"Boone... I'm going into the next office."

August 21, 2017 6:19 PM

STAR GATE was one of a number of "remote viewing programs" conducted under a variety of code names, including SUN STREAK, GRILL FLAME, and CENTER LANE by DIA and INSCOM, and SCANATE by CIA. These efforts were initiated to assess foreign programs in the field; contract for basic research into the the phenomenon; and to evaluate controlled remote viewing as an intelligence tool. Records of the Stargate Program were published by the CIA earlier this year.
posted by stinkfoot (13 comments total)

Daryl Gregory's new book SPOONBENDERS uses a big chunk of Star Gate for its story.
posted by RakDaddy at 6:38 PM on August 21, 2017

This must be some kind of Stranger Things tie-in..
posted by wierdo at 6:43 PM on August 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trying to resist the temptation to lurch into an obvious tangent...
posted by Ber at 6:47 PM on August 21, 2017

So they're still covering up the real Stargate program, huh?

Can't say I blame them. I mean running a movie and three related TV series to deflect attention from the real thing was pretty smart, especially since they played it so close to the truth, but sooner or later they're gonna have to let people know the whole story.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:51 PM on August 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

There was a novel by Michael Murphy of Esalen fame (or infamy, depending on your tolerance for woo), entitled "An End to Ordinary History", about that very same paranormal subcurrent of the Cold War, which I read over 30 years ago. Entertaining, and purported to be based on real people and events. I now view it as a companion piece to "The Men Who Stare at Goats", but without the humour.
posted by Philofacts at 7:10 PM on August 21, 2017

If you are reading the enemy's mind, do you have to speak their language? Is this a sport for the multilingual?

Obvious tangent----spill it!
posted by Oyéah at 7:53 PM on August 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Obvious tangents have to do with the Stargate sci fi universe, presumably.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:19 PM on August 21, 2017

Muckrock is running some Stargate stuff. Travel to Mars in the past and 1977 concern about Soviets sending cities to other dimensions Alas, I can't find the CIA wanting to use the proof of their psychics in a court case.
posted by rough ashlar at 4:22 AM on August 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm really glad that interest in this kind of thing is resurfacing again. The US and Soviet governments were both up to some weird shit during the Cold War.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:33 AM on August 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

snuffleupagus and wierdo, are both correct. No doubt in the documentation we will see either orders from a General Hammond (of Texas) or reports of an Eggo-eating young girl with extraordinary gifts.
posted by Ber at 7:24 AM on August 22, 2017

Stranger Things actually is inspired by STAR GATE, but indirectly through the Montauk Project books. In fact, "Montauk" was the working title of the show for a while.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:00 AM on August 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

If you are reading the enemy's mind, do you have to speak their language? Is this a sport for the multilingual?

Brilliant question.

As someone who tends to think of language only as a final translation step almost entirely removed from actual thought, I'd naively expect that almost anything the transmitter understands would be understood by the receiver at a level deeper than language. It's hard to come up with anything important to an espionage effort that doesn't immediately conjure a concrete image in the mind of the viewer, except perhaps people working with documents and not actually understanding them. Spying on the communications officers might be a bad idea. How much information and context you need to understand the references in another person's head is a harder question. "Tomorrow we will be sending twenty thousand troops into that city where I ate that overly salty pizza and waited six hours for a broken bus" might require some translation.

But, I realize lots of other people think about thinking in a very different way. If only remote mind-reading were real, we'd probably learn a lot about the diversity of human experience. And we'd get to see all the best live concerts. So, it would be useful in many ways.
posted by eotvos at 1:31 PM on August 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

The transcripts have the air of John Sladek. I am transfixed.
posted by specialbrew at 1:41 PM on August 22, 2017 [1 favorite]