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Anderson/McRae erroneously claimed that a psychic task force, budgeted at $6 million per year, had been established in the Pentagon "basement", and that the National Security Agency was examining the use of extrasensory perception in its code-breaking work. Anderson's flippant terminology seemed designed to ridicule his findings or allegations. He wrote of "wacky projects" that covered "ESP weapons that can brainwash or incapacitate enemy leaders by thought transfer, deliver nuclear bombs instantaneously thousands of miles away by psychic energy, or even create a pro- tective 'time warp' to make incoming Soviet missiles explode harmlessly in the past". He added: "The CIA, though historically less alarmist about the Red Menace than the Pentagon spooks are, also has been monitoring Soviet ESP research and pondering the possibility of less bizarre psychic weapons." that this suggestion had led to the agency's becoming "involve with mediums". "They began to contact our own dead agents," Marchetti said, "as well as dead agents from the other side." If the project expanded beyond an attempt to get in touch with the spirit of Penkovsky, it may be assumed that at least some of the mediumistic messages had been satisfactory or at least promising to CIA staff members. "There is no indication that they have stopped," Marchetti said, "and no reason why they would." At any rate, Marchetti's recollections suggest that the CIA ha been alert to psychic potentials, no matter how unproved, in the service of intelligence-gathering. possibility of less bizarre psychic weapons. NOVEL BIOPHYSICAL INFORMATION TRANSFER The CIA was certainly justified in keeping an eye on Soviet CIA's EXPERIMENTS IN MEDIUMSHIP studies. References have earlier been made to a report on Soviet While the 1952 ESP project mentioned earlier may never have _ parapsychology commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency been undertaken, it seems certain that the Central Intelligence from the AiResearch Manufacturing Company of Torrance, Agency did engage in psychic experiments. One source of infor- California. mation on this subject is ex-CIA employee Victor Marchetti, who The research group's experts suggested that, in view of Soviet wrote several books based on his 14 studies, the US government should ini- years with the agency. tiate developments in what it called Marchetti, who tended to be critical Novel Biophysical Information of the CIA's activities, has said that it Transfer (NBIT) mechanisms that once sought to establish mediumistic "are functional", although "they may communication with the spirits of There isa simple kind of logic have no relationship to common para- agents who had died. He recalled that psychological phenomena". the agency's "scientific spooks" were In trying to keep In touch The report (dated January 14, 1976) "progressing into parapsychology, with such a valuable agent advised that such studies should be experimenting with mediums in efforts u interdisciplinary, as this type of to contact dead agents, with psychics in even after death. research "cro: so many widely dif- attempts to divine the intentions of the ferent scientific disciplines". Kremlin leadership and even with The report noted that one Soviet stranger phenomena". researcher, Professor Gennady Marchetti asserted that the CIA had Sergeyev of Leningrad, appeared to tried to make contact, through a medi- have perfected a mechanism capable um, with Oleg Penkovsky, a colonel in the Soviet Army who had _ of measuring human brain function from a distance of five metres. been one of its most valuable contacts during his lifetime. The report observed that Sergeyev's instrument was classified and On May 11, 1963, Penkovsky appeared before the Soviet that "no credible description of it is available—only allusions to Supreme Court in Moscow, where he was declared guilty of trea- its existence". son and sentenced to be shot to death. As a colonel in the military The AiResearch report traced reference to the Sergeyev device intelligence branch of the Soviet Army, he had been assigned to in Russian scientific literature, while noting that "there is reason artillery in a "civilian capacity". Penkovsky was a member of the to doubt the Russian claim". It speculated that: Soviet State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific "\..it is possible that a sensitive electric or magnetic sensor, or Research Activities, with responsibilities in domestic and interna- some combination of the two, would detect electrical signals from tional technological liaison and development. He had been an a human body at a distance of five meters. agent for Western intelligence agencies, presumably British ser- "Although it is unlikely that the output of such an instrument vices as well as the CIA. There is a simple kind of logic in trying would be a direct measure of the EEG, it would provide informa- to keep in touch with such a valuable agent, even after death. tion of interest to a police interrogator, such as the strength and It is speculative, of course, whether such contact can actually be rate of the heartbeat, the tensing and relaxation of muscles, the established, whether spirit communication can be specific and depth and rate of breathing, and perhaps the electrical properties reliable and could be checked against information from other of the skin. The uses to which the instrument would be put are sources or merely used to fill gaps in existing data. reasons enough for official secrecy about its operating principles." It may be regarded as imaginative rather than foolish to have The report noted Sergeyev's professional competence, conclud- tried to reach someone like Penkovsky through a medium (or sev- ed its analysis with the assumption that Sergeyev's remote sensor eral mediums, cross-checking any resulting information for corre- "does exist, in some form", and examined the possible develop- lations and deviations). But the number of qualified mediums is ment of remote sensors by Soviet researchers "following the indi- limited and it would be difficult to keep such an assignment cated lines of investigation". secret, even if the mediums concerned did not know whom they Where, the report asked, could Sergeyev's findings lead? It were expected to contact. made this cautious forecast: "Perhaps the Russians have, in fact, Marchetti said that, after Penkovsky had been executed, some- developed such instruments; perhaps they are going to do so. one in the CIA had suggested, "Why don't we contact him?", and _ Perhaps they have tried and have not been successful." There is a simple kind of logic in trying to keep in touch with such a valuable agent, -- - fae. PL a 46 = NEXUS even after death. www.nexusmagazine.com OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2001