vault backup: 2026-10-03 20:19:03

10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Hal Puthoff.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 created: 2026-05-17
-updated: 2026-10-02
+updated: 2026-10-03
 title: Hal Puthoff
 aliases:
   - Hal Puthoff
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ Puthoff hired Targ as a research colleague, and together they developed the remo
 
 ### The 1996 Account
 
-After the CIA declassified 270 pages of SRI reports in July 1995, Puthoff published his own account. In early 1972, doing laser research at SRI, he had written a proposal that Ingo Swann saw at [[Cleve Backster]]'s laboratory and wrote to him, and Puthoff invited him for a week in June 1972. He arranged access to "a well-shielded magnetometer used in a quark-detection experiment in the Physics Department at Stanford University," in a vault beneath the floor "shielded by mu-metal shielding, an aluminum container, copper shielding and a superconducting shield"; Swann "appeared to perturb the operation of the magnetometer" and then "went on to 'remote view' the interior of the apparatus, rendering by drawing a reasonable facsimile of its rather complex (and heretofore unpublished) construction." Within weeks "a pair of visitors showed up at SRI with the above report in hand. Their credentials showed them to be from the CIA. They knew of my previous background as a [[Office of Naval Intelligence|Naval Intelligence]] Officer and then civilian employee at the National Security Agency," and spoke of "increasing concern in the intelligence community about the level of effort in Soviet parapsychology being funded by the Soviet security services." An eight-month "Biofield Measurements Program" of 49,909 dollars followed, and Russell Targ joined; the second year, January 1974 to February 1975, was funded at 149,555 dollars. The first coordinate target, "the West Virginia Site," produced from one subject "a detailed map of the building and grounds layout" and from the other "information about the interior including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources"; Pat Price then "went on to scan the other side of the globe for a Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals," also "verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as being substantially correct." The [[Semipalatinsk]] experiment of July 1974, "carried out in three phases," was "under direct control of the COTR," and "several details concerning the salient technology of the Semipalatinsk site appeared to dovetail with data from other sources, and a number of specific large structural elements were correctly described." The CIA "dropped out as a major player in the mid-seventies due to pressure on the Agency (unrelated to the RV Program) from the [[Church Committee|Church-Pike Congressional Committee]]," and Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence from 1977 to 1981, said: "I had one or more briefings by SRI and was impressed. The decision I made was to set up a small, in-house, low-cost effort in remote viewing." One application, Puthoff noted, "yielded not only a published, statistically significant result, but also a return of $26,000 in 30 days in the silver futures market." The article does not mention [[Scientology]].[^1]
+After the CIA declassified 270 pages of SRI reports in July 1995, Puthoff published his own account. In early 1972, doing laser research at SRI, he had written a proposal that Ingo Swann saw at [[Cleve Backster]]'s laboratory and wrote to him, and Puthoff invited him for a week in June 1972. He arranged access to "a well-shielded magnetometer used in a quark-detection experiment in the Physics Department at Stanford University," in a vault beneath the floor "shielded by mu-metal shielding, an aluminum container, copper shielding and a superconducting shield"; Swann "appeared to perturb the operation of the magnetometer" and then "went on to 'remote view' the interior of the apparatus, rendering by drawing a reasonable facsimile of its rather complex (and heretofore unpublished) construction." Within weeks "a pair of visitors showed up at SRI with the above report in hand. Their credentials showed them to be from the CIA. They knew of my previous background as a [[Office of Naval Intelligence|Naval Intelligence]] Officer and then civilian employee at the [[NSA|National Security Agency]]," and spoke of "increasing concern in the intelligence community about the level of effort in Soviet parapsychology being funded by the Soviet security services." An eight-month "Biofield Measurements Program" of 49,909 dollars followed, and Russell Targ joined; the second year, January 1974 to February 1975, was funded at 149,555 dollars. The first coordinate target, "the West Virginia Site," produced from one subject "a detailed map of the building and grounds layout" and from the other "information about the interior including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources"; Pat Price then "went on to scan the other side of the globe for a Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals," also "verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as being substantially correct." The [[Semipalatinsk]] experiment of July 1974, "carried out in three phases," was "under direct control of the COTR," and "several details concerning the salient technology of the Semipalatinsk site appeared to dovetail with data from other sources, and a number of specific large structural elements were correctly described." The CIA "dropped out as a major player in the mid-seventies due to pressure on the Agency (unrelated to the RV Program) from the [[Church Committee|Church-Pike Congressional Committee]]," and Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence from 1977 to 1981, said: "I had one or more briefings by SRI and was impressed. The decision I made was to set up a small, in-house, low-cost effort in remote viewing." One application, Puthoff noted, "yielded not only a published, statistically significant result, but also a return of $26,000 in 30 days in the silver futures market." The article does not mention [[Scientology]].[^1]
 
 ### Protocol Development and Pat Price
 
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ After leaving SRI, Puthoff founded [[EarthTech International|EarthTech]] Interna
 
 ### UFO-Related Contacts, 1985 to 1996
 
-A page of handwritten notes by [[Oke Shannon]] of [[Los Alamos]], headed "Attendees" and placed by the authors of the [[Loose Threads Report]] at a meeting of August 7, 1985 labeled "ATP Ten," lists "Hal Puthoff" among participants in the [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]] convened by [[John B. Alexander]] in the BDM facility at [[McLean, Virginia]]; those authors write that Shannon's notes of the first meeting show Puthoff giving a presentation on remote viewing.[^6] [[Jacques Vallee]] recorded a 1989 telephone conversation in which Puthoff said that Alexander had briefed "the head of [[NORAD|Norad]], the head of the [[United States Space Command|Space Command]], the top guy at [[Strategic Defense Initiative|SDI]]" and that "a lot of people had been briefed and had agreed to cooperate"; Vallee's account has Puthoff conceding that the plan "may have been killed by someone deciding that the timing was wrong, or they were the wrong people, or the approach was bad."[^7] At the 2018 conference of the [[Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies]], asked about Alexander's conclusion that no program could be found, he answered that "somebody else [was] doing it" and that "if materials are being held in [[Special Access Programs]], a casual conversation even with high-level people, who know your interest, and they're interested too, won't necessarily reveal facts."[^6]
+A page of handwritten notes by [[Oke Shannon]] of [[Los Alamos]], headed "Attendees" and placed by the authors of the [[Loose Threads Report]] at a meeting of August 7, 1985 labeled "ATP Ten," lists "Hal Puthoff" among participants in the [[Advanced Theoretical Physics Working Group]] convened by [[John B. Alexander]] in the [[BDM Corporation|BDM]] facility at [[McLean, Virginia]]; those authors write that Shannon's notes of the first meeting show Puthoff giving a presentation on remote viewing.[^6] [[Jacques Vallee]] recorded a 1989 telephone conversation in which Puthoff said that Alexander had briefed "the head of [[NORAD|Norad]], the head of the [[United States Space Command|Space Command]], the top guy at [[Strategic Defense Initiative|SDI]]" and that "a lot of people had been briefed and had agreed to cooperate"; Vallee's account has Puthoff conceding that the plan "may have been killed by someone deciding that the timing was wrong, or they were the wrong people, or the approach was bad."[^7] At the 2018 conference of the [[Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies]], asked about Alexander's conclusion that no program could be found, he answered that "somebody else [was] doing it" and that "if materials are being held in [[Special Access Programs]], a casual conversation even with high-level people, who know your interest, and they're interested too, won't necessarily reveal facts."[^6]
 
 [[Mark Pilkington]] wrote in *[[Mirage Men]]* that at a Denny's restaurant "back in 1986" Kit Green, Puthoff and Vallee "distilled what they knew about the subject into what has become known as the 'core story.'"[^8] Shannon said in a 2022 interview that in 1999 Vice Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]] telephoned him to ask whether [[Eric Davis]] could be trusted and "may have even mentioned Hal Puthoff and one or two other people."[^6]
 
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ On October 17, 1996 [[Laurance Rockefeller]] wrote to [[John Gibbons|John H. Gib
 
 Puthoff contributed as a scientific consultant to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the Pentagon program that investigated Unidentified Aerial Phenomena from approximately 2007 to 2012 under [[Luis D. Elizondo III|Luis Elizondo]]. His contribution included commissioning and reviewing Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs) - theoretical analyses of advanced aerospace concepts including warp drives, traversable wormholes, negative energy, and exotic propulsion systems. His EarthTech research in zero-point energy physics made him the natural contractor for the theoretical physics studies that formed part of AATIP's research portfolio.
 
-Puthoff became a founding member and scientific advisor to To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), the public benefit corporation established by [[Tom DeLonge]] in 2017, which published three declassified [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos of UAP encounters and became a public vehicle for intelligence community-adjacent UAP disclosure.
+Puthoff became a founding member and scientific advisor to To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), the public benefit corporation established by [[Tom DeLonge]] in 2017, which published three unclassified [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos of UAP encounters that the [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 it had authorized for release after "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017,"[^11] and became a public vehicle for intelligence community-adjacent UAP disclosure.
 
 ### Footnotes
 
@@ -113,3 +113,4 @@ Puthoff became a founding member and scientific advisor to To the Stars Academy
 [^8]: Pilkington, Mark. *Mirage Men.* 2010, chapter "The Man in the White Coat" (the Denny's statement is Pilkington's narration), https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Mark%20Pilkington%20-%20Mirage%20Men%20-%20A%20Journey%20into%20Disinformation,%20Paranoia%20and%20UFOs.pdf. Sole source for the passage.
 [^9]: Rockefeller, Laurance S., letter of October 17, 1996 with "Suggested Invitees for the Meeting of Scientists," Clinton Presidential Library, Office of Science and Technology Policy FOIA 01-22, item 72, https://avalonlibrary.net/Grant_Cameron/Clinton_Presidential_Library_collection/OSTP%20-%20FOIA%2001%2022/ (file "1996 10 17_Laurance Rockefeller to John Gibbons"). The OSTP routing slip addresses the letter to Gibbons; the invitation text and invitee list are enclosures.
 [^10]: Boylan, Richard J. "UFO/ET-Disclosure Policy Splits Covert Network," *Perceptions,* http://web.archive.org/web/20130831033026/http://www.think-aboutit.com/ufo/aviary.htm. Sole source.
+[^11]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/ (read through the Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/). Greenewald, John, Jr. "Navy Officially Releases UFO/UAP Videos, Calls Them 'Historical.'" The Black Vault, April 27, 2020 (reproduces the statement and gives the GOFAST date). https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/navy-officially-releases-ufo-uap-videos-calls-them-historical/