The program in its own words.

An Army project of the 902d Military Intelligence Group. A 1984 history says it began in September 1977 to account for Soviet and East European psychoenergetics research as a security threat. A status report of 26 September 1978 records it cancelled, citing training planned with the Monroe Institute. GRILL FLAME followed.

The unclassified nickname of the Defense Department's remote viewing program from 1978, and of the Army's project within it. The Army's GRILL FLAME activities stopped in September 1982 and resumed that December as CENTER LANE, which a February 1983 Army paper calls the Army portion of DoD Project GRILL FLAME, renamed for security. The documents do not use the names consistently: a later history says Project GRILL FLAME was transferred to DIA in January 1985.

The Army's name for its remote viewing project from 3 December 1982. A February 1983 Army paper calls it the Army portion of DoD Project GRILL FLAME, given a new name "for security purposes in light of the exposure generated during the BG Dozier project." A 1984 information paper calls it a Department of the Army Special Access Program.

The name of the remote viewing effort once it passed from the Army to DIA. The Defense Department approved SUN STREAK as a Special Access Program effective 30 March 1985, with the codeword SKEET for its most sensitive information. It was renamed STAR GATE in 1991.

The name of the program in its final years under DIA, replacing SUN STREAK. The documents date it differently: a nickname memo makes it effective 31 January 1991 and describes the project only as monitoring foreign technology developments, while a program background paper says the limited-access program was established in October 1990 and initiated in fiscal year 1991. It is also the name under which the CIA released the program's records.

An SRI research project in remote viewing. The name is short for "Scanning by Coordinate": the viewer was given only a target's latitude and longitude. Several of the release's mentions of SCANATE quote published books rather than program records.

The US Army Intelligence and Security Command. Its involvement began in September 1977, when an INSCOM element started GONDOLA WISH. It ran the Army's remote viewing project under GRILL FLAME and then CENTER LANE, and took over full management of the project in 1981.

The Defense Intelligence Agency. A 1984 paper says it held overall Defense Department responsibility for psychoenergetics from 1978 to September 1982. It took over the Army's remote viewing effort in the mid-1980s and ran it as SUN STREAK and then STAR GATE, under its Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence. Congress named it executive agent for the program in fiscal year 1991.

Stanford Research Institute, later SRI International, in Menlo Park, California, the program's research contractor for most of its life. A 1995 CIA memo says CIA funded research there from about 1972 to about 1977; Army and DIA contracts followed. The research later moved to SAIC with its principal researcher, Edwin May.

Science Applications International Corporation, DIA's research contractor in the program's final years. A DIA contracting paper says Edwin May, the program's principal researcher, moved from SRI to SAIC and took his data and key research assistants with him.

The American Institutes for Research. In June 1995 CIA's Office of Research and Development contracted with AIR to assemble a panel of outside experts to review past CIA and DIA remote viewing programs, in response to a Congressionally Directed Action. Some documents call it the American Institutes of Research.

The Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, an Army organization that worked with SRI on remote viewing in the late 1970s. An Army briefing calls it the program's remote viewing "free lance", the group that would try out new techniques.

Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, the Army post where the operational remote viewing unit worked. A DIA paper says the STAR GATE project was housed in temporary facilities there.

The Central Intelligence Agency. It funded the early research at SRI from about 1972 to about 1977. In 1995 it was tasked to review the program, then run by DIA, and commissioned the AIR panel. The program's records were later released through CIA's reading room.

The program's name for its central method: describing a place, person or event the viewer cannot see. The 1985 SUN STREAK procedures call it a method of psychoenergetic perception and give the definition the program used throughout. Usually shortened to RV.

The documents' umbrella term for the phenomena the program studied and tried to use, remote viewing among them. The 1985 SUN STREAK procedures define it, and add that it involves no electronic device at the target and no interpretation of overhead photographs. People who did the work are called psychoenergetic sources.

Coordinate Remote Viewing, a structured method in which the viewer is cued with a set of coordinates and reports in a fixed sequence of six stages. A 1983 SRI progress report says SRI and its sponsors decided in fiscal year 1981 to codify it, and credits its development to SRI consultant Ingo Swann. By 1993 the coordinates given to a trainee were encrypted. A DIA history of the program notes that an arbitrarily constructed coordinate system gave the same results.

Extended Remote Viewing: a session lasting more than an hour, in which the viewer tries to lose awareness of the room and keep awareness of the target. SRI's October 1979 report defines it and describes trials of about three hours each. A DIA history says SRI took it up at one viewer's suggestion and found the results comparable to other forms of remote viewing.

Written Remote Viewing: the viewer writes impressions in rapid, flowing handwriting. A STAR GATE briefing says the unit began it in-house around 1986. The unit's 1993 training procedures describe it as phonetically and verbally oriented, for use in both predictive and search tasks.

Associative (or Associational) Remote Viewing: a way of using remote viewing to pick one answer from a fixed set of possible outcomes, which a 1983 research plan calls the one-in-N choice problem. A January 1984 CENTER LANE memo records explaining it to NSA as a way of reading sealed authenticators.

Analytical overlay: the viewer's own guess or interpretation mixed into the data. A DIA history lists it first among four sources of noise the training was built to reduce. The February 1985 CRV working paper tells the viewer to stop and declare an AOL break, and gives three ways to recognize one.

In CRV, the quick mark a viewer makes on paper as the first response to the coordinates. The February 1985 CRV working paper says the viewer then states its feeling or motion (A) and any automatic analytical response (B), and that each new reading of the coordinates should bring a more detailed ideogram.

The person who runs a remote viewing session with the viewer, also called the interviewer. The 1985 SUN STREAK procedures define the role. The February 1985 CRV working paper limits what the monitor may say during a session, and a DIA history counts the monitor's intrusion as a source of noise.

A person at the target site who serves as the viewer's cue; in early SRI papers, the outbound experimenter. A 1982 SRI report compares beacon, coordinate and abstract targeting. STAR GATE's 1993 training procedures say training begins with beacon remote viewing, because the trainee can be taken to the site afterwards.

The numbers read to a viewer as the target cue in CRV. STAR GATE's 1993 training procedures define them as up to twelve numbers from a random generator, standing in for a real geographic position.

A technique of the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences (MIAS) in Faber, Virginia, used in the unit's advanced training. The 1985 SUN STREAK procedures say it was used only with sources of proven performance, in four phases that began with Monroe's "Discovery" series at Fort Meade.

Special Access Program: a classified program whose material may go only to people with verified access to it. The remote viewing project ran as one under each of its names. SRI's January 1984 report to DIA is marked as a Special Access Program for GRILL FLAME, a 1984 CENTER LANE memo carries the same warning, and the 1985 procedures describe SUN STREAK as a DIA Special Access Program.

A control marking: not releasable to foreign nationals. It appears in paragraph markings such as (S/NOFORN) or (S/NF), and spelled out at the foot of many pages.

Limited dissemination, a control marking on STAR GATE documents of the 1990s. It appears in paragraph markings such as (S/NF/SG/LIMDIS) and spelled out at the foot of the page.

Originating Agency's Determination Required: a declassification instruction that sets no date and leaves the decision to the agency that created the document. Program documents usually carry it as DECL: OADR; some spell it out.

The 1985 SUN STREAK procedures' word for a remote viewer. Many documents identify viewers by number rather than name, such as Remote Viewer 518 in SRI's 1979 report.

A single attempt by a viewer, working with a monitor, to describe a target. The 1985 SUN STREAK procedures define it. Many documents in the release are session transcripts, summaries and reports.

The form that assigns a target to a viewer. STAR GATE's 1993 training procedures list what it carries and say the tasking itself should be minimal, so as not to lead the viewer.

Three session protocols defined in SRI's January 1984 report to DIA. Class C was for training: the monitor knew the site and gave feedback during the session. Class B was for evaluation: the monitor was blind and feedback came only afterwards. Class A was for operational work. Session forms record the class used.

The Czechoslovak term for the whole field of paranormal research. A September 1975 DIA report, prepared by the Army's medical intelligence agency, says Czech researchers used it for all aspects of their work, and that it covers everything Soviet and Western parapsychologists were studying.

The Soviet term for the field Western researchers called parapsychology, ESP or psi. The 1975 DIA report divides it into bioinformation (telepathy, precognition) and bioenergetics (dowsing, psychokinesis), and sets the US and Soviet terms side by side in a chart.

In the Soviet scheme described by the 1975 DIA report, the half of biocommunications concerned with physical effects: dowsing, field therapy and psychokinesis.

A proposed form of biological energy that some Soviet researchers used to explain psychokinesis. The 1975 DIA report names Viktor Inyushin and Genady Sergeyev as its leading theorists.

Small devices made by the Czech inventor Robert Pavlita, said to store energy drawn from people. The 1975 DIA report gives a full part to them, with illustrations, and notes that no details of their construction had reached Western observers.

Extrasensory perception: information received other than through the senses. The 1975 DIA report uses it as the general Western term and gives the Soviet equivalents.

Psychokinesis: physical effects said to be produced by the mind. The 1975 DIA report lists it under the Soviet heading of bioenergetics.