almost 20 years. As a matter of fact, the move from INSCOM to the larger DIA could be seen as a "promotion" of sorts when the era is taken under consideration. Nevermind that had the project been a dud, there was no logical reason for DIA to take it aboard after the 85-6 cooperation between both, they had a "test drive" and kept the project. This, despite most likely facing a wave of skepticism from people within the Army and DIA. If this was a dud, it would be one hell of an unprecedented chain of mediocrity and complicity by multiple agencies.
 
So... We have no idea where his account comes from, yet, it is good enough to prove that the project was "not all that". Ok...
I'm not sure why you're saying this. It's certainly not my opinion.

And while I appreciate the time you took in your reply, and the interesting points you made, it seems to me to be more pertinent to judge the success of remote viewing sessions by looking at the actual session notes. That's my method, anyway.

Look at it this way. If the long duration on the project implies success, then it's only reasonable, I think, to look into examples of successful sessions to see if they stand up.
 
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I'm not sure why you're saying this. It's certainly not my opinion.
It's indirectly implied in most of the posts that you made about the project. The language and the insinuations... But nevermind.

And while I appreciate the time you took in your reply, and the interesting points you made, it seems to me to be more pertinent to judge the success of remote viewing sessions by looking at the actual session notes. That's my method, anyway.

Let's go there, then. I took the time of searching Google Books and reading about the submarine incident, settling on Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer's Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind (p. 117) as the most complete quote available for "free viewing" (the only one that I could access in a book authored by Joe was a summary in The Ultimate Time Machine). I will not address the speculation about the "officer knowing" about the construction of a sub or not, since that can't really be proven, Severodvinsk had been photographed by satellites as far back as 1969, but as with most top secret information, it is unlikely that this information was widespread (any leakage would allow the Soviet Union to relocate their facility elsewhere). There is a chance that he had no idea of the sort of facility that they were searching for, tough I will concede that he most likely had seen photographic material prior to the session as is to be expected. I have issues with both yours and Joe's account, so get ready for some heavy quoting. Let's begin with your in that old thread:


Joe says that the military didn’t believe him when he told them that the building they ask him to remote view had a submarine in it. But according to other sources, the Americans knew that a submarine was being constructed there in 1977, so I think it’s unlikely that they’d dismiss that.

In this particular point, I think that you may be mistaking the timelines of two different projects. The US was most certainly aware of the commision of the K-424 Delta-III by 1977, but the Typhoon was built in a much larger and separate building. It's quite possible that the US knew where the other Delta-III subs were being built, but not what was being built in the facility where TK-208 (the very first Typhoon) was laid down. What I have read about the underwater race of the Cold War suggests that the US was quite surprised that the Soviet Union suddenly produced something that could compete with their Ohio class, especially so quickly after the Delta-III was first introduced, since they were expecting the Delta-IV. In EHM's book, Hal Puthoff implies that the US disbelieved that a sub was being built in this particular building due to the building's location (which he claims is "in the dead of the frozen landscape with no direct access to water" but "not far" from the White Sea i.e. not in the facility were the Delta-III were built, but adjacent) and due to its size, they considered that this particular facility was being used to built something larger like a troop carrier.

Also, the missile tubes on a Typhoon submarine are not canted, as Joe claims.
This is probably the strongest point in your argument, since I have seen several depictions and cutoffs of the Typhoon and can't see any tilting in the missile tubes. This is a photo of the sub in question, while being built in 1979: http://i.imgur.com/FNptg9p.jpg

The building is certainly enormous, since this baby was nearly 600ft. long and it does not look cramped in there.

And also, it wasn’t launched three months later: it wasn’t until 1981 that the first one launched.
Here you are mistaken, the sub was launched in September 1980 and commisioned in 1981. I believe that you are misunderstanding the terminology, launch means that the ship was placed in a dock wereas commision means that its ready to begin operations. The US certainly became aware of the presence of this beast as soon as it was taken out of the building, it's hard to miss. Also, in EHM's book it is mentioned that a canal was built besides the building and that the sub was moved along it. If it was launched in September, its entirely possible that the canal was completed or being built by January 1980 (the date quoted by Hal as the one in which the satelite photos were take) and that it was visible, but the sub was not yet in place (likely because they needed to make sure that the canal was deep enough for this thing to pass trough it). The date is not as incongruent as you think, more of an issue is... Why they would build a gigantic sub in a place with no direct access to the sea? Even to throw off your adversary, this is self-complicating. I guess that "in Soviet Russia"... Sea comes to submarine!

Interviewer leading him: page 7, there's a handwritten note “Be careful! Leading him!” next to a section where the interviewer (Atwater) asks Joe about any new construction in the area.
Interesting, but if the note was written during the section, it actually serves to show that there were controls.

In the second session, Atwater asks Joe to move around the area: 10km north-west, 15km south-east, 3.3km north-east and 3.3km south-east from a particular point (the round building). This was because they found a round building in the general vicinity of the target. Of those four directions, one was the correct one that should have taken him to the shipyard, but Joe just saw a forest. Clearly, the interviewer knows about the target in some detail.
Would the right directly lead him directly to the shipyard or towards Severodvinsk? Take note that during the Soviet days, Severodvinsk was a "closed city" surrounded by taiga, not a thriving metropolis. The population was mosttly around 250K historically.

The third session is the first time that Joe describes a shipyard, but remember, he's had those geographic co-ordinates for some time. Any atlas would've taken him to Severodvinsk, which was known for being a shipyard where they built submarines.
Known to the high ranking military perhaps, the Soviet Union did not promote the existence of the Sevmash for obvious reasons. Remember that this was not a civilian shipyard, its were the Soviet Union built their entire fleet.... So there was no red arrow pointing to it. There is no reason why the US would risk a leak by randomly telling a lower-rank individual a crucial piece of intelligence. Sorry, but I don't buy the Atlas idea.

After this the remaining sessions describe modifications to a submarine. Joe doesn’t mention anything about the building being a long way in-land, even though Atwater asks him to focus on the area between the building and the water. He’s hoping Joe will mention how far apart they are, but all he sees is some crates.
I explained what Hal says above, the satellite images showed a building that was not far away from the sea, but that lacked direct access to it.

Atwater knew wasn’t blind to the target, and the fact that they used geographical co-ordinates means that Joe wasn’t really blind to the target either. As such, the session notes are just generic images you'd expect when describing a place where they build submarines.

He was not blind, in ELM's book Hal actually implies that after he found the building, he was shown a photo of it. The coordinates would not mean much for the reasons mentioned above. I am not sure what would constitute "generic" images of a submarine factory (which, seems like a pretty extraordinary place by definition), but I have an album showing exactly how the facilty where the TK-208 was built: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/562105597219616783/ Perhaps we can match some?

It's about time.
So... They banned your other account already?
 
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Thanks for your reply. It’s always useful to go revisit evidence in case there’s something I missed or misrepresented.

But you don’t seem to have read the sessions themselves. Luckily, since that thread, someone has put the Star Gate Archive online. The submarine sessions lasted for six sessions and here are the links.

EDIT: the Star Gate archive has been taken down from this site and all the links below are dead. You can download a zip of the six sessions here.

The first two sessions:

http://www.isaackoi.com/documents/s...5/Part0001/CIA-RDP96-00788R000100020001-9.pdf

The next two sessions:

http://www.isaackoi.com/documents/stargate/STARGATE03_175/Part0001/CIA-RDP96-00788R000100030001-8.pdf

The last two.

http://www.isaackoi.com/documents/s...5/Part0001/CIA-RDP96-00788R000100120001-8.pdf

Regarding how much the Americans knew about what was being built at Severodvinsk, I went back to check my source (“Cold War Submarines” by Polmar and Moore) and it confirmed that I hadn’t confused it with the Delta class of submarine. I’ll quote it at length, since it also mentions the launch date, which I was mistaken about.

“The keel of the lead Project 941/Typhoon – the TK-208 – was laid down on 30 June 1976 at Severodvinsk, by that time the only Soviet shipyard constructing SSBNs. A new construction hall – the largest covered shipway in the world – was erected at Severodvinsk, being used to build the Typhoon SSBNs and Project 949/Oscar SSGNs. Most U.S. Intelligence analysts had been confused by Brazhnev’s reference to a Tayfun missile submarine. Not until 1977 – when U.S. reconnaissance satellites identified components for a new class of submarines at Severodvinsk – was it accepted that an entirely new design was under construction. The TK-208 was put into the water on 23 September 1980; trials began in June 1981, and she was commissioned in December 1981.”

As for how widespread the knowledge of Severodvinsk being a submarine base was: perhaps the man in the street wouldn't know it, but this fact was certainly in the public domain. There are two stories in the London Times newspaper where Severodvinsk is identified as a submarine shipyard, in April 1976 and August 1978. I’m not suggesting that these stories were read by Joe McMoneagle, but I mention them to illustrate that Severodvinsk’s purpose was not a secret.

It’s interesting that you said that the Americans were expecting a Delta-IV because Joe does not describe a new class of submarine, but alterations being made to an existing one. Also his sketches, to my mind, resemble the Delta class more closely that they do the Typhoon class.

A few other things to tidy up.

Interesting, but if the note was written during the section, it actually serves to show that there were controls.

It was added after the session was finished. It indicates, I think, that Atwater was not completely blind to the target.

Would the right directly lead him directly to the shipyard or towards Severodvinsk?

The exact wording in the session notes is that it would have taken him to "the target".

I explained what Hal says above, the satellite images showed a building that was not far away from the sea, but that lacked direct access to it.

My use of the phrase "far away from the sea" was misjudged. Not far away as the crow flies, but awfully far away if you're in a submarine.

He was not blind, in ELM's book Hal actually implies that after he found the building, he was shown a photo of it.

That's interesting. I didn't know that. It's not mentioned in the notes, unless I missed it.
 
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I have been browsing the PDFs for a couple of days and have several notes that will be posted soon, most likely early next week. Its an engaging read.
 
Ok, I have completed my reading of three books about Cold War era subs... And I must say that my main issue here is the claim that the sub had canted/slanted missile tubes. I have seen enough videos, graphics, cutouts and graphics to conclude otherwise. This was a featured mostly seen in American subs and neither of the Soviet models being built in this shipyard at the time had it, AFAIK. A complete analysis is still incoming.
 
. And I must say that my main issue here is the claim that the sub had canted/slanted missile tubes. I have seen enough videos, graphics, cutouts and graphics to conclude otherwise. This was a featured mostly seen in American subs and neither of the Soviet models being built in this shipyard at the time had it, AFAIK. A complete analysis is still incoming.

It would help if you include basic details in such posts. In this case details of the "when" and what shipyard.
 
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