CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050006-9

Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050006-9
Pleque card for Brunch
9
TUESDAY MORNING, 24 APRIL 1984
WASHINGTON POST
24 April 1984
Pg. C13
JACK ANDERSON
Voodoo Gap'
Looms as Latest
Weapons Crisis
I have reported previously on se-
cret projects to adapt psychic pheno-
mena to military purposes. For ex-
ample, in laboratory experimenta,
psychics have been used to spy on
the Soviets by projecting their minds
outside their bodies.
One psychic was able to describe a
secret Soviet base in astonishing de-
tall that was later confirmed by sat-
ellite photographs. Another located a
Soviet Tu95 "Backfire" bomber that
had crashed in Africa.
U.S. Navy and Air Force chiefs
are skeptical about these experi-
menta, which they describe scornful-
ly as "witchcraft" and "black magic."
But the Army's intelligence chief, Lt.
W& Gen. William Odom, has been im-
pressed with some of the results.
Odom is worried about intelli-
gence reports that the Soviets are far
ahead in psychic research. Inside the
Pentagon, he has raised the question
of whether the Soviets could use
psychics to penetrate our secret
vaults. This has led to talk in the
backrooms about raising a "psychic
shield" to block this sort of remote
spying.
The CIA also is taking psychic
research seriously. Former CIA di-
rector Stansfield Turner told critics
that their skepticism about the
CIA's psychic projects was "healthy
but that the research should keep
pace with their skepticism.
The most impressive research in
this area has been conducted by
Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ,
both respected academics with the
Stanford Research Institute in
Menlo Park, Calif. Puthoff is still
with the institute; Targ left two
years ago to form his own company,
Delphi Associates. They began their
experiments in the early 1970s, using
psychics to describe scenes at spe-
cific coordinates on the globe. The
project, partly funded by the De-
fense Department and the CIA, was
called "Scanate" for "scan by coor-
dinate."
Their latest project, code-named
"Grill Flame," produced some amaz-
ing results. Psychics described the
contents of locked filing cabinets;
they mentally breached the security
of secret military installations.
Earlier, they had discovered the
rings around Jupiter years before
their existence was scientifically es-
tablished by photographs.
Despite these impressive achieve-
menta, sources told my associates
Dale Van Atta and Joseph Spear
that the psychics' success rate is only
about 70 percent. For example, psy-
chics who were asked by the Penta-
ron to pinpoint the place where Ital-
ian Red Brigade terrorists were bold-
ing Brig. Gen. James Dozier prisoner
in January, 1982, did not come close.
But the occasional successes en-
courage intelligence officials to keep
trying in hopes of giving remote spy-
ing more respectability. They also
are concerned about the Soviets who
are known to have spent many more
yours and far more money on para-
prychological research.
At the risk of being ridiculed over
a "voodoo gap," advocates like Rep.
Charlie Rose (D-N.C.), support con-
tinued research into the more prom-
ising areas of this mysterious field.
After all, the atomic bomb was once
thought to be a harebrained idea.
It's safe to say that many things con-
"sidered utterly fantastic today will
be accepted as commonplace by the
end of the century.
Backfire of the Week: The fed-
eral government's massive givesway
of cheese not only was supposed to
feed the hungry but also to cut down
on surplus cheese stocks in govern-
ment warehouses. It seems the give-
away allowed some consumers to
stop buying cheese at the supermar-
ket. So the government's stockpile of
surplus cheese has grown from 619
million pounds in 1981 to 1 billion
pounds last year. The cost of the
government's purchase of surplus
cheese and butter went from $1.3
billion in 1979 to $2.8 billion in
1983.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050006-9
-