type: work
slug: how-the-cia-spent-millions-on-psychic-spies-project-stargate-1-of-3
medium: video
mode: nonfiction
year: 2023
creator: Chris Ramsay
runtime: 39 min
youtube: GkqFBqiGRQs
evidence: documentary-record
period: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s
dek: Part one of Area52's three-part account: how the CIA came to spend twenty million dollars on people who claimed to see at a distance.
The origin half of the story — SRI in 1972, Puthoff and Targ, the move from laboratory curiosity to funded military capability.
It is the most conventional piece of documentary on this shelf, and the most useful first stop. Ramsay stays close to the declassified record and lets the codenames do the work.